Elijah Burke On Why He Turned Down a Spot In the Spirit Squad

Elijah Burke was given a chance to join the Spirit Squad in WWE but he turned it down, and he explained why in a new interview. Burke spoke with WrestlingNewsCo and talked about being given a chance to join the infamous WWE stable of male cheerleaders, noting that he was looking at the long-term situation and had a few reasons for saying now. You can check out the highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:

On turning down the chance to join the group: “I always think long term, not just short term, ‘Hey look, I’m on TV and I’m with the chairman. ‘ Nah, I just didn’t feel it,” he said, “It was not me, and more importantly, I wasn’t going to go out there and be the token black guy. It’s always got to be one; I wasn’t going to be that in that group.”

On how he expects it might have gone: “I got natural hair. I probably would have been asked to put, you know, either wearing my afro all the time. Not saying they would have, but I could certainly have seen it. ‘I’m a cheerleader; hey, let’s put some afro puffs in your head,’ you know.”

On Dolph Ziggler managing to get past the group’s infamy and become a star:” “Ziggler went, and he put in the work, and he was able to remove that stench of the Spirit Squad that ultimately became a joke.”