When Dijak officially announced to the professional wrestling world that he was not going to return to WWE after spending the last seven-and-a-half years with the promotion, fans wondered where he would land next.
Would he sign with AEW and continue the trend of Black and Gold NXT guys jumping from one promotion to the other? Or would he try his hand in TNA, NJPW, or even on the indies as a hired hand capable of racking up wins against any indie fed's ace?
Discussing his future in an interview with Forbes, Dijak revealed that he was backstage at Forbidden Door at the end of June in order to catch up with some of his old Ring of Honor friends while also seeing how AEW does things.
“I was. I got to see Mark (Briscoe) for the first time in—God—I guess seven years [at Forbidden Door]. So that was super exciting. He's always wonderful to be around,” Dijak explained to Forbes. “I saw his kids were at the show, and the last time I saw them, they were literally babies. His wife had babies, and now they're walking around. I guess they're older than my son. So yeah, it was fun to see him and catch up.”
Turning his attention to the business side of things, Dijak also discussed the business side of things, including whether or not he was invited to the show – he wasn't officially but had connections to get it done – and how it could impact his future in the AEW Galaxy.
“Nobody [invited me]. I showed up uninvited (laughs). No, Mojo [Rawley] and Steve [Kaye] both arranged that for me. They have great connections. Steve was there with me, so he brought me along, brought me in,” Dijak revealed. “I don't know if anything needs to be approved by Tony specifically or if they just kind of have people going in and out. But I know that Tony has been made aware of my interest, and I know that there's reciprocal respect if nothing else.”
Dijak is #AllElite confirmed?
Eh, not necessarily, but do you know what? With WWE out of his potential options, who knows, maybe this meeting could lead to something down the line, as Mason Madden and Mansoor were backstage at an AEW show a few weeks ago and just debuted on Honor Club as MxM Collection. If Dijak plays his cards right, who knows, maybe he'll be wrestling Briscoe for the Ring of Honor World Championship in the not-too-distant future.
Dijak reveals the one benefit of the WWE Thunderdome.
Elsewhere on his post-WWE media tour, this time with Fightful, Dijak discussed what it was like to wrestle for WWE during the Thunderdome and let it be known that while not everyone liked the presentation, he enjoyed one very specific part of the show: a view unavailable to anyone who wasn't in the (mostly) empty arena.
“The most fun part of the ThunderDome, it was not being T-BAR, it was the fact that in Amway, especially, was some of the coolest experiences not only in my life, but in the history of WWE. What we got to experience was so cool in that it was a big empty arena filming Monday Night RAW. As talent, we’d finish our segment, which was unique because you’re wrestling in front of screens and it’s a futuristic thing, but even cooler was, we’d finish, we’d go to catering, we’d take our food, and we’d sit in the nosebleed seats in a huge empty arena, and watch, from the hardcam point of view, Monday Night RAW as a fan for only us,” Dijak explained to Fightful.
“That was the coolest thing, as a fan of wrestling. I’m getting my own personal Monday Night RAW. As a fan, it was probably the coolest thing you could experience. It’s like if you are trillionaire who could rent WWE for yourself. I remember sitting there and having these thoughts, ‘This will never happen again.’ That was a personal highlight for me. The actual product, not so much.”
Now at the time, most WWE fans were just excited to watch professional wrestling, as in the spring of 2020, basically every professional sporting organization closed its doors, and fandom as a whole was otherwise left almost completely in a holding pattern. Now granted, WWE didn't exactly capitalize on this renewed interest from the outside world by producing top-tier content, as Vince McMahon was still going strong with his booking, but hey, they eventually got it right, which, in the end, is all that really matters, right?