Karl Fredericks (Eddy Thorpe) Opens Up About His Personas In WWE NXT, Calling Lexis King ‘Greedy White Man’

Extensive comments from Fredericks.

For two years, Karl Fredericks f.k.a. Eddy Thorpe was a part of WWE. His time with the company came to an end in May 2025 when he was released.

For the first time since his exit, Fredericks opened up about his time on the NXT brand as he guest appeared on the B4 The Bell Podcast. Along the way, Fredericks dove into one of his personas on NXT TV, which harkened back to his Native American heritage. He feels they never got to the ‘meat and potatoes’ of it.

“Nearly two years, hey guys, I’m not a real human being. I smudge and dance in the forest and I come in and wrestle. Give me the mic in the ring. Let me talk like a human being. The first words out of my mouth, as I’m lying, which I know… it makes me a bad guy but, the first words out of my mouth, ‘Me and my people been through enough’ and then, the next week and this is in those little conversations (in the ring) where it’s really hard to change the context or you know what I mean? Like too much of the words. So, for a lot of that run, ‘Me and my people,’ and then, I tended to agree. You have to see the feedback online so it’s like, ‘He’s just b*tching about the same –’ it felt b*tchy, to me, so it’s just like, there was no meat and potatoes to it. In creative talks, there was always the things I wanna do, ideas we had gotten together and a deeper vision for it. But it just was always that. It was that only and then capped it off with the ‘greedy white man’ line. So then part of it for me was just like… that point of view or playing that character, doing that stuff… wasn’t for me.”

Fredericks went on to speak about the segment on NXT TV when he described Lexis King as “another greedy white man who’s not content with what he already has.” Fredericks said he thought about calling King a ‘colonizer’ instead.

“It’s when I called Lexis (King) a greedy white man? I was kind of stressed during the day. Is that the line? Because my Twitter’s racist — it’s enough already — like just seeing comments on my culture, and this Indian stuff, just stuff like that, and I remember going to some of the boys, showed them the script… Initially, everyone’s popping. Then I was thinking about watering it down a bit during the day, maybe changing it to colonizer. Something that would still get a laugh or whatever… One of the boys was just like, ‘Nah. If that’s what they want, give it to ‘em, man,’ and so we did it. Wes’ reaction was amazing, the reaction in the building was cool, then everyone backstage was, ‘Did you just say –’ and then, my favorite part was the wrestling community, the online wrestling community just… went rogue, and then, the release come, they’re like, ‘I knew it. See. It was only a matter of time.’ You think I’m just going out on my own? No (he laughed) … Okay, so also, context. A guy that’s already got one trophy but needs a second trophy… greedy white guy.”

If Fredericks could go back in time and reroute the directions his character went, he felt that with his Native American heritage, he should have been obsessed with the NXT North American Championship.

He stated that the title has only been held by ‘immigrants.’ Fredericks also spoke about the backstage segment when Shawn Michaels pressed him against a garage door because Fredericks accidentally hit General Manager Ava.

“We just didn’t get to some cool stuff that we had talked about and I remember coming in with Shawn (Michaels) and talking… especially as a heel, the Native American character, how cool would it be if I — I should be obsessed with the North American Title. As far as I’m concerned, that strap’s only been held by immigrants, you know what I mean? And that doesn’t sit right with me. My first four months in the P.C., I’m doing heel promos and I’m talking about resources and helping my people, and I need resources to help them. Stuff like gold. You wanna know the awful things you can get away with in pursuit of a resource like gold? What kind of gold do we have in our business? Championship gold. So, you know, I want that one. I want that one, to keep that one and continue climbing like that. Or if it was main roster, the U.S. Title, and then even, we had planned some sort of… We started with, you know, Ava’s blowing me off and then we have the moment, the really cool moment that I got with Shawn, him pressing me against the wall and that and we had somewhere in there where I was gonna talk my sh*t and then reference him, ‘If it was up to that cowboy in the back,’ blah, blah, blah. Even pitching that to him, if I’m doing this heel thing, why would I not? My cowboy boss. Like some sort of friction with that… It was a lot because also in those little segments, this is the first time any of this stuff is being done, or at least in the modern era and then there’s just a lot of teaching and educating to do at the same time, which can do. It’s somewhat in pro wrestling but it can’t just be like a history, with no one knowing it, and then with no one knowing, it’s hard if you only give ‘em those little things, it ends up being what it was. You get the gist of the character and things like that. I’d like to think that we would have got to that stuff but, like I said, it just wasn’t for me.”

Elsewhere during Fredericks’ time on the brand, his DJing that he did off-screen was incorporated into his on-screen presentation. He felt ‘unserious’ for a good chunk of that time.

“When I was doing the DJ stuff, at first, it was what it was and I thought the pretapes were cool and there was a lot of cool effort into it, you know? But then I thought, by the time I get through that blood feud with (Donovan) Dijak, then I’m off TV for six months and I come back and I’m DJing the Heritage Cup, and I’m arguing with Lexis King over the AUX cord… But it was just like, my feeling of where I was at. The Strap match with Dijak, then the Underground and I had left on — I’ve left with war paint, doing crazy stuff, main event, and then I was just like, ‘I’m so unserious.’ I’m doing all these things with Lexis and all these things and I was just like, ‘God, I’m so unserious now.'”

As for his in-ring future, Fredericks said he’s in ‘vacation mode,’ but he’s getting back into the swing of things. He’s had some phone calls and thinks people will see him pop up somewhere soon.

“Right now, nothing (coming up). Nothing scheduled. I’ve been on some phone calls. Like I said, I’m gonna go back from here straight to Newport Beach and go back in vacation mode. But, yeah, we’re training, we’re getting back in. So I’m sure you’ll see me pop up somewhere soon… Once we get back to wrestling, we’ll be back to ‘rasslin again.”

Before joining WWE, Fredericks was with New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He trained at the L.A. Dojo with Clark Connors and Alex Coughlin.

Fredericks last wrestled on the 4/15 NXT on The CW in a Fatal 4-Way match for a shot at the North American Championship.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the B4 The Bell Podcast with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.