WWE Hall of Famer Paul Ellering was the guest on this week's "Two Man Power Trip Of Wrestling" podcast, and he revealed that had the COVID-19 pandemic not happened, he would have returned to WWE television by now. We haven't seen him since he was written off TV back in 2018 when The Authors of Pain were moved to the main roster.
They decided to ditch Ellering (as Vince McMahon isn't a fan of managers), but suffered for it, and didn't regain their momentum until being paired with Seth Rollins.
According to Ellering, he was being brought back to manage the formidable duo this year, and it's unclear what this would have done to their partnership with the Monday Night Messiah. "The idea was to bring me back in, but then this Corona stuff came up. Then the guys got hurt and they were out a while, so everything got put on the back shelf and I don’t know where it sits now."
He also reflected on how much he enjoyed managed AOP in NXT. "WWE asked if I would fly down to Orlando and talk about it," Ellering reflected. "After I met Rezar and Akam, the Authors of Pain, then I knew I wanted to do it because they are two terrific young men. The best of the best. I wanted to do it to help them. We had a good run for 2 years. It was fun. I really enjoyed being around all the young people there. I would fly down for TV and maybe an extra date to do interviews so I never had to be on the road."
With any luck, we'll see more of Ellering and The Authors of Pain in the not too distant future. For now, their status remains unclear, but WWE is slowly starting to return to normal.