The Hurt Business once stood a very real chance of becoming WWE's top heel faction. Led by Bobby Lashley, MVP served as a manager, and Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander provided backup starting in 2020.
They were pushed seriously, with Lashley holding the United States Championship and Alexander and Benjamin becoming RAW Tag Team Champions. However, shortly after the All Mighty became WWE Champion, he booted the tag team from the group and remained with MVP until the manager was paired with Omos.
WWE dropped the ball on The Hurt Business and tried revisiting the concept (to some extent) by pairing Lashley with The Street Profits and B-Fab. The group didn't really connect with fans, and Lashley, MVP, and Benjamin are now AEW's Hurt Syndicate.
Talking to Chris Van Vliet, MVP opened up on his decision to leave WWE for AEW, and blamed the company's treatment of the faction for his ultimately deciding that it wasn't worth sticking around.
"Everybody knows that The Hurt Business got shut down in WWE for reasons that have never been made clear to me. No one has ever said, and I begged Vince, Bobby begged Vince, but please don't do this. Vince had his ideas of what he wanted to do, and everybody genuinely agrees that we got shut down way too soon. So when it came time for our contracts, I made it very clear that I don't want to be there anymore. There are people there in management that I dislike immensely, a person, and I wouldn't even bother to get into that. But I just knew that with certain people in charge, and that's how the wrestling game is, that's how life is. I don't care where you work."
"When management changes, some people are out, other people are in, and I knew it was time to go. I wasn't gonna re-sign. I was in Bobby's ear constantly like don't re-sign. Shelton got released. Don't re-sign. Let's you me and Sheldon get back together. Let's go to AEW. I know we can go to AEW and we can pick this thing back up. I'm grateful to Tony Khan for seeing the value in us and giving us an opportunity to come over there and continue to tell our story and help some of these younger talents. Because contrary to what the internet tells you, there are a lot of young guys that come up and ask us for advice and ask us to watch their matches and ask us for insight, and I love being able to pay it forward because people gave it to me."
"So thank you to Tony Khan for seeing something in us and believing in us and giving us an opportunity to end The Hurt Syndicate in AEW, and for us to finish telling our story."
The Hurt Syndicate has been a hit in AEW. While many fans initially dismissed MVP's complaints about WWE as the usual grumblings from a former employee, it's become apparent that he was justified in expressing dissatisfaction.
Ultimately, The Hurt Business wasn't a faction that Triple H had much interest in. Was WWE's loss ultimately AEW's gain? That's up for debate, but MVP seems much happier working for Tony Khan.