Maven Huffman has cracked the code to YouTube success in life after professional wrestling.
More than 20 years have passed since Huffman and WWE went their separate ways, which led the inaugural “WWE Tough Enough” winner to make brief appearances in TNA and the indies before hanging up his boots entirely in 2007. Rather than returning to the ring to regain wrestling fame, Huffman has made his impact in the content creation scene with his ultra-popular YouTube channel since July 2023.
Huffman, 48, initially didn’t expect much would become of his channel other than to produce evergreen content, like storytelling from his many experiences in the business. Speaking in-studio Monday on “The Ariel Helwani Show,” Huffman admitted his rapid explosion to YouTube stardom was something he never saw coming.
“When we first started, I had an X amount dollar figure that I wanted to hit, and I said, ‘If I can make X amount of dollars per month, it’ll change my life.’ We did that in month one. Since then, it’s just managed to grow,” Huffman said.
“What I thought was going to be a part-time job has turned into ‘I’m doing something daily for the YouTube channel,’ and I could not be happier.”
Huffman currently boasts more than 740,000 subscribers to his channel with 30 videos that have pulled more than 1 million views. His most popular video was a reveal of many little secrets and tricks throughout the wrestling business, including the art of blading; the video has 4.6 million views as of this writing.
Although Huffman’s YouTube success has revolved around his old career and passion, he doesn’t watch or keep up with any WWE or AEW products in 2025. And that’s not because he doesn’t want to.
“It’s too hard. It has nothing to do with [time commitment to watch the product]. It’s just too difficult,” Huffman explained. “It would be like watching the love of my life, my ex, go on her next date and tell me, ‘Hey, this is my new boyfriend. He’s great.’ It’s still too difficult.
“I love wrestling. I love everything about it. I think it’s truly one of the best forms of entertainment going, and I root for its success. I hope all the superstars the Cody Rhodeses, the Seth [Rollinses], The Usos, I hope the MJFs, the Adam Pages I hope all those guys have careers I never dreamed of. I just can’t watch it. I’m a human being and I get jealous. I’ll watch them, and a little bit of me is upset that I still can’t do it. That age, father time, has indeed done what father time does. It’s just too tough.”
It’s been that way for Huffman since his WWE run ended in 2005, and he doesn’t expect it to change anytime soon.
Huffman has explained in past videos how he believes his time in wrestling to be over, and he’s content with that. He hasn’t been contacted by any major wrestling company in recent years, but would still be open to options, depending on what they were. In an ideal world, Huffman knows there’s a path back to the business that would be enticing enough to make him say yes.
“It would either be in commentary, or I’ve always wanted to be a manager,” Huffman said. “I love old-school managers like Bobby Heenan. I think I could do that.”
One of the many factors that makes Huffman’s channel so intriguing is the era he wrestled in. Often referred to by the pro-wrestling community as WWE’s “Ruthless Aggression” era, Huffman was not only around when future legends like John Cena and Brock Lesnar were just getting started, he was also around for mainstream tragedies and controversies like the deaths of Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit.
Vince McMahon, the since-disgraced former WWE chairman, was at the peak of his powers during Huffman’s era, producing some of the wildest and most controversial angles professional wrestling has ever seen. From the infamous Katie Vick angle to faking his own death, McMahon respected no boundaries, and because of that he’s spawned countless stories of other wrestlers’ experiences with him.
“If you make Vince money, he loves you. When you don’t, he no longer has a purpose for you. You can think that’s heartless, but that’s every businessman,” Huffman said of his time working for McMahon.
“I think we would catch up [if I saw him] the same way when I see ‘Hunter’ (Paul Levesque). It’s a handshake, ‘Hey, how you doing? How’s the family? How’s everybody?’ It’s a hug. It’s brief, but it’s heartfelt. And I mean it, and I know he means it when he sees me too. Whether there’s any animosity or anything, man, we’re all human beings. Who cares? Get past that. If I saw any of those guys, I don’t concern myself with any way I was treated or any slight I might have felt in the past. I’m moving forward.”
On the other side of the pro-wrestling spectrum, there’s AEW, which rose to compete with WWE in 2019. Huffman’s long list of old friends and contacts from the wrestling world stretch into that portion of the pool, which helped him produce a recent video wherein he went backstage for an AEW event.
As a result of wrestlers continuously jumping ship between WWE and AEW since the latter’s inception, much has been made about the environments behind the scenes in each company. In Huffman’s experience, AEW seems like a good, healthy and welcome option to have in the wrestling world.
“That environment seemed like a good place to work. Great vibes,” Huffman said. “[AEW founder] Tony Khan seemed like the best boss to work for. I know he gets a lot of critics talking about him online. I sat and watched they were about 30 minutes away from ending the show, and my contact told me, ‘Tony wants to meet with you. He just has to wait until, obviously, the show’s over.’ So yeah, no problem. We’re here. We don’t have any place to be.
“I sat and I watched Tony for 30 minutes, and every wrestler that came out of that ring, he got up from his producer chair, took his headphones off, made sure every one of them was healthy, happy with the match they had just had.
“You can tell when someone cares as opposed to when someone’s going through the motion,” Huffman continued. “He cares. I left and I told him to his face, ‘You have changed my perception on what I thought you were.’ And everybody that I talked to there seemed happy to be there, and happy with the product they were putting out in front of the fans.”