Simon Gotch Opens Up About Backstage Incident Before His WWE Release

Simon Gotch was recently released from WWE, and now he’s working under the name Simon Grimm. The former Vaudevillains member is now a free agent, and he’s getting ready to hit the independent circuit over the next few months.

Gotch recently spoke to USA Today about his WWE release, and he noted that although it was something that WWE presented to him, he was unhappy working for the company and he decided it would be best for him to move on.

“They brought it to me and I agreed,” he said. “It was one of those things where I was unhappy, and they basically felt like the character had run its course. I said I agreed, and they said they wanted to exercise the termination clause in my contract. I agreed with that as well and we went from there.”

Shortly after Simon Gotch was released it was reported that he was involved in an incident backstage which involved him flipping over his own chair and causing a scene. Gotch shot down the original report and told his side of the story noting that he was trying to joke with a technician that didn’t quite understand what he was trying to do.

“The actual story is that it happened at WrestleMania. I was sitting in catering and the chair I was in was kinda flimsy. I go to shift in it and it just collapses underneath me. Being a ham, my immediate reaction was to demand someone pin me. ‘Someone pin me quick.’ The guy who comes over, I think he works for us. I didn’t realize he was a local technician and was not a WWE technician. He was someone who worked on the set at ‘Mania. He came to help me up and I’m like, ‘Nope, you gotta pin me. C’mon, man.’ And he’s not going along with the bit. He thinks I just fell and he’s trying to help me. I see the bit’s going nowhere so I take the chair and I just kick it off to the side, drop it like a little punt and let it lay where it lands. That was it. I saw the story online, saying that I fell in the chair and made this big scene and was yelling and screaming. No part of that is accurate.”

As far as what’s next for the former WWE star, he says his no compete clause ends on July 8th, and he will then be going back to work. His Simon Grimm character will be a hybrid of his old Ryan Drago character and Simon Gotch.