Why Vince McMahon Won’t Push Luke Harper
He was a Bludgeon Brother, for a time, but that gimmick never shook off the Early Installation Weirdness stigma. It was a jumbled mash of residual Wyatt Family aesthetic and comedic ’80s props, and never connected.
Harper, by 2018, was an established “guy”—an act WWE used, and pushed to an extent, but never starred.
Something bizarre happened after Harper underwent wrist surgery in 2018. His absence seemed to irritate Vince McMahon so much that he could remember only his failure to put on a southern accent, which was cited by the Wrestling Observer as the reason behind his burial over WrestleMania 35 Weekend. Vince “hated” his Axxess match against Dominik Dijakovic. He blamed Harper for the failure of the EC3/Drake Maverick partnership; his work—laid out by agents—did not please the boss, and so the decision was made to scrap his planned feud with Sami Zayn, and, indeed, his career. Harper was removed from the road, and the time spent recuperating from his surgery was tacked on to the length of his contract, from which there was no escape. He requested his release via Twitter, Vince McMahon refused in writing to grant it, and rumours circulated that Triple H—the Head of Talent Relations—ghosted him.
Exiled, Harper was left to rot—until Clash Of Champions.
In a shocking development, Harper returned to assist his old partner Rowan, who defeated Roman Reigns in the semi-main as the bungled “Whodunnit” saga took another unexpected turn. And this was sudden; according to Dave Meltzer, Harper received the call to return on Friday. For the benefit of the ‘FDM’ crowd, who will not believe that “plans change” so frequently in WWE, the alternative is a massively convoluted work in which Harper pretended to ask for his release so that WWE could bomb a major Roman Reigns storyline to conceal the return of a midcarder.
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