WWE NXT star Dijak revealed this week that his time with WWE would be coming to an end this week. The company opted not to renew his contract, making him a free agent almost immediately. Dijak was with WWE for seven years, first signing with the NXT brand in 2016. He’d go on to have varied success throughout his time, most of which came during his second and most recent NXT run. Dijak was part of Retribution, led by Mustafa Ali, for a period of time but when that group imploded he was mostly on his own trying to find his way. He was able to have stand-out matches with former NXT champions Wes Lee and Ilja Dragunov, eventually being drafted to the main roster again, though that’s when his contract came up.
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In a new interview with Fightful, Dijak discussed a variety of topics about his time in WWE, including his first meeting with the former WWE CEO Vince McMahon. McMahon has since stepped down from his positions in the company as ongoing allegations of sex trafficking brought forth by a former employee are being investigated. McMahon is also reportedly banned from WWE headquarters following the resignation which took place in January.
Dijak Explains His First Meeting with Vince McMahon
Dijak talks at length about the pandemic era of WWE and how things were going, explaining that he wasn’t sure what his creative was going to look like. “Finally, I don’t know what my status is, I go straight to Vince. First impression with Vince is horrible. During the pandemic, they did a makeshift model of the current arena. That area is where we were running TV, but production was in the other building that was adjacent to it. I think they were renting at the time, but now they own it. At the time, it wasn’t a training facility, it was a big empty warehouse they were renting with separate rooms. Vince’s office was five rooms down. You have to reach these levels of the warehouse to get to him.ย
“You’d go through the SmackDown set, then a production meeting, it was like going to boss to boss to boss,” he continued. “The security guard is standing at one door. ‘Is Vince in there?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Can I talk to him?’ ‘Yeah.’ I’m opening these doors and I don’t know what’s on the other side. Maybe it’s Vince sitting at a desk. I open it and it’s a production meeting and a bunch of writers. They all stop and look at me. Vince is talking to Jason Jordan. I’m standing in the doorway. ‘Ah, f–k.’ I’m clearly interrupting something and I didn’t know. I’m standing and waiting for them to finish. They talked for what felt like a half hour, but it was probably eight minutes. I’m just standing there awkwardly forever. He looks at me, smiles, and waves, I walk over and introduce myself. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Dominik Dijakovic from NXT. I just got called up. I wanted to know if there is anything you’re looking for specifically.’ ‘Have you talked to Bruce Prichard?’ ‘Yeah, I’ve talked to Bruce.’ ‘He does the creative stuff.’ From that moment, I was like, ‘I’m f–ked.’ He doesn’t know who I am. If you were on NXT, there was a pretty clear idea if Vince knew who you were, and that determined how your main roster run would go. ‘Okay, I’m f–ked.’ Through the grapevine, I heard he was not happy with that at all. He didn’t like that I came to him and approached him. I was wearing casual stuff, a tank top. I guess he wanted me in a suit or a collared shirt. Then he had a talk with me a month later. Hilarious talk, in hindsight, about professionalism [laughs].”
Stay tuned to Comicbook for updates on Dijak.
