The Ascension was one of the most popular and dominating tag teams ever to set foot in NXT , but Vince McMahon apparently didn’t agree with that. Konnor and Viktor were huge members of the yellow brand and overly successful, but then they were moved up to the WWE main roster. According to one legendary Hall of Famer, Vince told WWE announcers to purposely bury the team during their time in the ring.
Konnor and Viktor won the NXT Tag Team Championship only one time, but they are still the longest-reigning champions ever. Upon moving up to the main roster, they were hardly ever used or seen as comedy relief, which shocked so many fans who watched them destroy the NXT roster for years.
Arn Anderson recently spoke of The Ascension on his podcast, and after all these years, he’s still confused. As transcribed by Ringside News , Anderson states that Vince told the main roster commentary team to bury them after their arrival on SmackDown and Monday Night Raw .
“Why would you take any character that is on our show, that the company professes to being the number one wrestling company or the number one sports entertainment company in the entire world…and put them on our TV show with valuable TV time and bury them? Have the announcers bury them?”
Even though this information is just coming out, numerous members of the WWE Universe have long thought about it. There is no doubt that The Ascension floundered on both the red and blue brands, and it still makes no sense to anyone.
In December 2019, Viktor and Konnor received their releases from WWE after more than eight months without a match. Their last match with the company was a loss to Heavy Machinery on the April 12 episode of Main Event .
During their time on the main roster, The Ascension amassed nearly 350 losses while having less than 50 victories as a team. They never once held a tag team championship of any kind after their time in NXT, and they were vastly underutilized.
Arn Anderson went on to say that “everything character-wise” has to go by Vince McMahon before making it to the ring. Anything regarding characters and storylines has to be given his approval in NXT and WWE. For some reason, The Ascension appeared to land in the good graces of Vince, and it led to nearly five years of solid losses for the tag team.
