Lars Sullivan’s Anxiety Issues Were Reportedly Due to Fear of Repercussions for Past Comments

When WWE first planned to bring Lars Sullivan to the main roster in January, the plan was for him to attack John Cena, which would lead to a match between the two at WrestleMania. But that never happened and Lars was out for a couple of months with anxiety issues.

When the anxiety story broke, the assumption was that Lars suffered from stage fright and was anxious about performing in a huge feud in front of a lot of people. But according to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the anxiety issues were largely due to the other big Lars story recently: his past controversial comments.

When the story of Sullivan’s past comments began to surface last year, it eventually died down, but there was always an expectation within WWE that there was a good chance it would come up again when he was moved to the main roster. According to the Observer, Sullivan’s anxiety issues were largely due to the fear of repercussions from the story coming out again both on himself, WWE and people close to him.

Though a lot of the posts were ugly, they were made several years ago and people within WWE and those close to Lars felt that he was sincerely apologetic and hated what he said and they were not his true feelings. Sullivan was also well-liked during his time in NXT and was seen as “a big fan and a student, a nice, humble guy, who didn’t get a big head even though it was clear he was a company favorite due to his unique look,” the Observer says.

WWE hoped that the controversy would go away again, but when people on Reddit began tattling to sponsors, WWE felt that they had to come down hard on him ($100,000 fine) in order to avoid releasing him.

Titus O’Neil said yesterday that Lars also sincerely apologized to him and other members of the WWE roster.