A former champion says his brand new wrestling character is what he wanted a past gimmick in WWE to look like.
In late 2022, former multi-time WWE 24/7 Champion Reggie was repackaged as SCRYPTS – a mysterious masked individual who spray painted the walls of the Performance Center and vowed to “tear NXT apart.”
This mission did not become a reality however, as SCRYPTS’ repackaging didn’t lead to much in the way of a major push and he was eventually unmasked by Axiom the following Spring before beginning anew again in WWE by starting up OTM alongside Lucien Price and Bronco Nima.
After his WWE exit in 2024, SCRYPTS transitioned to the independent scene under the name Sidney Akeem, which he was since used in promotions such as TNA, GCW and Ring of Honor.
At Awesome Championship Wrestling’s Aftershock event in Poughkeepsie, New York, Akeem debuted a new character: Soleil – a superhero inspired gimmick which taps into his own past.
Speaking with Ropes N Riffs, Akeem said Soleil is what he envisioned for SCRYPTS, but he didn’t have the creative freedom in WWE to properly realize his ideas:
“…To be honest, Soleil is what I wanted Scrypts to be, but I didn’t have full creative freedom with the Scrypts character. It was just so many different cooks in the kitchen. When you saw Scrypts that was an accumulation of the head writer, the writing team, this person, that person, myself and whatnot and it was just all over the place.
“But this is 100% authentically me, and I was hired because of my story in WWE but I never got to use that story. And so I said, if my story and my athletic ability was good enough for me to get hired in a company where I had zero experience, then that story must be good. So I must tell that story.”
“And so, when I got to the indies I seen people talk about how they have so much freedom on the indies to do whatever. They don’t talk about the grind and how hard it is and bookings they come sparingly, but they talk about the freedom you have and you’re so much happier. I was very happy when I put this mask on and did this story.
“I could have stayed Sidney Akeem and whatnot, but I’m going to do both. I’m not going to lose who I am, because I am a character myself. But Soleil represents a big group of people, mainly kids that look like me or been through things that I’ve been through because I’m letting them know that it’s ok to put on a mask, not to hide, but as a sign of courage. It’s a sign of, I’m gonna do what I got to do, regardless if the world around me tells me that I can’t.”
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Soleil Is Sidney Akeem’s Redemption After “Losing Himself”
Akeem continued, agreeing that the Soleil character is a symbol of redemption after prioritising what others were wanting from him.
“Very much so. Because we get so often caught up in what’s right and what’s wrong and then we listen to this person and that person, but then we forget that true happiness, that spark always comes from within, it starts from within.
“You get so worried about is this going to be good for this person, for that person? Am I doing it for this person, this person, this person? And then you just lose yourself. And I, in a way lost myself. Like, I was doing good stuff because I’m able to compartmentalize and say, ‘You know what? This is what they want, I’m gonna focus on this.’ But in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t the best thing for me for sure.
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