Saw this interesting comment in a transcript of a Viscera interview on WO:

 

 

The converation segues into how much fun the "Love Machine" character is for Viscera and how people really love it. He then says how the WWE had to put the brakes on the character as it was getting too popular too fast. As he says, "You're not supposed to outshine certain people."

 

 

WTF? Who in WWE was worried about being outshined by Big Vis The Love Machine? The man was doing his job and went from being an entertaining part of RAW to being the World's Largest Jobber, seemingly because someone's feelings got hurt.

Not that he wasn't getting over, but he's completely overstating how over he was. Even then, he wasn't getting a push in the ring because he was standing behind a LOT of charismatic guys on RAW. And considering the ones that didn't get pushed at that time (namely Christian and Edge), he didn't deserve it even if he did get over with people who had a soft spot for the gimmick. How am I supposed to defend a wrestling character to my channel-surfing friends, who incorporated a taunt of mounting his opponent and thrusting into his ass? There was a three-week period last spring where I had to turn off his matches when I was with company.

I'm going to be dead honest here. I never heard anything I'd call a good reaction to him during that time. It seemed he was almost always coming out to crickets chirping.

Viscera did have a three-week spell or so where he was drawing the highest quarter hours of anyone on either show. But obviously, something like that is going to fizzle out pretty quickly. I had no idea he wasn't in the company anymore.

Wait, he got released? WTF? I was never a fan or anything, but it seems a bit strange they would release him.

I don't believe he was released. He faced Conway on Heat 2 weeks ago.

 

As for his overness, he gets pretty big pops on Heat.

He was on an open contract. So they technically didn't release him, they just stopped hiring him for dates.