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By Andrew Ravens
Contributing Sports Writer
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In his first post-WWE interview with Chris Van Vliet, Cedric Alexander opened up about an intense moment in his wrestling career that got him blowback from fans.
Beyond discussing his WWE release and potential AEW ventures, Alexander delved into the history of his signature move, the Lumbar Check. He recalled an instance during an independent show before both he and Candice LeRae signed with WWE when he used the move on LeRae.
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The impact of the Lumbar Check, coupled with LeRae's exceptional selling, created a viral moment that unfortunately spiraled into death threats for Alexander. He said:
"The funny thing is the less you try to sell it, the better it is. So I've had guys, I get them up and they try to recoil, because you want to get that classic bounce and recoil off of it. But it never really works out. Candice LeRae is the reason why people try to take it like that, actually. So I'm doing a show in Cleveland for AIW and it's like an eight-hour drive for me from North Carolina.
I'm driving up the whole way, and I know it's like the six-person scramble match with Candice, ACH, I'm sorry I don't remember names of the other guys in the match, but Candice LeRae and ACH were in that match in particular. I remember thinking, I do cool things with ACH all the time. That's cool. But what can I do with Candice? She takes the lumbar check. And that's as far as I thought it through, I didn't think it was gonna get viral or anything like that.
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I remember calling it to her and go, Hey, you want to take this? She goes, Yeah, sure, whatever. And the moment I got her up and threw in the air, if you've watched the viral clip of it. You hear someone go, 'Oh no', bang, and she flies over my head by the rope. And I'm like, I just killed Candice. All right, moving on to the next part. And then I wake up the next morning. It's viral on Twitter and millions and millions of views, I got death threats. Yeah, people thought I killed Candice. People legit thought I killed Candice."
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Alexander also shared the origin of the move. He got the idea after seeing it in Mortal Kombat, where Sub Zero used it.
"Mortal Kombat. I think we got it from Sub Zero. Sub Zero had a finishing move in the game where he rips your spine, it's called the lumbar intrusion or something like that. We're like, that sounds weird. So before I actually got that far, Steve Corino was trying to help me think of moves, names for it and we came up with a whole bunch of weird stuff and he said something with a check in it.
I was like, I like that kind of but I don't know what else to put with it. And then after kind of brainstorming with my wife or girlfriend at the time, Big Swole. So I was brainstorming. And she goes, What about the lumbar intrusion thing from Sub Zero? I went I don't like that. I remember Steve Corino was like something check. I was like, lumbar check?
Because you're falling on the lumbar, and it's great. I was like, okay, that works, perfect. We'll go with it. And this is how it came up with the move. I've actually been doing that move since like the second year I started wrestling, so it's not a new move for me, because I just randomly started doing it, just because I think, I thought it'd be cool. I saw Roderick Strong doing a one knee version. And then, yeah, that's why."
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