AEW star gets honest about why his WWE run didn’t work out under Vince McMahon’s regime

A top AEW star recently spoke about his time with WWE more than a decade ago and why he felt it did not pan out for him at the time. The star in question would be Lance Archer.

The Murderhawk Monster was signed with the Stamford-based promotion from 2009 to 2010. Upon joining the company, he competed under the now defunct-ECW but once the brand was discontinued, he was moved to SmackDown and competed there for a while. In 2020, he signed with AEW and continues to compete for the promotion.

While appearing on Jake Roberts' The Snake Pit podcast, Lance Archer talked about how during his time with WWE, he had a conversation with Batista about the difficulties of being a heel at the time.

"Why didn’t it work out? I don’t know. I think you could put — different people go through different things and have different experiences everywhere they go. I think my very short time there was a very different time in the business for the company, for myself. I remember I had a conversation with Batista one time because he was still heavily involved when I first got on the road with them. And he was like, ‘Man, I wouldn’t want to be a heel in this day and age of wrestling,’ because — and this was like 2009 also."

He mentioned how due to the company being PG at the time, and being more sports-oriented, there was little room to be creative on cheating or doing things heels would do before to get heat. While he did not say that this was the full reason for his run with the company not being as successful, he acknowledged it was a part of the things he went through during his tenure in WWE.

"Because he was like, ‘It’s so hard to be a heel. Because all the little basic bad guys heel things that we used to could do to cheat. What he’s saying, like when he first got into the business, or even when he first got on the road with them, they’d have kind of been taken away. You know, they were looking at it more straight sport-oriented, very kind of like — the UFC had such a strong influence. They were extremely PG back then. So there were just so many things that we just weren’t allowed to do to be a heel. And you know, I’m not saying that that really is what caused my time there not to be good. I think there were goods and bads."

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The AEW star is seemingly targeting Jon Moxley now

Lance Archer has had a fairly decent run in AEW so far, but he has not had great momentum recently in comparison to his first few years with the promotion.

Back in 2021, he had a chance to challenge for the IWGP United States Championship, which Jon Moxley, despite being signed with AEW, held at the time. During Fyter Fest that year, Archer successfully dethroned him to become the champion.

Now, Mox holds the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, a much bigger prize. On Twitter, the Murderhawk Monster expressed his interest in once more taking a title away from Jon Moxley.

"I’ve beat Jon! I want the @njpw1972 #IWGPchampionship."

His full tweet can be found here.

Despite his lackluster run in WWE, Lance Archer was able to have a fairly good run in NJPW, and despite now being signed with AEW, he still has the freedom to compete in Japan and for other major promotions, so this may have worked out well for him in the end.