Chris Masters reveals career heartbreak post-WWE exit
Chris Masters wishes more people got to see the matches he’s been having since exiting WWE.
A new episode of Insight premiered today with Chris Van Vliet interviewing Masters. During the conversation, Van Vliet asked the former WWE wrestler about any regrets he has with his career.
“Hindsight is always 20/20, but there’s a lot of things I can look back on now that I see much clearer now than I did back then. But wrestling, it’s tough,” Masters said. “There’s so much to it and you only learn, really, gradually with time, you know, to master all of it, whether it be the politics or the in-ring stuff or your character and your presentation, all that stuff.
“So there’s a lot of stuff that I would have probably done differently or that I wish I had known back then, but I know that I know now, right? And the part that breaks my heart is, like over the last 10 years, I’ve been, I’m so comfortable in the ring. It’s my place of comfort. And I just know that I’ve had, you know, some of the best matches of my career. And the fact that those aren’t happening on a bigger platform, that breaks my heart sometimes. Because it’s like, it’d be nice for people to be [able to] appreciate my work and see what I can do now and the fact that I can go out here and do everything pretty darn well.”
Masters added that he’s grateful to still be able to wrestle in front of good fans every week on the indies, where he’s having a lot of fun. He previously wrestled for the NWA as well and had two reigns as NWA National Champion.
In the same interview, Masters addressed how close he came to winning gold in WWE and how issues he had with John Cena might have affected that.
Masters had two separate stints with WWE, the first of which ended in 2007 before he was brought back from 2009-2011. He was best known for his “Master Lock Challenge,” a recurring segment where he invited competitors to break out of his full nelson submission hold, which was portrayed to be impossible.
Rosanne Raphael is a wrestling writer with over three and a half years of experience covering all things related to the industry. From a kindergarten teacher to PR Associate to turning her lifelong passion for the industry into a career, Rosanne is currently writing for F4W Online where she focuses on wrestling news, analysis, and storytelling.
Rosanne previously contributed to Sportskeeda as an Assistant Content Manager.
When not consumed by wrestling, Rosanne is a musician and an aspiring artist.