Brian Pillman Jr. on The Varsity Blonds Losing Julia Hart

– During a recent interview with Cafe de Rene with Renee Dupree, AEW wrestler Brian Pillman Jr. discussed The Varsity Blonds’ feud with House of Black and Julia Hart leaving the Blonds and joining the HOB. Below are some highlights (via Fightful Select):

Brian Pillman Jr. on Julia Hart leaving the Varsity Blonds: “It’s pretty plain as day what happened. As soon as we lost her, we kind of lost our edge and our spark that made us a good babyface group that could have gotten over. A lot of what we were going to do with some different spots with her had a lot to do with her cheerleading background and playing to her strengths. Somebody came in and decided it would do better with their group and that’s just how it goes. I definitely wasn’t happy with it, to be quite honest. It is what it is; it’s not my show, it’s business. I thought that maybe stopped us from seeing the true potential of the Varsity Blonds was we lost her before we got going. She was an integral part of our act. You take that away and you just have a couple of guys….I remember, the first thing I got approved, my first big pitch, was to have her join us. It’s a great feeling when you pitch a creative idea and it’s green-lit. The bosses are in and they’re happy with it. To have that taken apart was kind of rough for me, but I’m happy with how it turned out and happy with the moment she had. Very happy just being at AEW in general. I don’t think the Varsity Blonds was the fullest creative extension of myself. It’s not like I didn’t give a lot of my effort, but it was definitely something easy that I thought the crowd would digest easily and something that Griff could work with. It’s not like me and Griff were going to turn into these evil dark and mysterious kung fu masters. It made a lot of sense for us to have a cool, generic, rowdy, jock gimmick. Just a couple of young guys getting after it.”

Pillman on Malakai Black leaving AEW: “I have a lot of respect for Malakai, he’s one of the best athletes and wrestlers ever. I learned a lot training with him. If it had gone my way, we probably wouldn’t have broken up our group so soon or even at all or there would have been some redeeming storyline to make us not look like losers. At the end of the day, everyone kind of squished their angle on the show and he was working really hard to get a good product on the show. That’s where I agree with him. He was trying to make some good stuff, really good content and matches. He’s a hard-working guy. Unfortunately, it was a little bit at our expense. If it wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t meant to be. As far as him leaving, I don’t know what that’s about at all. Some people deal with different stuff. Overall, he was a cool guy, always talkative to me. With all the drama, maybe he needs some time to recharge and focus on his personal life. I can’t tell you about him leaving because I haven’t been around as much at TV.”