Damien Sandow Recalls WWE Ignoring His Popularity

Aron Stevens was recently a guest on Fightful's The Wrestling Perspective Podcast, and spoke about WWE deliberately ignoring his popularity with the fans during his time there as Damien Sandow. Stevens explained:

"I did an autograph signing a couple of weeks ago, and one of the guys putting the signing on said 'Hey, I have to let you know something; my friend works for WWE and worked for them when you were there.' I knew who he was talking about. They would get the house show reports back and it would list the biggest pops of the night; he said, 'You were right there; it was [John] Cena and you.' 

"Then it got to a point where they would bring that back to certain people in the office, who will remain nameless because I’m not that guy to name names and bury people. They said 'don’t even mention him anymore.' So that’s how far removed I was from any opportunity. They didn’t want to hear my name, yet they kept me on the road for whatever. It’s all good; that’s the entertainment industry, it isn’t ballet, it’s not all fair, and that’s life. But as a performer, I’m just thinking what do I have to do? Because I was blowing the roof off the place. So I had a bitter taste in my mouth, and then I had the opportunity for IMPACT Wrestling, and many of my friends were there. So I got to go there and get creative and stuff."

As Sandow, Stevens did win the Money in the Bank briefcase, but became only the second person to cash in unsuccessfully, losing to John Cena on a 2013 episode of Raw. (The first Superstar to fail with their cash-in was, ironically, Cena himself, who was only able to defeat CM Punk via disqualification in 2012.)

However, the peak of his popularity probably came a year later, when he began acting as The Miz's stunt double - dubbed Damien Mizdow. The duo saw Stevens' popularity soar, but after he and Miz split up and feuded, he ultimately lost to the A-Lister and never progressed further up the card.

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