Shane Thorne knew what he was being told wasn't true.
Former NXT star Shane Thorne recently appeared on the Two Man Power Trip podcast and during the conversation, Thorne called back to the time and he former TM-61 tag partner Nick Miller were told that they were winning the Dusty Classic back in 2016, but Thorne claims he knew it was going to be the Authors of Pain that hoisted the cup, all along.
"We were told we were winning that Dusty Classic, until that day, I knew we weren't," Thorne admitted. "We had been working with AOP at all the house shows and I knew they were the ones they were putting all the effort behind. They are good dudes, I liked working (with them). They finally paid it back in the next Dusty Classic. They are good guys. They were good to us and appreciative of the work we did together, but they had the cool entrance, the music, and the manager and all these things. 'I'm pretty sure we're not winning.' They pull us aside and go, 'You're not the main event anymore, you're the opening match, you've lost a bit of time, and they are going over.' I'm like, 'Yeah, we knew.' The writing was on the wall."
Thorne pointed out the officials in the office as the ones telling he and Vink they were winning the cup.
"The office," Thorne recalled. "I had another torn ACL. The match with Roderick Strong, which was the only singles match in a tag team tournament that's ever happened. The night or two before, Aries busted his eye, so he was out a few weeks and we needed to film this. We had this singles match and during it, I did a double stomp and one leg went straight to the ground. I grabbed my knee and I'm like, 'uhhh.' We just didn't get it checked. I could walk, I was fine. I did most of the match on one leg and I knew we had the Australia tour immediately after and I'm like, 'I'm not getting pulled from that. Let's tape it or walk it off, should be right.' It was. I got it fixed."
Thorne was released from WWE in November 2021 due to 'budget cuts'.
Elsewhere during the interview, Thorne discussed his decision to stay with WWE after his tag team partner, Mikey Nicholls left. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
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