Eugene reveals why his character will still work in WWE in 2020

WWE, in the past, created edgy television that pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable for national television, and sometimes even crossed those boundaries. There have been several controversial characters in the history of WWE, one of them being Eugene, a character portraying a special-needs star who wanted to achieve his dream of being a wrestler.

A lot of people took offense to this character when it first debuted in the mid-2000s, but WWE continued with it, and even brought him back a few years later.

Eugene reveals why his character could still work in WWE in 2020

In a recent interview with Chris van Vliet, Eugene spoke about his character and revealed why the character would work even in 2020, a time when there's more scrutiny on what's portrayed on screen.

"One thing I know about WWE is that they can almost always make anything work. You know what I mean? When Eugene first started, I didn't have my first match on TV for two or three weeks and in those first two or three weeks some people I had heard, like radio stations or news outlets were saying 'What is WWE going to do with this character?'. But the minute I won my first match, then they know it's an underdog story of a boy with a dream wanting to be a wrestler and he's fulfilling that dream."

In the same interview, he revealed how he got "positive affirmation" from fans for portraying the character and how he gave a voice to special-needs people.

You can check out the entire interview below:

Eugene first debuted in WWE in 2004 as the nephew of Eric Bischoff, who was then WWE RAW GM. He was with WWE until 2007, winning the World Tag Team title with William Regal.

He returned to the company twice after that, first in 2009 to reprise the Eugene character, and then in 2013 as a trainer in NXT. He has wrestled under his real name Nick Dinsmore in various independent promotions over the last few years.

Please H/T Chris van Vliet if you use any quotes from this interview.