NXT’s main backstage interviewer McKenzie Mitchell was fired by WWE last week during the latest round of corporate layoffs.
On a call with the media today ahead of this weekend’s Deadline premium live event, NXT head honcho Shawn Michaels was asked to comment on Mitchell’s release. Here is HBK’s response:
“McKenzie’s always gonna be part of the NXT family, and I mean that sincerely. But look, no, it was something that obviously took me by surprise as well. My understanding is there’s just some areas where we have overlapping jobs, and there were going to be changes. There are a lot of things that go on within this company that are way above me. This obviously was one of them.
But look, like we always say here…the door is always open here in the WWE. In my opinion, McKenzie will always be part of the NXT family, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t revisit that relationship somewhere down the road, good lord willing. Obviously it’s a loss to us in NXT, but the machine as always has to continue to roll on, and we will obviously do that. And obviously we will miss her greatly, ‘cause everybody absolutely loves and adores McKenzie.”
If Shawn is telling the truth about being blindsided by Mitchell’s release, then he is in an awkward position here trying to explain a decision he had nothing to do with and was not in favor of.
Even so, Shawn’s claim that McKenzie is “always gonna be part of the NXT family” rings hollow considering that her firing was a cold corporate decision that is the opposite of how family would typically treat one of its members. HBK is much more accurate later on when he says “the machine as always has to continue to roll on,” because that’s what WWE is – a corporate machine, not a family.
It’s also pretty clear that HBK is wrong when he says “everybody absolutely loves and adores McKenzie.” If that was a true statement, then she very likely wouldn’t have been fired by WWE.
What do you make of HBK’s comments on McKenzie Mitchell’s WWE release, Cagesiders?
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