Wesley Blake On Vince McMahon Not Liking Cowboy Gimmicks, The Forgotten Sons Plans
Former WWE Superstar Wesley Blake (aka Westin Blake) recently appeared on The Angle Podcast and discussed a variety of topics. You can listen to the show at this link, or below. The show issued several highlights from the episode.
Blake first debuted on the WWE NXT brand in January 2014 with a cowboy gimmick. He revealed that the gimmick was nixed after he was told how WWE Champion & CEO Vince McMahon doesn't like cowboy gimmicks in wrestling.
"After about 6 months, I kind of got the impression or I was told that, 'Hey Vince McMahon doesn't really like cowboys. He thinks it's kind of overdone especially in the wrestling business. We are going to have to switch up your character and pitching some more ideas,'" Blake said.
Blake, Steve Cutler and Jaxson Ryker were eventually put together as The Forgotten Sons. They were called up to SmackDown in April 2020. The group was reportedly in line for a big push, and Blake revealed plans for their feud with The New Day.
"You guys are going into a New Day feud, because at that time Xavier Woods was out with an injury and we were going to feud with them for quite some time to where Xavier would come back and then we could have 6 man exchanges and stuff," Blake said. "We were never told you guys are going to win the titles type stuff. And of course once things happened we kind of got taken out of that spot and we saw Cesaro and Shinsuke kind of get put into our spot of course they win the tag titles so it makes you think oh man if we would've stayed there that could've been us."
The Forgotten Sons later had their push nixed and the group was taken off TV after Ryker received backlash for his support of President Trump. Blake discussed Ryker's pro-Trump tweet, and the fallout.
"Steve and I we went the next day to the Performance Center and talked with creative and at that time creative told us that we're just going to let this blow over," Blake recalled. "You're going to lay low for 2-3 weeks and we're just going to let this blow over and we'll kind of pick right back up where you all started. We initially thought it wasn't the best move that Ryker made that tweet, but it seems like we're going to continue on with what's going on storyline wise. We were told the very next week that hey New Day is going to be in with Cesaro and Shinsuke for the foreseeable future.
"And I think when that happened of course Ryker reached out to Steve and myself and of course he apologized saying I never meant for this to happen. He said never did I think to dismember the faction that we helped create and stuff like that, Steve and I were just honest with him and we said we're going to pitch ideas and some of those ideas are not going to include you in them."
Blake also revealed that there was a plan to bring The Forgotten Sons back to TV, with some changes. That never happened. Blake and Cutler were later brought to SmackDown in December 2020, as The Knights of The Lone Wolf, as muscle for Baron Corbin. That storyline was quickly nixed after Cutler came down with COVID-19, and was later released on February 4. Blake was then released on April 15.
"It wasn't until probably September where we got a call from creative saying hey we're going to bring you 3 back as a team, but we're going to switch up your look a little bit," Blake revealed. "You're not going to be Forgotten Sons. So we pitched ideas for them to kind of clean up our look a little bit, but then that kind of happened to fall through then it wasn't until December where Ryker got moved to Raw and Steve and myself stayed on SmackDown."