Donovan Dijak learned a key piece of knowledge about promos from Paul Heyman.
Dijak recently spoke with WrestleZone’s Bill Pritchard about his mindset behind his gimmick and constructing his promos. Dijak knows some fans are familiar with his past work, but it’s his job to introduce himself and make it a memorable meeting.
“Now, I start all my promos by explaining who I am, what my name is, I learned this from Paul Heyman. Every single one of my promos begins with ‘Feast your eyes on the Dijak Hijak.’ Right there. And you go, ‘Okay, feast your eyes. This is his… His gimmick is intrinsic on the eyes. And the visual of the sunglasses.’ And I do the whole thing there. I say my name, now you know who I am. And the last thing I close with is, ‘That’s enough talk. Now it’s time to do or Dijak.’ So now, you have heard my name twice. In the beginning and now the crowd is now familiar with me and they know who my name is. And they have some sort of idea that I’m a Terminator, Punisher, dishing out justice, vigilante.”
“A concept whether that’s a good guy or a bad guy, whichever way we are promoting it. I always approach it from that aspect. That being said, where we are now, I am aware that the majority of the fan base is at least generally familiar with me as a product outside of Retribution. So, I don’t have this massive chip on my shoulder as I did in NXT. I just have a… It’s a different chip on my shoulder in terms of proving people wrong. Proving whoever, whether it is WWE for their decision that they’ve made [or someone else].”
Donovan Dijak On Catering To Casual Fans
Donovan Dijak explained how important it is to cater to the casual fans now that he’s left WWE. He knows there’s a specific fanbase who is coming to see him on the independent scene, but he tries to communicate who he is as if he’s new to everyone in the audience.
“Most of the fans in the crowd have a general idea of who I am. Whether it was from Ring of Honor or NXT. And of course, they are aware of Retribution, but they are aware of me outside of Retribution as well. Whereas, if you are exclusively familiar with me from Retribution, that’s a lot more of a casual fan. That’s the reality and I am not holding that against them right? I love casual fans. It’s a huge piece of this puzzle that often goes unaccounted for. A lot of wrestlers don’t take the casual fan into account. And I think that’s detrimental to us as a product.”
“I think we should take the casual fan into account, which I do. I do in this presentation. Because I treat everyone as if they have no idea who I am. That’s why I have the music, that’s why I have the visual, that’s why I give everyone sort of the same thing.”
Watch our full interview with Donovan Dijak below:
