Donovan Dijak Recalls Pitching Vince McMahon As RETRIBUTION’s Leader

Vince McMahon
Vince McMahon | WWE

Former WWE star Donovan Dijak spoke with Tru Heel Heat Wrestling on a number of topics including announcing his WWE contract ending.

Dijak said, โ€œObviously, Codyโ€™s thing played a role, right? You know, this is a guy who โ€” I was in communication with him at the end of his run as Stardust, and as he made that post โ€ฆ So, yeah, that was certainly an influence. It wasnโ€™t the same story, but it was a similar path. Obviously, [Rhodes] chose his. Mine was not a choice. I didnโ€™t choose that. I might have chosen that, depending [on] the circumstances, I donโ€™t know.โ€

On never having a real conversation about his spot on the main roster:

โ€œUnfortunately, we never had an opportunity for that conversation, because โ€” I donโ€™t know if they got stuck on money or what, because I was never given an explanation. So, I donโ€™t know whether โ€ฆ if they had made me an offer, Iโ€™d still be there.โ€

On being grateful for his time there:

โ€œI kind of settled on this letter because I felt like โ€ฆ people deserved to hear the truth, right? And the truth isnโ€™t always amazing. Itโ€™s not always a super positive thing. In this instance, it wasnโ€™t a super positive thing. My goal wasnโ€™t to create this picture that WWE was this horrible place. It wasnโ€™t. I never said it was a horrible place. I said I was thankful, so I liked my time in WWE. I was also disappointed, mostly with how it ended, and excited for the future. Other than that, I just told the truth.โ€

On not intending to be criticizing WWE with his letter:

โ€œSome people were super critical of WWE; some people were super critical of me! People feel like Iโ€™m just constantly complaining about everything โ€” which, Iโ€™m not, obviously. What happens is that I do these interviews, [and] I say the truth, and then somebody grabs a sentence or two from it, and clips it, and says, โ€˜This is what he said.โ€™ Then, it feels like Iโ€™m just offering these things, as opposed to being asked a question and answering it honestly.โ€

On the original plans for RETRIBUTIONโ€™s leader:

โ€œI heard a rumor that before that it was supposed to be Finn Balor but he was doing something, I think the timing was off because he was slated to go down to NXT to become the NXT champion. I pitched like Vince himself, I pitched Shane McMahon. We had like a list at one point because basically I was just listing like the most important people I could think of because I wanted Vince to like love this storyโ€ฆ They went with Ali and frankly, I doubt he wanted to do it.โ€

You can check out Dijak’s comments in the video below.