Eric Young explains his recent WWE exit: ‘morally, I just couldn’t work there anymore’

Towards the end of 2022, Eric Young’s character was killed off in Impact Wrestling. Reports at the time said his Impact contract expired and he signed a new deal with WWE.

However, we never saw Young on WWE or NXT television in the first half of 2023. It became apparent that he was no longer under contract with WWE when he was revealed as Scott D’Amore’s mystery partner at Impact Slammiversary last week. Since then, rumors indicate that Young may have been lined up to be part of Bray Wyatt’s new family in WWE, but he requested his release from the company due to Vince McMahon’s return to power.

In a new interview with PW Insider, Eric cites moral reasons for his latest WWE departure. He doesn’t specifically mention Vince McMahon by name, but you can read between the lines easily enough:

“I signed up for one thing and it turned into something completely different, and personally, professionally, and more importantly for me, morally, I just couldn’t work there anymore. If you’re a wrestling fan, you know what’s going on...

It was not, uh, a super difficult choice for me to be honest. I know it was a dream come true, going back, for sure. The contract was fantastic and all this other stuff and what I was poised to do on the TV show was excellent, but in the end, I would’ve had to answer to somebody that I’m just not willing to do. That’s where we ended up now. Like I said earlier, I’m a believer in fate and everything happens for a reason, and I’m not mad about it. I’m not bitter about it, just like I wasn’t last time. Obviously it was, it’s a massive mistake on one person’s part, but a huge gain for wrestling.

I’m still very good at this and, and it’s something that I’m very passionate about. Something that I work myself to the bone trying to, to make the best possible outcome of each thing that I’m handed to do. So, I’m excited for the future...”

It’s worth noting that Young was fired by Vince McMahon in April 2020, and he pointed the finger at Vince for WWE’s “broken system” at the time. It seems like Young thought he was free and clear of McMahon forever once Vince resigned in disgrace from WWE last July during the investigation of a disturbing sex scandal. But Vince came back in January 2023, and it does indeed sound like that’s when Eric Young realized he needed to get out again.