WWE star Dijak talked about his match against Eddy Thorpe and the December 12, 2023, episode of NXT while speaking with WWE Die Woche.
“So I was bleeding and I was angry because I took the steps and I hit my head and nothing bad happened but I was — after we did the buckle and I got dragged to the back, I came to the back yelling and cursing and angry because I was angry with myself. I wasn’t angry at anybody else, I was angry with myself and a lot of the time, I project that out visually and verbally. So I was yelling and I was upset because I was afraid that I had screwed up the whole thing and I wasn’t worried about myself. I was worried about Eddy Thorpe, right? Because this was a match that was huge for him. I’ve had a lot of big matches in my career. It doesn’t make or break me to have an NXT Underground match. It does for him. This is his big moment. I was afraid I screwed it all up for him by smashing my face into something and I was bleeding everywhere.”
“I thought medical was going to rush over and say, you have a concussion, you can’t wrestle and it’s tomorrow. This match is tomorrow… because we’re taping it in advance. So I was angry and for whatever reason, CM Punk was there. We had talked before. I had asked him for feedback on the Iron Survivor Challenge match so we had a bit of rapport at that point, even though it had only been a couple days. But he came over to me and he talked to me and he calmed me down and he said that, ‘We’ll talk about the match after’ and to go get my head taken care of and stuff like that and then I talked to him after and I don’t know if he remembers this or knows this or not, but after that, we had one of the most — no, we had the most important conversation that I’ve ever had in my professional wrestling career where he just gave me advice on what he thinks it takes to succeed and have success, maybe in pro wrestling in general but specifically in WWE and it’s something that I’d thought about before and I’d internalized before but I don’t know, just for some reason coming from him, just coming from a guy who’s had so much success based on who he is and what he says and how he approaches this, just coming from him, I was like, wow, it means so much more coming from him, because I know that this is tested advice.”
“It’s not just someone saying something or someone guessing. It’s a code that he’s lived by his entire career and no matter how many things he does and how many times he goes off or says something that he shouldn’t say or… whatever repercussions he has to deal with. This man is always the topic of discourse amongst the entire professional wrestling industry. So how could I not heed this advice? And the second that I took what he said to heart is — my wrestling has always been good, right? Everyone’s always, ‘Hey, this guy has a great match. Hey, this guy has a great match.’ Great. Nobody cared, really invested in me as a character until the past two or three months and that’s when people are like, ‘Hey, this guy’s being himself and I’m really kind of digging that.’ That’s the quickest and most simple way to have success in the professional wrestling industry. Not to say that I’m super successful. It’s trending that way. So, I’m happy for that because it’s always kind of just kind of floated and it’s like, hey, great match, cool. But right now, it feels like people are really starting to really gravitate towards me and they’re feeling the social media stuff and when I get in the ring, it’s less of a pre-shape and a plan.”
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(quotes courtesy of PostWrestling.com)
