‘Brodus Clay Is Dead to Me’ — What Tyrus Has Been Hiding for 10 Years About His WWE Past

Brodus Clay WWE

He danced. He roared. He wore red leather and called himself the Funkasaurus.
But today, Tyrus doesn’t even want to hear the name “Brodus Clay” spoken aloud.

And now, we may finally know why.

In a tense, off-script moment during a recent podcast appearance, Tyrus was asked a seemingly harmless question:
“Do you ever miss the Brodus Clay days?”
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t dodge. He simply said:
“Don’t ever say that name in front of me again.”

The room fell silent.

To casual fans, Brodus Clay was the WWE persona Tyrus performed under in the early 2010s—a towering bodyguard-turned-dancing-comedy-act. But behind the sequins and catchphrases was a story of humiliation, backstage politics, and personal shame that Tyrus has spent years burying.

According to former WWE staffers, the transformation from fearsome heel to Funkasaurus wasn’t Tyrus’s idea at all.

“He was promised a monster push,” one ex-writer revealed. “The next big enforcer. But then Vince [McMahon] walked in one day, laughed, and said, ‘What if he dances?’”

From there, everything changed.

Creative has nothing for Brodus Clay but he had something for them - Cageside Seats

Tyrus reportedly protested the gimmick—calling it cartoonish and beneath his ability. But Vince McMahon allegedly responded with:
“You either dance… or you disappear.”

And so, Brodus Clay was born.
But every step of that dance became a silent act of resentment.

“He was the butt of jokes backstage,” another insider shared. “Guys would play his theme music when he walked into catering. He smiled through it, but it burned him.”

After leaving WWE, Tyrus reinvented himself in media and politics—but he never brought up Brodus Clay. Never included those clips in highlight reels. Never revisited the “Funkasaurus” legacy.

The twist?
Sources say Tyrus once demanded a podcast edit out an entire segment where a co-host quoted his old catchphrase:
“Somebody call my momma!”

The footage never aired.

Today, he’s a different man—bigger, darker, sharper. But the wound left by Brodus Clay still bleeds under the surface.

 

Because when your legacy is turned into a punchline,
sometimes the only way to move forward…
is to kill the character they forced on you—
and bury him where no one dares dig him up again.