Chris Masters is still wrestling, still has name recognition and still hasn’t gotten another shot with WWE or AEW. At this point, he doesn’t think that’s an accident.
While speaking to Hannibal TV, Masters was asked why AEW has never brought him in despite the company carrying such a large roster. Masters quickly widened the conversation beyond AEW, pointing out that WWE hasn’t exactly been calling him either. Put the two together, and Masters believes he has effectively been blackballed from the biggest wrestling companies.
“Hannibal, I appreciate you bringing that up, but to me, basically, in my mind, you know, I just feel like—I mean, I haven’t even been invited back to WWE. So the way I see it is I’m pretty much unofficially blackballed, I guess, from pro wrestling, which, you know, it is what it is.”
Here’s where things get a little more interesting. Masters apparently has an idea why that might be happening. He said there is one specific incident that comes to mind when he thinks about why opportunities haven’t materialized, but he stopped himself before revealing what it was because he didn’t want to turn the interview into an entirely different controversy.
“But, you know, you would think that you would have gotten an in, and I could think of a specific instance of why that might be, but I’m obviously—I don’t want to go into it here and now and start this whole thing out of that.”
Whatever happened, Masters sounds like he has made peace with the possibility that another run with either company simply isn’t coming.
“But, you know, it is what it is. I’m just kind of at peace with the fact that I might not get a shot with, you know, WWE or AEW.”
That doesn’t mean he never tried with AEW. Masters revealed that he personally contacted Christopher Daniels when AEW was heading to the Forum in Los Angeles. He wasn’t asking Daniels to hand him a contract or force him onto television. Masters said he was simply hoping to get invited to the show and potentially get his foot in the door. According to him, Daniels wasn’t particularly receptive.
“You know, I did hit up Christopher Daniels, but he just kind of was very passive and kind of blew me off.”
“So, I just—you know, what are you going to do? You know what I mean? I’m not going to beg for an opportunity. You know, I was just hoping for an invite when they came to the Forum in Los Angeles.”
That response apparently stung more because of just how far back the two go. Masters said he has known Daniels since he was only 17 years old — before Masters had even entered professional wrestling. After knowing someone for that long, he expected a straight answer even if the answer was no.
“But, you know, to get that kind of response from somebody you’ve known since before you even entered pro wrestling, going back to when I was 17, it was just disappointing.”
“You know what I mean? It was just, you know, I would have just expected something a little more direct and not so, you know, kind of blow-me-off-ish.”
Masters isn’t sitting at home waiting for either company to change its mind. He remains active on the independent scene, and one recent opportunity reminded him that his work still means something to people in the business.
Vampiro personally requested Masters as the opponent for his final match in Canada, something Masters admitted caught him completely off guard.
“That was honestly the biggest honor. I was shocked to get the phone call from you to say that he had requested me.”
“And it’s not because I felt like he didn’t like me or didn’t appreciate my work, but I don’t know. It was just—I didn’t expect it.”
“So when you reached out to me and you told me that and you asked me, it was truly an honor. It was very cool.”
Masters isn’t claiming he knows for certain that WWE and AEW have deliberately shut him out. That’s why he called it an “unofficial” blackballing in the first place. But after getting no invitation back to WWE and feeling blown off when he personally tried to get into an AEW show, that’s where his head is now — and apparently there’s one incident behind the scenes that he thinks could explain a lot of it.
Do you think Chris Masters deserves another shot with WWE or AEW, and what do you make of his claim that he feels unofficially blackballed? Let us know in the comments.
Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.
