Since being fired from WWE in April of 2020 due to “budget cuts,” EC3 has been all over the independent wrestling world. He wrestled for Impact, took part in the Ring of Honor Pure Title Tournament, and even started his own company, Control Your Narrative, which not only shares a phrase with his personal mantra but has thrown shows all over the country with a national tour on the books for the fall.

Following his final match in WWE, which took place in September of 2019, EC3 has wrestled 47 matches on the indies against everyone from Moose to The Briscoes, Jay Lethal, Matt Cardona, Erick Redbeard, and his CYN partner Adam Scherr, and found a way to make a living without having to fully turn over his talents to the creative vision of another.

And yet, if the right opportunity presents itself, EC3 has shown a willingness to play the game, as he's only amassed a 30-17 record outside of WWE and has put over performers like Alex Hammerstone and Bandido if that was the job his promoter booked him to do.

Fortunately, EC3 may have just found himself the perfect promotor to push his Narrative and add a little extra prestige to his legacy; a promotor who himself is no stranger to controversy or eccentricity: Billy Corgan.

That's right, after working two shows all the way back in 2013 when the name belonged to different owners, EC3 is heading back to the NWA to wrestle Mims on Night 1 of NWA 74. Does this make EC3 a hypocrite, to work for a bigger company after making a point to “control his own narrative” after his Ring of Honor run came to an end? Well, EC3 actually had a lot to say on the subject on NWA podcast, as dictated by Fightful.

“I never said I'm not a hypocrite. When I talk about three-letter brands, I actually became one when I was rallying against them. I'm a liar, I'm full of shit. Who cares. The narrative is not controlled, per se, because what I really believe with comments and social media and dopamine hits and quick responses, oftentimes, it's a vocal minority, to say the least. Who is boldly watching, without their finger on the button commenting, is silent. People that are silent, don't want to be silent anymore. What I'm realizing in wrestling and in the industry, there is more of us than them.”

But wait, there's more, as EC3 had some very interesting comments on Corgan, too, comparing the Smashing Pumpkins frontman-turned-wrestling promoter to one of the brightest minds in all of wrestling – himself.

“Your President [Billy Corgan] and I are very like-minded, we're both Pisces and we share the same birthday, so we're both masterminds of creative ingenuity. We also see the landscape of wrestling and how it's changed and the microcosm of one sect of fans have totally and completely foregone the millions upon millions that watched in years past. Trying to reach out to them and provide them with something of context and substance and character and story.”

Is EC3 about to blow through Mims on Night 1, challenge Trevor Murdoch and/or Tyrus for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on Night 2, and eventually become the proud owner of the promotion's famous “Ten Pounds of Gold?” Or is this just a one-off appearance that quickly gets forgotten? For everyone's sake, let's hope it's the former, as NWA needs a champion like EC3 to recapture their former pedigree.

NWA should go all-in on the former WWE performer.

There was a time when NWA was one of the feel-good stories of professional wrestling. The company, purchased by Corgan on 2017, allowed their champion, Nick Aldis, to wrestle Cody Rhodes at All In, allowed Thunder Rosa, and eventually Serena Deeb, to wrestle on Dynamite and AEW Pay-Per-Views, and even put on an all-female Pay-Per-View, named EmPowerrr, that saw many of the best independent workers on the scene showcase their abilities.

But then, the cracks started to show. Aldis aired out that he was never paid for his run during the pandemic, which, considering he was the promotion's champion for 1043 days from 2018-21, is pretty wild. Tony Khan then let it be known that he had to pay the AEW talent on EmPowerrr and that Corgan never even reached out to him about covering the costs of his own show; a response you can read below via an interview with Fightful and a transcription from WrestleTalk.

“It wasn’t a miscommunication. Tony has my number and honestly, I wish he had reached out privately on that if he had any issue with that. The fact that he went public with something and the other part of the equation was he talked about stuff without giving the other end of the equation. The other end of the equation I’ve never talked about publicly. So it would be like if you went—let’s pretend me and you were having a little bit of an issue—and you went public and said, ‘Billy should thank me for driving that car that he’s driving because I paid for the tires,’ right? So people might go, ‘Oh, yeah, Billy should thank him.’ If I don’t tell you the other end of the deal that was made, well, that does sound like it was kind of a one way street. But that’s not the deal. I’ve never talked about the other end of the deal. “I don’t think I should talk about the other end of the deal, but let’s put it this way—there was another end of the deal that he conveniently didn’t mentioned. I don’t have any issue with Tony. I think Tony’s done a tremendous job. Tony’s made it easier for me to operate in wrestling. When I go into business meetings with networks and talk to them, they look at AEW’s success as an indication that the market is shifting, that WWE doesn’t control the market like they did for twenty years. So I can only thank Tony [for making it easier] for me.”

Factor in that Corgan has already counted out another EmPowerrr show in 2022 due to “opacity of female talent,” and it's clear the company could really benefit from the addition of a champion like EC3, who not only brings a big name and some serious WWE pedigree to the promotion, but could take the belt on the road on his Control Your Narrative tour.