Originally published on ProWrestlingSheet.

Rik Bugez defended himself on Tuesday for taking off his face mask at times during this week's Raw, but going forward the wrestler says he'll wear it the whole show.

Bugez (real name Eric Bugenhagen) is one of the many NXT performers being used as part of a makeshift crowd on WWE TV and this week they were all wearing face masks for most of the show after multiple people who had been at the Performance Center tested positive for COVID-19.

Rik and a few other audience members, however, were seen taking it off during parts of the show and today he addressed the matter via Twitter. "We all get our brains poked to get tested before tapings now. When the test is negative, I feel ok taking my mask off for 10 seconds to convey some emotion for the sake of entertainment. Without facial expression, they might as well have mannequin dummies behind the plexiglass," he wrote.

He also said he felt comfortable taking it off at times because everyone else in the building had received negative tests results as well.

In the future though, Rik says it will be a different story. When challenged by a fan saying some tests may result in false negatives, Bugez tweeted: "That's what I've been hearing. I didn't know that at the time so moving forward, the mask stays on."