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Lance Archer Discusses How WWE Made Him Cut His Hair 5 Minutes Before ECW Debut, What Vince McMahon Told Him About Breaking Him Down

May 24, 2020 | Posted by Ashish
Lance Archer AEW Dynamite 4-22-20 Image Credit: AEW

On the latest edition of Talk Is Jericho, Lance Archer discussed how Vince McMahon and Johnny Ace decided to cut his hair and shave his face five minutes before having him debut on ECW TV during his brief stint with WWE, and how Vince McMahon told him that they are going to break him down to build him back up. Archer noted that it felt like they were taking away part of his identity, and that he thinks WWE specifically tested former TNA guys. Highlights are below.

On how Vince McMahon and Johnny Ace decided five minutes before his ECW debut to cut his hair and shave his face: “They brought me up to the ECW product they still had at the time, and it was one of those deals, I showed up with hair as long as yours is now, and goatee braided kind of like how I have it now, and big ass biker jacket, I had this kind of gimmick, this personality, and about five minutes before doors open, it was just me, the guy I was beating up, Vince, and I think Johnny Ace. It was four of us, it was five minutes to doors open. And all of a sudden, they’re sitting over there talking, and we don’t know, should we leave the ring, what should we do? And all of a sudden, Johnny’s like, ‘Kid, come here.’ ‘What’s up, Johnny?’ ‘We’re cutting your hair.’ I was like, ‘Alright, on TV tonight?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Alright.’ They literally took me to the hairdresser and she chopped my hair and they told them to shave my face and leave the jacket and all these different things. And it’s like, I still was getting that opportunity but everything that I had kind of created in my mind as an identity was kind of taken away. It is on me to go, ‘Alright, I still got the balls in my court,’ to a degree, but when they take it all away five minutes before doors open, and then go, ‘Go.'”

On what Vince McMahon told him about breaking him down: “Sometimes they’d bring guys up on the road, throw them out there in some dark matches, maybe put them on a house show loop, to get an idea of what they were doing, and that wasn’t my case. I literally got called and said, ‘Hey, we need you for TV this week,’ didn’t know what was going on, and it wasn’t until the morning of that Joey Styles was there and he was like, ‘Hey man, we’ll get your info for your bio tonight.’ And I went, ‘OK, I guess I’m debuting,’ nobody told me anything. And then like I said, that day, five minutes before doors, take him away, cut his hair, shave his face, basically break you down. Actually when they took me into Vince, they were like, ‘Vince, is this OK?’ And he goes, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to break you down to build you up, OK?’ I said, ‘OK, you like it?’ And he goes, ‘Yes, now get out!’ ‘Alright, see you later.'”

On if he ever got an explanation of why they wanted to cut his hair: “I have no idea, none whatsoever. Like I said, it was Johnny and Vince, they were sitting there talking, I couldn’t hear anything they were saying, and all of sudden, Johnny was like, ‘Common kid, we’re cutting your hair.’ There was horror stories of guys that had refused to cut their hair and a week later they were cut from the company [Chris Jericho mentioned that this happened to Frankie Kazarian].”

On how he thinks former TNA guys were specifically tested in WWE: “TNA guys, specifically, I think, were tested. They had a couple of guys come in before them, and they shit the bed, and they didn’t live up to the hype. They’d come up, and they’d do whatever, and they wouldn’t meet whatever hype they had coming in the company, and they’d fail very quickly, not that Frankie would have ever failed, but the hair thing was a story that was passed around.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.

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Lance Archer, Ashish