Leaving WWE gave Uhaa Nation the chance to hit reset, but it also created a question that wasn’t going away. Now, months later, the former WWE star has finally shared where he stands on the possibility of returning.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Uhaa Nation was asked whether he still feels the door is open for another run with WWE following his release after WrestleMania 42. His answer wasn’t just about the company. It was about how he carried himself during his 11 years there and why he believes that still matters today.
Uhaa said he always tried to leave every place on good terms and never gave WWE a reason to think negatively of him. Looking back on his time there, he believes that professionalism is why another opportunity could always be there.
“I do. I feel like… I try to leave the most positive outlook I can no matter where I go. I never got in trouble. I never did anything that was against the company policy or anything like that. So I think if it was, if that option was on the table, I definitely would be… a likely candidate if they were looking at me. I think that option would be there for sure. But it’s not something I’m sitting here just waiting and dying to happen, you know what I mean?”
These days, Uhaa says he’s immersed himself in nutrition, continued working toward his master’s degree and started discovering parts of himself that had taken a backseat during his wrestling career. He admitted he’s become so invested in those things that there are times wrestling isn’t even the first thing on his mind anymore.
“When I first got released, I was doing all these things to try to find who I was… I’ve started with the nutrition and everything. I’m still working on my master’s, so that’s taken up a lot of my time. I’ve dove so deep into that, that I’ve almost forgot that I was a wrestler, you know? It’s crazy to say because that’s a huge part of my life.”
That realization surprised him because wrestling had been everything growing up. Once he decided he wanted to become a wrestler, there wasn’t really another plan.
“Huge part of my identity. I remember as a kid, it was all I wanted to do. When I decided I wanted to be a wrestler, it was the only thing that I wanted to do. My dad would always say, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’ I put all my eggs in the wrestling basket… I was like, there’s nothing out there for me. Well, it worked. Nothing. I’m going to WWE and that’s that.”
Leaving WWE forced Uhaa to look at things differently. Rather than seeing it as the end of the road, he realized he could apply the same mindset that got him to WWE to whatever challenge comes next.
“When I left, it’s like, man, what do I do? But it’s, no, just take that same mentality that you had and you knew you were gonna make it to WWE. Take what you’ve learned inside of WWE and apply that to whatever else you wanna do in life. I think it’s good to… because wrestling’s not gonna last forever for any of us.”
Even with that new outlook, Uhaa isn’t pretending he wouldn’t answer the call if WWE ever came back around. He says he’d happily return because he genuinely enjoyed his time there and still sees WWE as the pinnacle of the business.
“I’m fortunate enough to have an 11-year career inside WWE… and if the opportunity came to go back, I would… I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t take it. People would say, ‘I would never go back.’ I would definitely go back. I really enjoyed working there. I enjoyed the people I worked with. It’s the pinnacle, right? It’s what a lot of us strive to get to.”
Right now, Uhaa Nation seems more focused on what’s in front of him than what’s behind him. He’s building a new chapter outside WWE while keeping the door open to whatever opportunities come next—and if one of those opportunities happens to be another run with WWE, it sounds like he’d welcome it.
Would you like to see Uhaa Nation back in WWE one day? Let us know in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
