Former WWE star Mojo Rawley recently appeared on Straight Shootin with Matt Rehwoldt to discuss a wide range of topics, including his plan to make the 24/7 championship a competitive title and how plans changed once NFL superstar Rob Gronkowski got added to the picture. Highlights are below.
On his idea to make the 24/7 championship a competitive title:
“Eventually, we get to the 24/7 stuff. My pitch, that they actually loved at first, was I was tired of the 24/7 being a joke title. R-Truth killed it and it was so funny and entertaining, but you can’t have Truth doing the same thing every week with the same antics and the same script and the same 30 guys chasing him for no reason,” he said. “I was like, ‘let’s take the fun away and let’s make it more like the hardcore title and we’ll get serious with it. I’ll be the first one to not run away and I’ll try and defend it. We can get nasty with it.’ The hardcore title is what the fans thought we were bringing back in the first place. I told that to Vince and he loved it. He said, ‘We’ll start it next week.’ I tried to not pitch Vince too much so I wasn’t one of those guys always in there complaining and pitching stuff that might not work. This was one that I thought would work and he went for it. We started doing that. First person to not run and hide with the title. Cut some promos online that were received well because I knew I wasn’t going to get promo time on TV, but I always did well with my internet promos. Literally, I won the title and a week later, after this whole campaign to not need help or run away, they bring in [Riddick Moss] to watch my back. I was like, ‘what the hell? This is the opposite of everything we set up and what fans were excited about.’ I wasn’t mad because I love [Moss]. He works so hard and was finally getting a shot at the main roster. He’s a guy that isn’t built for NXT. Those athletes that didn’t work the Indies, they have a harder time in NXT. They put us together and we were going to make it work.”
How plans changed because WWE brought in NFL superstar Rob Gronkowski:
“We were trying to set up something with Gronk at Mania. We were going to do some matches before the world shutdown and he went back to football. We started with [Moss] and had to cut that programing. I think the plan was for me, [Moss], and Truth to do a triple threat at Mania or some 24/7 Behind the Scenes match. Something that was different. We had to scrap all that on the fly. Part of me was like, ‘I should’ve pitched this Gronk stuff until after Mania,’ but we knew we wanted to bring him in before Mania. Part of it is on me pitching stuff, but you know how the machine is; every week, you show up and you don’t know what you are. At one point, I was flip-flopping between face and heel every week. I do what I’m told, but guys don’t know. I went from being a heel to showing back up on SmackDown after three years on Raw and was told, ‘Just go back to Stay Hype Mojo,’ the same day.”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)