Maven was a middle school teacher when he won the inaugural Tough Enough reality competition in 2001, earning a WWF contract. His biggest, most iconic moment as a WWE Superstar came when he eliminated The Undertaker from the 2002 Royal Rumble.
He won the WWF Hardcore Championship but was ultimately released by the company in 2005. He competed on the independent scene for a short while, but in recent years, he's become a popular YouTube personality, recounting stories from the road and interviewing his fellow wrestlers.
In a new video, Maven shared his take on the current state of WWE and shared what he immediately acknowledged might be a "controversial" statement about former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon.
"I don’t think professional wrestling is a better product without Vince at the helm," he said. "Hold on. Let me explain. I’m well aware of the allegations, and no part of me is insinuating that WWE should bring Vince back. I don’t think so, and I don’t co-sign on anything he did."
He called McMahon an "amazing businessman" and "probably most important, Vince was a fan," unlike TKO, a company he believes is driven mostly by the "almighty dollar before the showmanship of professional wrestling."
Calling WWE "too glam" and "too clean," Maven said the product "almost looks too much like Cirque du Soleil in a wrestling ring rather than a real fight a bad guy versus a good guy. I think Hunter is doing a great job," but pointed out that "Hunter has bosses" and, if he could, likely "would change and go back to that just rugged professional wrestling [that] people of my age grew up loving."
This led to Maven saying he preferred the "grimy aspect" of professional wrestling that was more prevalent in the early 2000s. However, despite his complaints, he has a heartbreaking reason for why he struggles to watch WWE programming.
"Since my release in 2005, I truly grew bitter towards the business," he admitted. "And though I’ve exorcized those demons...it’s still something that whenever I watch. I can still trick my brain into thinking you can still do that, even though I know I can’t. And it just hurts too much."
"It’s hard to see a business that I love, a business that I’ve given so much of myself to given my body over to actually move on and be not only fine without me, but better off without me," Maven added. "All that said, I’m not done with wrestling. In fact, I recently was able to sneak inside of WWE's biggest competitor, AEW..."
You can hear more from Maven in the player below.