Ricardo Rodriguez On Getting Booted From WWE's The Ascension By Dusty Rhodes

While many wrestling fans remember The Ascension as a tag team, consisting of Konnor and Viktor, originally it was created as a larger stable. And it was put together by none other than Alberto Del Rio's personal ring announcer — Ricardo Rodriguez. So, how did The Ascension go from being a group to being a straight-up tag team?

During a recent appearance on "Developmentally Speaking," Rodriguez went in depth about the group and his departure from it, claiming that the decision to remove him from The Ascension was made by "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes.

"I get pulled into the office by Dusty," Rodriguez said. "He goes 'Oh, Ricardo baby, I've got to talk to you.' So I go into the office ... and he straight up just goes 'You're out of The Ascension.' I was like 'What? Huh? What?' 'Yeah. You're out of The Ascension, baby. It contradicts what you're doing on TV.' And I'm just like, 'What the f***? What?'" 

"So I got kicked out of The Ascension, the group I created, right? And at the time, I didn't get it," Rodriguez explained. "I was upset, 'cause I was like 'Dude, you kicked me out of the thing I made.' But to his credit, I guess he had bigger plans for them, and then it was contradicting what I was doing on TV, on 'Raw' and 'SmackDown.'"

While Rodriguez didn't love certain directions The Ascension would ultimately go in — including the brief period the group was presented as vampires — overall he believes it all worked out for the best.

"It turned out very well for them because the stuff they did in FCW and 'NXT' was awesome," Rodriguez said. "As time went on, obviously they broke up and stuff, but when it became Viktor and Konnor, that was awesome what they did in 'NXT.' The whole presentation."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Developmentally Speaking" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription