Amazing Red was supposed to compete in WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic in 2016. Instead, one week before the tournament began, he says he broke his leg during a WWE 2K motion capture session—and was then told by both WWE and 2K not to talk about it.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Red revealed just how close he came to finally getting his shot with WWE. He was lined up for the 32-man Cruiserweight Classic and believed getting inside that tournament could finally lead to a contract.
“I’m super hyped. This is it. This is finally what this whole thing paid off for. I knew as soon as I stepped foot in any of these matches, confidently, like I’m getting signed.”
Before the tournament started, Red was invited to work a motion capture session for WWE’s video game. It was something he’d wanted to do for years, but the reality turned out to be brutal.
“Doing this job sucks so bad. I would never do mocap for anything. Mocap is trash. Anybody that tells you otherwise is a liar. That’s like doing five matches at once. You’re not bumping on the pillow. You’re bumping in the ring. Everything’s legit real, and you’re bumping constantly.”
Things went wrong when Red was asked to perform AJ Styles’ Spiral Tap. Because motion capture required different versions of the move, Red said he repeatedly performed it for different scenarios. After seven or eight attempts, his body was already hurting and something was telling him to stop.
“I get up there, and I just had a gut feeling, like I gotta stop. And the guy goes, can you just do one more, man? I’m so sorry. Can you just do one more? I’m like, damn. My body’s killing me.”
Red agreed to one more. That was the one that changed everything as he ended up getting injured.
“I go up there. For some reason, I just jump, and everything just blacks out for me. I hear this, and I wake up, and I’m on the crash pads, and my leg is backwards. What happened is that whatever flip I did, my one foot went in between the crash pads that connected, and I went the other way, and I heard the loudest, but I didn’t feel nothing.”
Low Ki was also working the session, and according to Red, he immediately realized how serious the injury was.
“Loki screams at the top of his lungs, is anybody gonna help him? He broke his leg. And once he said that, when he took my leg out, it was backwards. Once I saw that, instant pain, heat everywhere, all in my body. And then I start screaming.”
The timing couldn’t have been much worse. The Cruiserweight Classic began the following week, and Red’s opportunity was gone before he ever got to step into the tournament. For him, that one hurt far beyond the broken leg.
“I’m bitter about the CM Punk situation. I’m bitter about the No Way Out situation, and this to me was like my last-ditch effort of being a part of WWE, doing a WWE game, no less. Broke my leg in half.”
Then came the part Red says he was never supposed to talk about. According to him, both 2K and WWE told him to keep the injury quiet. Red says he was reassured that another season of the Cruiserweight Classic was planned and that he’d have a place waiting for him once he recovered.
“2K told me to be quiet about it. WWE told me to be quiet about it. He said, don’t worry, because we’re gonna plan to do a season two, and you’ll be right on board for it.”
That second tournament never happened, and neither did Red’s promised opportunity.
“Ain’t no season two. I think it ended up being 205 Live. I never got a call for either.”
Red had spent years trying to get his WWE opportunity, and in 2016, he believed he finally had it. Instead, a Spiral Tap during a video game session left his leg broken one week before the Cruiserweight Classic—and according to Red, the companies involved wanted the entire thing kept quiet.
Do you think Amazing Red would have earned a WWE contract if he’d made it into the Cruiserweight Classic? Let us know in the comments below.
