“I was just like, ‘Hell no’” – Heath Slater recalls rejecting WWE pitch back in 2016

Heath Slater recalls rejecting WWE pitch back in 2016. The former WWE star had one of his best years in the compnay back then.

Heath Slater had one of the best storylines back in 2016. The WWE reintroduced the brand split and divided their roster between RAW and SmackDown for the first time in five years. Slater was unable to find a spot in either of them and had to fight for a spot.

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The storyline culminated with Slater beating the odds. He formed a tag team with Rhyno and won the SmackDown Tag Team Championships and earned his place on the Blue Brand. However, it appears that this wasn’t WWE’s original plans with him.

Heath Slater recalls rejecting WWE pitch back in 2016

Slater spoke in a Title Match Wrestling video, where he revealed that WWE originally wanted to draft him to SmackDown without all the drama that eventually followed. However, Slater rejected it and pushed for them to make a storyline out of it.

“They were literally just gonna have a little haha thing. Lights go out on me… ‘Oh, I didn’t get picked,’ and then later on that night they were gonna put me on the internet saying, ‘Oh, SmackDown let the little cry puppy in,’ but I was just like, ‘Hell no.’”

“I said, ‘Right here we’ve got a damn good storyline. I’m a free agent. Let me go to RAW and SmackDown, try to get a job, try to go and impress Shane, impress Stephanie, to where at the end they are trying to get me, both, where I’m like… where should I go? We could have months of entertaining stuff with this.’”

Slater and Rhyno became the innaugral SmackDown Tag Team Champions and held the title for 83-days. Rhyno eventually left the company in 2019 and moved to Impact Wrestling before Slater joined him there a year later.

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