Ridge Holland Reveals How Vince McMahon & Bruce Prichard Messed With Him Following Big E Incident

Former WWE Superstar Ridge Holland recently revealed how Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard messed with him following the traumatizing incident that ended Big E’s in-ring career.

Holland botched a Belly-to-Belly Suplex at ringside during a tag team match in March 2022, leaving Big E with career-ending neck injuries. Following the incident, Holland, during an exclusive conversation with the Wrestling Observer, revealed he received death threats and brutal trolling on social media, describing the timeframe as one of the hardest of his life.

The former WWE Superstar also revealed an incident involving Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard that left a bad taste in his mouth. Holland revealed that Vince and Bruce once asked him to cut an apology promo on live television, leaving him extremely nervous. As it turned out, when the show eventually went live, they asked him to go out there and just wrestle.

Below are the highlights:

Ridge Holland on how Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard tried to mess with him

“So initially, I was offered to go to counseling and stuff like that. Like it would be like, you know, obviously, like speak to someone, which I declined at that minute. I just didn’t really wanna speak to anyone, to be honest. The initial backlash, obviously, it’s funny ’cause the week, the week after, which I thought was kind of rough, they wanted me to do an apology promo live before I went out for a match.

“And I remember there were Vince [McMahon] and Bruce [Prichard] standing there, and they were counting down like thirty seconds till we go live. And I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna say. I’m just gonna speak from the heart.’ And then it got to, like, five and four, and then they cut it. They just didn’t do promos right then. And then I had to go out and wrestle a match. So I think that was in poor taste. I think they did that to mess with me, and it really put a bad taste in my mouth, and I never really looked at those people the same, to be honest. I thought it was in really poor taste,” Holland finished.”

On dealing with intense trolling and death threats post-Big E incident

“It was extremely difficult. Obviously, I’ll always preface it by saying the main point is that making sure that Big E was okay, and he’s all good now, and he’s healthy. But at the time, from a personal standpoint, it was probably one of the hardest times of my life. Coming in as a relatively unknown entertainer onto the main roster and then, you know, being involved in an accident which put one of the biggest stars in the company on the shelf.

“So, from like death threats to all the social media things, it kind of marred my…kind of like drove a certain perception of me with fans that I struggled to kind of shake. And I’m sure that kind of went up into the, you know, the higher up into the office and stuff. And I just think their confidence in me, and especially my confidence in my own performance, was definitely affected ’cause I didn’t really wanna get in the ring. I was very nervous about getting in the ring after that. It shook me. So, yeah, it affected everything, home life, everything.”

Big E never wrestled again, officially calling it quits earlier this year. Meanwhile, Ridge Holland spent his last years with the company in NXT before being released last winter.

Elsewhere in the interview, he compared the working environments under Vince McMahon and Triple H. You can check his comments HERE.