Donovan Dijak is thrilled to be back as himself again.
The former WWE star recently spoke with Bill Pritchard of WrestleZone. He was asked about changing his name so much in WWE, and how it felt to have some consistency with Donovan Dijak now.
Dijak revealed that is very happy having some consistency with his current indie run. After changing names wildly throughout his WWE run, having control over his gimmick is something that makes Donovan Dijak happy.
“So that started with NXT. That, with that first meeting with Shawn Michaels, and Johnny Russo, and Matt Bloom. That’s when I brought it to the table, I said like, ‘Look guys, I’ve had eight names, none of these have been my decision. I’ve just been given stuff and done my best to make it work. I keep being given things…’ Cuz at that point I had been in the company for five or five-and-a-half, six years. That’s a long time in WWE.”
“That’s an even longer time to be in WWE and to have pretty much created nothing from scratch. I’ve been given a lot. I’ve been given Dominik Dijakovic, I’ve been given these ideas, ‘Here’s T-Bar. You are going to do this. You’re going to do that.’ And that… ‘I want to make those things succeed because you’re my boss and I want… I’m going to dive head-first into every single one of them. That being said, here’s what I think my best presentation can be.’ And that’s what I gave them and they accepted it full-fledged. And that’s why I am so happy with my current run. Cuz now I am getting that presentation but I am also very much in control of the wrestling piece of it.”
He Said You Can’t Escape The Restrictiveness Of The WWE
Donovan Dijak continued, explaining how restrictive it is working on WWE TV.
“Which isn’t to say that I wasn’t in NXT, but there’s a lot of constraints that go a long way with WWE television. That’s just the reality of it. No one can escape that. You can’t escape, ‘Hey you have a three-minute match on television.’ You have to go three minutes. Or, ‘You have a pay-per-view match. Go knock it out of the park but don’t go over twelve minutes.’ And that’s like, ‘Okay… I…’ You can only knock it so far into the park with twelve minutes. I’m going to do my best. I’m going to give the best twelve-minute match you have ever seen in your life.’”
“But, let’s call a spade a spade. The best matches in the world are always longer than that. That’s just the reality of the current fan perception. So now, I’m at a place where I don’t have to run my script by someone. I don’t have to get this verbiage approved. I don’t have to say the words that are being handed to me. ‘Oh Vince said to say this. This line is in your…’ I don’t have to worry about that anymore.” Donovan Dijak said.
“Now they are like, ‘Hey can you touch on this, this, this, and then this?’ ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ And I craft my own promo and I go out there and I say, this is how I would say all of these things. I say it. It gets a huge response. I come to the back and they go, ‘Hey, that was awesome.’ That’s what I want. That’s the way my mind works and the creative freedom that I want with it.”
Donovan Dijak: I Am A Damn Talented Creative Artist
The former WWE star went on to reveal that he has been taking acting classes, but continues to want to create his own character in wrestling.
“I am taking a lot of acting classes and a big premise of the acting class is it is someone else’s vision you got to make that your own. I am all for that. But the reality of this character and this rendition of this character is that, I’m the director of it. I’m… So, I’m the producer of it, I’m the creator of it. So, to ask someone to write for it is disingenuous. In my opinion. I know this character better than anyone. I should be writing for this character. I’m happy to bounce ideas back and forth. And I love creative meetings and concepts. But at the end of the day, I’m not going to short-change myself.” Donovan Dijak said.
“I am a damn talented creative artist. That’s how I feel about myself. But I am extremely confident in myself and all of my friends and everybody in NXT that we are all extremely talented creative artists. I think that should always be a collaborative process where we get the final say. Within the confines of what is allowed to be said on television and the restrictions of that.”
“But ultimately it leans further in a ‘How do you fit our narrative in terms of storytelling in the WWE system.’ I don’t hold that against them. They are a business and they need to make as much money as possible. And I get that. Whereas now, it is more of like, ‘How can I get myself over as much as I possibly can? Now that’s my job. So I am diving head-first onto that version of it.” Donovan Dijak added.
