Former Wwe Star Recounts Being Put On Fired List After Concussion Scare

Shannon Moore discussed his early wrestling years in WCW, WWE and 3 Count’s formation. He particularly recalled an incident when he suffered a concussion and conversations with Paul Orndoff who seemingly had an intent to fire him and Shane Helms. 

Moore explained that when he was initially hired by WCW, Eric Bischoff had planned a Tough Enough-centric show with 21 cruiserweights living together in a reality show format. On the Insight Podcast, Moore highlighted training at the WCW Power Plant with Helms, and the two often encountered difficulties with the younger talent. 

“Shortly after we were hired, a few months after, out of the 21 cruiserweights, there was only I think five or six that they didn’t fire, me and Shane, Jimmy Wang Yang, Jamie Noble, there were several of us that they kept around. So at that point, we were just home getting paid, and they were like, ‘We need you guys to come to the Power Plant.’ That’s kind of how it evolved. We were down at the Power Plant. Actually, me and Shane, we were down there for about two weeks, and I got a really bad concussion one day training with some of these guys, which we laugh about it now. But these guys were trying to bully us, and they were really young in the business at the time. Shane and I had been around for a while at that point, so we were pretty decent in the ring, and somehow I got kneed in the temple in one of these drills, woke up in a McDonald’s looking at Shane, and I was like, ‘Dude, where am I?’ He’s like, ‘What do you mean? We’re in Atlanta. Are you okay? You just finished training.’” 

“I panicked. I remember calling my girlfriend at the time. I ran out, and it was the time of payphones. I remember calling her, going, ‘Hey, where am I at?’ Went back in, and Shane’s like, ‘Dude, you drove here too.’ We ended up going back to the Power Plant.” 

He further revealed his father’s quadriplegic condition which prompted him and Helms to leave the facility and return home. However, Moore cited Orndorff had placed them on a list of wrestlers to be fired despite initially telling them they could leave, and then WWE manager Jimmy Hart’s intervention. 

“At the time, my dad, he was quadriplegic. I was like, man, I need to get back home. I’m not staying down here and getting injured. So me and Shane, we went into Paul Orndorff, and we were like, ‘Hey, man, we’re heading out of here. We’re going home.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I don’t know why you’re here, anyways. You guys shouldn’t even be here. Go home; everything’s cool.’ I remember I was going through a McDonald’s drive-through, and Jimmy Hart calls me, and Jimmy’s like, ‘Baby, what are you doing? What are you doing? Why did you guys leave?’ I was like, ‘Well Paul said that we could.’ Jimmy’s like, ‘No, he put you on a to-be-fired list.’ Just that whole political game. Paul was gonna try to have us fired for leaving, but it was like either stick around there and get hurt, or get out of there. Me and Shane was like, man, we got to get out of here.”