The latest guest on Insight With Chris Van Vilet was Mojo Rawley, who spoke on a number of different subjects including how he snatched a role in the new feature film “Snake Eyes,” and details his time in NXT. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On being in the movie Snake Eyes:
“Dude how incredible is that? I had every G.I. Joe toy there ever was and now I am in the movie years later. I couldn’t believe it when I got the call I was so excited. I didn’t think that it was true at first. I just got out of a yoga class and I got this voicemail mentioning it and I’m like you’re kidding! I was in my Zen at that point, so much for that. It was an incredible experience, it was really difficult not saying anything about it for a while. We filmed that a bit ago and now it’s finally coming out. I’m ready to talk about it finally.”
On how he got the role:
“Well apparently the director and one of the producers were on YouTube and they found me on there. It might have been that or a clip on my Instagram. But that’s how it started, just literally seeing a clip and they are like ‘Yep, we want that guy.’ That was it, it was crazy. You never know, everything you put out there what it’s going to lead to. Especially in the wrestling world. You never know which promo is going to get you a push. Now it’s like what social media post is going to get you a movie?! I think it was a wrestling related post that they saw.”
On his role in the beginning of his NXT run:
“I came in with this personality and my football background. They were really high on me in the beginning, they just needed to teach me a few things and let his hype take care of the rest. I had my first match at a live event 7 weeks after my first day. It was very quick and some people backstage were not happy about that. But there were 7 people in the audience so who cares? They were like this is our opener. Big babyface, gets the crowd hyped. They kept the matches basic because at the time in NXT, the opener was supposed to have a basic match, no false finishes, super generic. All the high spots were saved for the rest of the card. I was stuck in that spot for a long time. I was grateful for the reps but I was pigeon-holed. If you open every show, what a career you will have, but it got tough man. I was seeing some of the guys I started with pass me because I was the opener. I was grateful but I wasn’t being challenged. My first match with a near fall came when I was on the main roster.”
Full interview is below.