Thanks to Dave Meltzer, we have new backstage details on Andrade's recent Wellness Policy suspension. Usually, a Superstar is sent home immediately after the company learns that they failed a test but there are rare occasions when they're allowed to make at least a few more appearances in order to wrap up storylines.
While it's been explained that WWE wanted to write Andrade off television on
RAW because Paul Heyman believed it was too early to put the United States Championship on Humberto Carrillo, what we don't know is why the angle wasn't shot during the Royal Rumble Kickoff.
Well, it turns out that Andrade wasn't told about his suspension until a few hours before RAW and that creative had no idea on Sunday.
"They tell nobody," Meltzer explains. "Literally, until the day of the [announcement], nobody knows. As far as when the Andrade test came in, I don’t know that it was [on Monday]. Vince may have known and Paul Levesque may have known [on Sunday] but literally nobody else. The writing team would not have known until [Monday]. This was done at that point."
"Nobody knew in the morning [before Raw]," he adds. "In the afternoon they did know and then they adjusted from there."
How WWE books Andrade upon his WWE return will likely say a lot about how the company feels about his suspension but it's important to note that a failure doesn't mean he actually did anything wrong. He could have simply missed a test or ended up taking a tainted supplement. We'll let you know if we hear more.