Backstage WWE Details On Andrade's Wellness Policy Suspension
Did WWE creative team know about the US Champ's wellness violation BEFORE the Royal Rumble?
As widely reported earlier today, WWE superstar Andrade has been suspended for 30 days due to violating the WWE wellness policy. And now, there’s an update on just when WWE creative found out about this situation.
According to Dave Meltzer over at the Wrestling Observer, creative found out about Andrade’s suspension on Monday afternoon – just hours before that night’s episode of Raw.
Where the real-life Manual Oropeza is concerned, the current United States Champion was informed on Monday morning that he’d failed a wellness test. Once WWE creative were informed of this later that day, the decision was made to write him off TV for the foreseeable future by having Humberto Carrillo lay Andrade out with a DDT to the concrete floor.
Previously, we’ve seen champions drop their titles ahead of serving a suspension, but this wasn’t the case with Andrade. Reportedly, Paul Heyman made the call to keep the United States Championship on the former la Sombra.
Heyman is said to be extremely high on Andrade and sees him as a big-time player on the Raw brand moving forward. Added to that, the Raw executive director also thought it was too soon to put the US Title on Carrillo.
It’s a little unclear right now whether Vince McMahon and his inner circle were aware of Andrade’s failed test before his Royal Rumble match against Humberto, but WWE creative was definitely in the dark on the matter until Monday afternoon.
At present, it’s yet to be revealed what exactly caused Andrade to fail the wellness policy. For now, the ridiculously talented grappler has supposedly headed to Mexico to see out his 30-day suspension.