When The Spirit Squad first arrived on the scene in 2006 they pretty much started working with big names immediately, but out of the five members Dolph Ziggler is the only wrestler who is still with WWE at this point. The Spirit Squad included Ken Doane, Nick Mitchell, Nick Nemeth (Dolph Ziggler), Johnny Jeter and Mike Mondo, but originally Elijah Burke was supposed to be part of the group.
Burke declined the offer to be part of the Spirit Squad, and during an appearance on Developmentally Speaking he shared some details about Vince McMahon’s reaction to him turning down the role.
“I was supposed to be in the Spirit Squad. That was my first foray into WWE. That was when I was supposed to be doing the Spirit Squad. And I went to the office with Johnny Ace, then went back to Vince McMahon and politely declined.”
“Vince respected the hell out of me saying no. Other people didn’t. Other people thought ‘Oh my god, you said no to Vince. How could you? How are you turning down opportunities?’ So I got some heat for that, for whatever reason, because I said no to Vince McMahon … Vince said, ‘I respect that. We’ll send you back down, and we’ll bring you back up when we have something for you.’ And that’s what he did.”
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