During an appearance on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, Shane Thorne spoke about showing up to WWE events only to not be used on the show.

"I was at SmackDown every single week and I think I got written into the show and off the show, four or five times. It became comical of how long I could be employed without doing anything. How many times can we stop and start this? No idea. Run out of time on the show? SmackDown is a shorter show. I'd wrestle in the ring before the shows. Train with people. Some of the most fun I had in WWE was working on SmackDown, on the main roster run where I may not have been doing anything, but hanging out in the ring with people and wrestling."

Thorne continued.

"One of them was a basic backstage where Pearce and Deville were talking and they were like, 'here's a new person for SmackDown...Shane Thorne,' and I'm like, 'Hey guys, how ya doing?' Sami Zayn would come cut me off, make it about him. Cool, whatever gets me in there. I'm not pitching to become World Champion. Just put me in the background. Just so I exist. My part got cut because they didn't want me to be Shane. They wanted a new name. Call me Dave, Bob, John, whatever. You're just going to call me Thorne in a few weeks anyway. People don't have two names. Who cares, whatever gets me out there. Me and Toni Storm did this thing with Corbin where he was down on his luck. They came up to Toni and go, 'Here is your part for that.' 'What about my bit?' 'Uhhh, sorry, you've been cut.' In 15 minutes, they cut all of them. I had a few chats with Vince, spitballing ideas, it just never came to."