Even if you get signed to a WWE contract it’s not easy to make it to the top of the company. Ridge Holland was called up to the WWE main roster in 2021, and in March of 2022 he received a lot of criticism after he delivered an overhead belly-to-belly suplex to Big E on the floor which resulted in Big E breaking his neck. Holland later announced in October of 2025 that WWE had decided not to renew his contract.
While speaking with Sports Jedi Network about his WWE run, Ridge Holland explained why he went down to NXT after joining the main roster, and he also claimed someone high up in the company didn’t like him.
“We were just kind of getting beat and getting booked into oblivion, and there was no real direction. Obviously, things had happened with myself that made me feel like I needed to prove something, and I didn’t want to weigh Pete [Dunne] down with the negative image that I had. So I thought, ‘Look, I need to step back. I need to go and reinvent myself.’ Reinvent myself in NXT.
Okay, cool. But then from there, it was like, I don’t want to be negative, but there was someone in the office who was very high up that didn’t like me because of things that had happened in the past. I’d been told that previously in meetings and stuff. I’d get kind of booked out of things or pushed out, and they didn’t have the greatest faith in me, let’s say.”