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Select Answers: Tag Wrestling, Taylor Rust, Ridge Holland
🕑 Added 2025-11-10 17:00:15 +0000 UTCWelcome to Select Answers, a feature that provides some of the answers to questions that were posed to Sean Ross Sapp in the most recent Fightful Weekly Q&A Podcast. The show drops every week on Fightful Select for subscribers.
When aggregating these posts please refer to it as "Fightful Select Answers Q&A" and tag Fightful, noting that it was in the Q&A format to avoid confusion.
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Whatever happened to Taylor Rust? I really enjoyed watching him in ROH and then later on in NXT with Diamond Mine, but haven't heard anything about him since he was released by WWE.
He's out of wrestling. He hasn't wrestled in over three years. He's almost 39 at this point, which at this stage, isn't an end to a career by any means. However, he'd wrestled since 2004. He put in 18 years, a lot longer than many realized. He only ended up wrestling for about a year after his WWE release, but got a lot of looks. New Japan, Ring of Honor and AEW all brought him in. I know New Japan really liked him, but that's when they had a United States wing. Now that's gone, and a lot of people aren't getting booked. He occasionally pops up on Twitter, but is out of the public eye.
I still have some questions about Ridge Holland. First, did he receive any payment during his injury period before being released—not TNA payment, but his NXT salary and rehabilitation expenses? Second, what exact post did he make that led to his early release from WWE, and which specific policy did it violate? Third, will WWE continue to cover his rehabilitation expenses after his release? This whole situation is absolutely heartbreaking, I want to know more details about it.
He sustained his injury in late September. He was informed on October 13 that his WWE deal would not be extended, which was to go until mid-November. Then on November 4, he was told his deal would be terminated effectively immediately. He was paid for about six weeks. He posted that WWE effectively fired him while injured and he couldn't afford his mortgage. WWE has rules in their deals and training that prohibits disparagement of the company at their own discretion. Yes, they'll continue to cover his rehabilitation, which he's been doing at the WWE Performance Center. They would get themselves sued if they didn't
Tag Team wrestling now or the 80s/90s? Which do your prefer? I miss the nostalgia of teams identifying as teams by their attire, music, tag team move set, and team names. I feel there was some special and missing from tag team wrestling we got from the RnR Express, LOD, Hart Foundation, Killer Bees, Demolition, etc. Tag team wrestling should be a completely different form of wrestling and skills, but with trios, Triple threats, and every stipulation being used… has pure tag team wrestling suffered?
I prefer the star power, dedication, and the basic booking of tag teams in the 80s, by far. I prefer the visuals -- the colors of Sting & Luger, Nasty Boys, LOD, Rockers, Money Inc. It was so vivid and the characters were incredible.
From a personality standpoint, the early 2000s. Hardy Boyz, Dudley Boyz, Edge and Christian, APA, Too Cool, RTC -- all standout personalities. In ring, by far today and it's not close. I want it to all come together!!
Comments
Bernard Ozarowski
The color point is so true. With a few exceptions (mostly in WWE), it feels like wrestlers are afraid to go BIG with colors or visuals. JetSpeed should be in some bright anime looking colors. Hell, Knight used to wrestle in bright orange gear in New Japan - lean into that! Market them to kids! How Top Flight was ever allowed to stop wearing pilot stuff is beyond me. The Death Riders look like they’re coming home from the gym after a day at the office. Let’s dress ‘em like Johnny Blaze? Let’s lean into the owl iconography? At least BCC looked like a Jiu Jitsu gym sponsored them. To give ‘em some credit though, Megan Bayne has been a great presentation win so far.
