Arturo Ruas Confirms Planned Involvement In WWE Diamond Mine

Arturo Ruas was released by WWE on June 25 after six years with the company. Reports emerged following Ruas' release that he and Marina Shafir were going to be original members of NXT faction Diamond Mine, but plans for them to debut with the group were scrapped only a few days before the June 22 episode of NXT.

Ruas has now confirmed to Wrestling Inc. he was going to debut with the group and that plans had been in the works going back to at least November 2020.

"When I did my match with Kushida, I knew that the storyline of that match would be leading to me being a part of Malcolm Bivens' group. It wasn't Diamond Mine yet. I was supposed to be in that group, and then I got injured. I got surgery on my bicep, and things kind of stopped, but I healed. I got cleared, and everything started to run again. That's where Diamond Mine came up. It would be a group of legit fighters with legit backgrounds," Ruas revealed.

"I always was and I am still a hard-working man. I worked my ass off. I worked a lot and not just because I want to improve my technique, but I wanted to always be sharp, to be able to deliver a good show because people are paying the tickets. People want to see a good show, and I don't want to disappoint the people. People are paying to see what they want to see, and that's why I worked my ass off, and then I started to work more and more and I got more in shape. And I did my gear and things started to kind of move a little bit weirdly. They cancelled one date. They pushed it to another date," he continued.

"Not just for me, the group itself and then they cancelled another date, and they cancelled a big date supposed. And finally, they were like, okay, it will be this day. I was like, let's go. The group were talking together, and then days before, not weeks - they billed it on Tuesday. I got a call Saturday. 'Hey man, we're putting you off now, but you're going to be on soon.' I felt like something's weird, something's off here. I was like, 'Hey, let me know more. What's happening?' They said, 'No, nothing's happening. You're good. You're going to be on later because if you debut altogether, it won't make sense, but in the future, you're going to be there. That's it.' The same week, bye-bye."

Ruas would ultimately be released only three days after Diamond Mine's debut on June 22. The new faction consists of Roderick Strong, Tyler Rust, Hideki Suzuki and Malcolm Bivens.