Mace said that he and Mansoor were pleased to see Stephanie McMahon take charge as she had previously complimented and went to bat for them. 

“We have a meeting where I believe that’s when they announced that Stephanie would be taking over as the CEO. Stephanie, who we love. Stephanie who … we thought we had jobs for life because after we did our SummerSlam water spot, Stephanie walks up to me and Mansoor and she says, ‘You guys are amazing. You guys can do no wrong.’ I was like, ‘We’ve got jobs for life, baby.’ We were wrong. But she’s always been lovely to us.”

He recalled that those who were a part of the Black and Gold “NXT” were elated that Triple H was going to be in charge, but the athletes who were Vince McMahon’s “guys” were not pleased to see him retire. Mace added that it was very chaotic after McMahon’s initial retirement as the former WWE CEO would sometimes call in and ask for the show to be changed.

“It’s funny when we all got the texts we’re all sitting around the ring because people are going over their matches and their segments and all that and you could see certain people got it and they were like [happy] and then other people were like [sad],” said Mace. “Not that we were ever like Vince’s baby doll but we were much closer to being Vince’s toy than we were ever to being Hunter’s toy because we weren’t NXT guys.”