The latest guest on Insight With Chris Van Vilet was Mojo Rawley, who spoke on a number of different subjects including his thoughts on his WWE release, how he felt about his heel turn, and thoughts on the majestic face paint he would later wear to the ring during matchups. Highlights from the interview are below.
What’s next after his WWE release:
“I want to do everything. Right now, it has been almost 10 years I just put in. You know how the commitment to WWE is, you can’t do anything outside of it. I want to do anything and everything. I definitely want to wrestle again, but right now I just need a little bit of time for me to get all of my stuff in line. I’ve got a lot of stuff I am working on. I also want to take some time to let my body recover. I mean ask Rob [Gronkowski] he took a year off football and now he could go another 10. Sometimes getting hurt is the best thing that can happen. Your brain can rest up and some nagging injuries can heal up too. You can look at things from a fresh perspective and see what thigs will entail. That is where I am at right now, I am busier now than I ever have been. But I hate resting, so it’s a cool thing. I know it’s daunting leaving that career with the constant pay check and security, but I am loving that freedom.”
On his heel turn:
“I can’t remember whose idea it was. It was mine or Vince’s I think. Zack got hurt and I had my singles run, I had a good stretch there. Zack came back and we teamed up again. Everyone knew we were going to break up because we prefaced it for months. But I don’t I think anyone knew who was going to turn on who. We didn’t really know either. Then the thought came down to have me do the heel turn and I was all for it. I know they wanted me to get as far from the hype persona as possible, they didn’t want me to mention the word hype at all. We had a good run there. I would have preferred if Zack and I could have had our run for a bit. I turned on him, then they aired a dot com exclusive on the breakup. We had our one match on the kick-off on a pay per view. When you are doing a kick-off, you have so many handicaps. You can’t swing for the fences and show people what you got. Me and Zack instead went lets just cut promos on each other on socials. I did one in my garage that got good traction. But that was it, the turn, the kick off match then that was it. I would have loved to do more but it is what it is. As long as you did all you could, that is what will propel you through the years.”
His thoughts on wearing face paint:
“[laughs] I was so against that. I really didn’t want to do that. But truthfully the sketches didn’t look half bad. I remember thinking I hope when I wear this it looks this cool, it couldn’t be furthest from. I pitched this idea of everyone looks at themselves in the mirror and everyone hypes themselves up. Everyone has that degree of vanity, let me run with it. Let me cut promos where I am berating them for their shortcoming, and you don’t know who I am talking to. You find out later it’s me, and we can take this whole new attitude and run with it. Somehow that lead to me losing my mind and drawing on my face, I don’t know what it became. We literally did one match with that character. Me and Apollo [Crews] were paired together on a Europe tour. I remember I was like 2 and half weeks of everyday working together, we put on some great matches. There was so much that we pitched together. We put on matches that nobody was really expecting out of us and the fans gravitated towards. It’s hard though. You got 2 guys with no TV time going after these guys with established rivalries. But it was in the reports every night. These 2 are onto something, lets give them a run. So they booked Apollo for my debut match in this new run. We were stoked, we were like lets go out and kill it, show them what we got. Then we found out it was a 60 second match that was written out entirely for us. Two and a half weeks, then it’s that, then it’s over. I just painted my face like an idiot for nothing.”
Full interview is below.