Ridge Holland shuts down Twitter account after Elton Prince’s injury

Pretty Deadly’s Elton Prince was injured during a match with the Brawling Brutes on SmackDown last Friday night (July 14).

In-character comments about the injury being “career threatening” aside, there’s no reason to believe that Prince won’t be back in a matter of weeks or months. But because one of the men Elton was wrestling when he got hurt — Ridge Holland — was involved in the spot that may have ended Big E’s career, some fans online have questioned or criticized Holland for Prince’s injury.

There’s reportedly never been any heat on Holland backstage for what happened with Big E. E doesn’t harbor any ill will or resentment toward Holland over his injury. Ridge’s Brawling Brutes partner Sheamus has gone on record to vouch for the former rugby player’s skill and safety. And Xavier Woods has spoken out about fans sending hate and worse to Holland & his family more than a year after E’s injury.

But that didn’t stop fans from blaming Ridge after news of Prince’s shoulder separation hit the web. Holland posted a tweet in an attempt to preemptively deflect some of that criticism, but for whatever reason it doesn’t seem to have worked. At some point after sending that, Holland deactivated his Twitter account.

Twitter.com/RidgeWWE

While shutting down or cutting back on social media use can be good for anyone’s mental/emotional health, it also takes away a promotional tool from an independent contractor like Holland. I don’t think anyone ever wants to be put in a position where they feel they shutting down an account is the only way to stop being harassed, either.

But while we can make a reasonable assumption, we don’t know exactly what led to Ridge’s decision. So we’ll just hope he’s doing okay today, and encourage anyone upset they can’t tweet at him to instead channel that energy into hoping for a speedy Elton Prince recovery.