Dirty Dango Previews New Character, Leaving His Dancing Days In The Past

Dirty Dango, formerly known as Fandango, is excited to show the world what he can do in the next chapter of his career. After spending the majority of the last decade playing a dancer and, later, a character mainly meant for comedic relief, Fandango was released by WWE on June 25. Now, he’s looking forward to showcasing a fresh gimmick, using the name “Dirty Dango” from here on out.

In an interview with WrestleZone, Dirty Dango teased his vision of his new persona, which might harken back to his “dirtbag” Johnny Curtis character from NXT Redemption. He described how, for the majority of his WWE run, he was stuck playing a comedic character, admittedly because he’s good at it, and he was typecasted into this role. The artist once known as Fandango expressed that he’s not a dancer, so he did his best with a character whose identity was based around his dance moves. But with the luxury of breaking away from this role, he’s looking forward to comparatively being more true to himself.

“Characters in wrestling have to be a little bit of yourself, I think times like 10 or 100 or whatever,” said Dango. “I have zero ballroom dancer on me, so me trying to translate that character is hard, you know. It’s not me. But I could pull it off a little bit. So I think for people to really invest in a character, like Jon Moxley, that’s Jon. You know, that’s him but he’s turning that sh-t up, you know. And same with a bunch of guys out there, so I think being able to play kinda myself times a little bit more, I guess I’m saying I’m a dirtbag but [laughs] you know, kind of a little bit more myself, you know, I think it’s more comfortable than going out there and shaking your ass around, so….

“And it’s just tough, man. When you can play that good comedy role, they want that on the show. So they’re gonna keep kinda putting you in that role. So like there’s a reason why R-Truth’s been on TV since like the ’90s, you know, because he does his job, and it’s what they want him to do. But unfortunately like for me, it’s like you kind of get pigeon-holed into that role, and it’s hard to get out of that because people look at you and you’re the dancer guy or you’re the juggling guy or you’re just kind of the clown of the show.”

Now that he’s free to explore the wrestling world, Dango emphasized his excitement to travel, work with some of his friends and develop his character. He compared the process of honing his persona to that of a comedian who fine-tunes their set at smaller clubs before potentially landing a bigger gig; in Dango’s case, the goal might be working for a major promotion down the road. But for now, he’ll enjoy his freedom; he had been under WWE contract since 2006, so he’s not in a rush to get locked into another limiting deal.

“I’m looking forward to kind of getting out there and working with some of my old friends, which is exciting,” Dirty Dango said. “Like [Brian] Myers and [Matt] Cardona and a bunch of the other guys are taking bookings like Heath and just getting back on the road with guys I used to travel with. And just character developing, coming up with my own promos and kind of the things that I want to do and I think that’s the biggest thing is you’re in charge of your own career in terms of being back on the indies. So you can come up with your own schtick and if it doesn’t work out, it’s kinda on you. You don’t have the machine behind you pushing you, so you can succeed on your own or fail on your own. It’s up to you.

“…At this stage of the game, it’s not necessarily just about the money, it’s about the freedom to be able to go out and create and cut promos and come up with characters. It’s like being a comedian on the road, you can go to these smaller nightclubs and try our your schtick, and if it’s not working, then you can adjust it and then eventually maybe go to NWA, or TNA or AEW when you’re kind of more polished with your character. But right now, for the foreseeable future, it’s definitely don’t sign anywhere and just go out and just travel and have some fun and see my old friends and bullsh-t.”

Watch our full interview with Dirty Dango at the top of this post. Dirty Dango will face one “old friend”, Brian Myers at WrestlePro’s “Welcome Back” show on October 16. More information is available here. GCW has also teased an appearance from Dango for its Fight Club weekend stretch of shows, beginning on October 9.