Donovan Dijak knows everything is about perspective.
Dijak spoke with WrestleZone’s Bill Pritchard about his return to NXT in 2022. He says part of his motivation to re-brand as Dijak in NXT was to acknowledge and leave T-Bar behind. Dijak carries that motivation to his work today and approaches his brand like its own business.
Pritchard noted the old saying, ‘With age comes wisdom’ and how it applies to wrestling. Dijak understands the wrestling business better than a 20-something fan, and he agreed that everything is also subjective, something he learned from Shawn Michaels.
“It is all subjective. I found personally that what comes a lot for me with age is perspective. And a big, big, big — and I learned this directly from Shawn Michaels. I saw it from him probably more than anybody else on this planet. A big, huge part of not just this business but life is the perspective of the idea that all this is subjective, right? All this is subjective.”
Dijak on Shawn Michaels
Dijak explained how he’d sit and watch match tapes with Michaels, who is “arguably one of the, if not, the best in-ring performers of all time.” Michaels showed him how not having the answer and offering a difference of opinion goes a long way.
“He would watch me wrestle constantly. And he would say, ‘Well, I don’t know, but maybe this would work better for you. Maybe, I don’t know.’ Just that, just hearing, ‘Maybe. I don’t know,’ from a guy who you’d think, ‘Oh no, he knows. This should be the final answer.’ But the reality is that it is not. Because none of us know. None of us have the correct answer,” Dijak noted. “No one is the all-telling, all-knowing genius of all things.
“If you have the perspective to understand that, ‘Maybe, here’s an idea. This might be how it is. Here’s my best guess.’ That’s when you can start to have more insight,” Dijak added. “I think online, we all get stuck in this black or white, like it’s either this or it’s this. Or there has to be a reason. I think being open to, I’m not sure, maybe I’ll help. Maybe you can help me to find out. Or things like that is extremely powerful.”
Read More: Donovan Dijak Shares What He Learned From Paul Heyman About Promos