Paul Heyman apparently saw something more for Dexter Lumis before his WWE run came to an abrupt end. In fact, Lumis says Heyman was talking to him about becoming a singles wrestler shortly before the entire Wyatt Sicks group was released.
While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Lumis was asked whether he was surprised that WWE didn’t simply move on from individual members of the Wyatt Sicks and instead released the entire group. Lumis admitted he didn’t see that coming because he felt like he was doing everything he could behind the scenes.
“I was a little surprised just because I felt like I was doing the necessary things outside of just being booked and brought to TV every week.”
Lumis wasn’t interested in simply showing up, collecting his paycheck and waiting around for WWE to find something for him. Whenever he was backstage, he was actively looking for ways to get better. A big part of that involved finding experienced people backstage and picking their brains. One of those people happened to be Paul Heyman.
“The joke that, like, ‘Oh, they just sit in catering and they collect a paycheck.’ Like, that’s not me. I’m not there for that. I walked around the building all night and I talked to important people and picked, you know, veterans’ brains.”
Lumis said he started speaking with Heyman quite a bit and came away with plenty of advice. Those conversations eventually started sounding like they could lead somewhere bigger. Then Heyman told him exactly what he thought WWE should do.
“I was talking to Paul Heyman quite a bit, who I respect the hell out of, and I was getting some great advice from him. One of the things he was saying was like, ‘We need to make you a singles guy.’”
The timing made that comment even more interesting. Lumis said these conversations were happening very late in the Wyatt Sicks run, and they actually left him feeling like something new could be coming for him.
“This was very late towards the end of the Wyatt Sicks run. I almost felt like something was brewing, but I just didn’t think, like, the whole group’s gonna be released.”
Obviously, that singles run never got the chance to happen. Instead, Lumis and the rest of the Wyatt Sicks were released, leaving him with another reminder that plans and conversations can disappear pretty quickly in wrestling.
“You can’t ever feel like you’re safe, especially in this tumultuous business, right?”
Lumis may never know where those conversations with Heyman would have gone if WWE had kept him around. Still, finding out that Heyman was already talking about pulling him out as a singles act makes his release a much bigger “what if” than anyone knew at the time.
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