Mojo Rawley speaks on The Sessions with Renee Paquette about gimmick changes and how it was affecting him.
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Former WWE superstar Dean Muhtadi (previously known as Mojo Rawley) rose to prominence as a high-energy hero in the company’s NXT brand. However, he claims that after being promoted to the main roster, Vince McMahon perceived him as a heel.
Muhtadi says on The Sessions with Renee Paquette, “I think that was just kind of where his mind went when he was looking at who am I, how I act, how I work, the physically with it.
“So I think that was just something that was bound to happen. I wasn’t resistant to it in the beginning, I thought it would be fun, I thought it would be different.
“I had my first ever match as a heel in a pay-per-view with Zack (Ryder), I think it was the Clash of Champions when I turned on him.
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“Man, that was kind of nerve-wracking too. I didn’t have any practice runs at this,” Muhtadi continued.
“I was a babyface literally my whole career and then that happened. Yeah, it was just kind of an interesting situation.
“I know they wanted to get me away from the ‘stay hype’ thing, which I really didn’t want to do. I mean, that’s been like kind of my life’s mantra.”
Dean Muhtadi claims he had little contact with Vince McMahon while on the WWE main roster. But he claims they were usually upbeat and got along great.
Muhtadi remembered saying, “I wasn’t one of these guys that will hang out in his office for like, an hour and really talk about nothing. But we always had like, a good relationship and I think he always saw me in one particular role in the company. But it seemed like it got to be like, the same kind of ebb and flow. I would go have a conversation with him and kind of let him in on just a small fraction of what I thought I could do.”
During his time on WWE’s main roster, Dean Muhtadi went through a number of character transformations.
One of them was built up by a sequence of vignettes in which he chatted to himself in a mirror. Muhtadi ended up wrestling in face paint as a result of it. He said he disliked the alteration.
“The runs would last anywhere from like, one week, from when I did the stupid face paint thing, to like, a month or two.
“Then, somehow when it came time to actually have the run, not just set up the run with get-over matches, things just ended.
“And then it was back to, ‘Okay, I’m in this lull again. Let’s just rinse and repeat.’ And every year it just seemed to be this new little wrinkle and we go from there and it used to drive me crazy because it was like, we’ve got some guys that play major characters and major personalities on television that in real life have the personality of a rock. Not The Rock, like a rock.”
