Karl Fredericks Recalls Issues With His Character In NXT, Conversations With Shawn Michaels

Karl Fredericks was part of WWE NXT as Eddy Thorpe, and he recently discussed issues he had with how his heritage was portrayed. As Thorpe, Fredericks’ Indigenous heritage was a part of his character. He was with the company from 2023 until his release in May of 2025.

Fredericks spoke with the Augusta Free Press for an extensive interview and during the conversation, he spoke about how he was presented on NXT. He noted that there were certain issues with how creative there tried to incorporate his heritage into his character.

He noted that Shawn Michaels told him that he saw him as a babyface because he was “Indian” and that he had real issues with a promo where he was supposed to say he was leaving the reservation and “assimilate” into the wider world. Fredericks explained the unfortunate word choice considering the existence of assimilation schools, which were schools run by the government and/or churches to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children. The practice has been referred to as a form of cultural genocide, a way to wipe out Indigenous lifestyles and traditions, and included brutality, assaults, neglect and malnourishment.

At the time of Fredericks’ early WWE NXT run, the term was fresh in people’s mind because of reports out of Canada of the discovery of over 200 children’s unmarked graves at a school. Fredericks made it clear he didn’t view it as an issue of malice, but rather cultural ignorance. You can see highlights from his comments below:

On His Initial Arrival In NXT:

“I’m always f**king thinking back to my first week in the (Performance Center), when I finally have a talk with (Shawn Michaels). I’d sent them some matches, and he came over and he was like, ‘Really cool stuff.’ Blah, blah, blah. He gave me a nice little pep talk. Then he was like, ‘I think you’re a babyface, you know, because you’re Indian! I think that’s cool!’ Right off the bat, in my head, that was a red flag. I didn’t expect too much out of Shawn… I could gauge where his awareness was with any of this s**t… I don’t want to be Tatanka.”

On His Promos Referencing His Heritage:

“I was doing my second or third pre-taped promo, and I’m standing out by a f**king fire. I can’t be out in the f**king forest. This isn’t a real person. This isn’t someone that my people know. You look at the internet; it’s always white fans, and the internet fans — anyone — they’re all just saying negative s**t anyways. That’s just how the internet works, right? But that’s where the backhanded racism comes from. They’re not going to get it, and understandably so. They don’t fucking know this character. This person doesn’t exist in the real world today anyways.

“I remember saying, like, I can’t be stuck out in the forest for too long, and I remember being told that I’m playing a character on TV. Yeah, I’m playing a character written by a white man who don’t know anything about me, and here’s Shawn, ‘Well, you know, I read a lot about Indian stuff. I think it’s real cool.’ Blah, blah. You know, that doesn’t f**king do anything for me. I’m glad you think it’s cool. You know, I didn’t say that, but that’s how I feel when I hear that s**t. Like, great, it’s neat to you. What does that do? What does that do for me? Where do we go from here? Do you think that makes me feel better about it all? There were times where what I thought we were doing was cool. Then there were times, a lot of times actually, where I would get the scraps, especially towards the end, and I was struggling real bad mentally. You can see it in my f**king physique as well… I was fighting for my life working there, doing the shit that I was doing… I remember getting scripts and just seeing the words, and just giving up. There’s no way I can rewrite this. This must be what they want. If I rewrite this, it’s still going to be just this bulls**t, meaningless cultural slop; using big, fancy words and sounding like an asshole.”

On the Assimilation Promo:

“I remember one specifically that I was f**king hot about. The writer that wrote this particular promo — I was really close with him. He hands it to me, I read it, and I’m just like, ‘Abso-f**king-lutely not, brother. What the f**k is this?’ This man’s not even from the United States. He doesn’t know any better. That was the other hard part. I’m telling you the way it made me feel, but there was no malintent on his end. You know, it’s just what I deal with in my everyday life about my cultural identity. It’s either a joke to people or it’s just ignorance. They don’t know, because this isn’t s**t we teach.

“That particular promo was about me wanting to leave the reservation and not worry about my people’s cultural expectations. To leave the reservation and assimilate to the wider world… To me, that sounds like I’m leaving the reservation to go to a f**king assimilation school, to go to Carlisle so I can be beaten, and raped, and all the s**t that happened to those kids. Just the fact that the word assimilate was in there; I had to give him a little history lesson. I’m dealing with this bulls**t. I’m passing sage over an injured arm, like what the f**k am I doing on television? I was giving up. I decided that I would just deliver. Every big match, every storyline, just deliver, and they were happy. I just needed to get through this s**t. We can get past this, and I won’t ever have to do it again. But I just never really got there.”