Former WWE Raw general manager Brad Maddox is remembered as a key character during the rise of Daniel Bryan and the last every WWE Championship reign of CM Punk.
He was a controversial character in WWE cannon, taking the place of a crooked referee who was utilised by both CM Punk and The Authority to do their bidding and help them win matches.
However, he was not considered one of the stars of that era, and most fans will have done their best to try and forget his spell in charge.
He is one of the most controversial characters in WWE history. He was not received well and never got himself over as a heel – nobody wanted to see him get beat up, they just didn’t want to see him.
While he was a trained professional wrestler, he was very rarely able to step into the ring during his run, with many fans not even aware he was a wrestler at all.
Given he was, at one time, assistant to Vickie Guerrero many will have assumed he was a backstage talent and a non wrestler.
Brad Maddox made his debut at Hell in a Cell 2012 wearing the black and white shirt of the referee during a WWE championship match between back and then champions CM Punk.
He was the referee for the match despite being an unknown, most people not even realising he differed from the usual refs. During the match he hit Ryback with a low blow, costing him the match and ending his undefeated streak by helping Punk retain his title. This introduced him to the population in a big way.
He was fired by Triple H in 2014 as General Manager of Raw, leaving him in a lurch. His time on Raw was up and all he was known as was as the wily, snivelling GM, so he was forced back down to developmental to learn to become a pro-wrestler again.
He appeared as Brad Maddox at WrestleMania 30 in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which would be his last appearance in WWE under the name he was most infamous.
He would craft a new persona soon after, reappearing months later as Joshua Kingsley. He sported a new look and attitude, trading his brown curls for some light blonde spikes and his mild-mannered speech with some terrible, terrible words for the audience.
He only appeared on dark matches (matches taped before the show began, not to be seen by the fans at home) and the occasional main event appearance, although his attempted comeback did not last for long.
Brad Maddox was fired by WWE for shouting at the audience during a taping for Friday Night Smackdown. He reportedly shouted at a booing crowd, calling them “Cocky Pricks”.
Swear words were not allowed in WWE under any circumstances, due to the TV shows PG nature, so Vince McMahon saw no choice but to let him go. However, it wasn’t like he was doing much anyway and they were likely just looking for a way to get rid of him and found their excuse.
After he was fired by Triple H in 2014 (in storyline), he released a series of videos showcasing his acting talent, claiming that he was “lost in a cave” and asking fans to come and find him. However, these went nowhere and were not referenced on TV at all.
Read more about Brad Maddox stuck in a cave.
But what happened to Brad Maddox after he was fired by WWE? Did he wrestle again?
What Happened To Brad Maddox?
After being fired by WWE, Brad Maddox attempted to make a comeback on the independent scene. Going by the name Mad Braddox (just switching the first letters of his WWE name), he wrestled a handful of matches on the indies to little fanfare.
The moniker of “former WWE Superstar” held little weight for a man nobody had seen wrestle in years and his career did not take off as expected.
What little he had then fell off a click when the “WWE Paige Leaks” occurred. Former WWE Superstar Paige found her iCloud account hacked and her private contents leaked, which was bad enough. However, these leaks included a number of homemade sex tapes featuring herself, Brad Maddox and WWE Superstar Xavier Woods.
Videos included Maddox and Paige having sex, as well as him filming her engaging with Xavier Woods. The event was hugely embarrassing for Paige, who has spoken out about the toll it took on her mentally, and it halted the career he was trying to craft for himself after leaving WWE.
He took some time away from the public eye during this time, with very little information about what he was doing. However, he would later resurface under a new name, not to continue wrestling but to pursue a new career.
Remerging as Tyler K Warner, the former WWE star attempted to step into the world of acting. However, according to his IMDB page, he has not currently starred in any projects outside of the WWE, although he is currently filming a comedy called “Gerald, Dean, & Geraldeen”, in the role of Officer Baker.
Maddox was most recently part of the first virtual autograph signing of 2021 under the Damage365 Promotions banner. He was appearing under his old wrestling name for the first time in years, with very little information about what he has been up to since.
Brad Maddox Revealed Porn Addiction Struggles In WWE
In a recent interview Rip Rogers’ podcast, Brad Maddox revealed that he suffered with a pornography and sex addiction when he was called up to the WWE main roster.
He revealed that he only debuted on TV because of a John Cena injury, although his mind wasn’t focused on the task at hand, due to a crippling porn addiction.
Now I’m sure you know the news, fairly old at this point, right? Some stuff leaked. I mean, it was kind of that time period when I got, so I had a porn addiction and then that cascaded into a sex addiction and that was a whole thing for me that was just very mind consuming.
So I wasn’t very focused right at the time when I should have been. Then I’m going up there as a referee and I’m having to carry a walkie talkie around, and my ego is just fu**ing too big and it didn’t fully take advantage of opportunities, I don’t think.”
What did you think of Brad Maddox in WWE? Let us know in the comments or click below to find out what happened to Randy Orton and Matt Riddle.