Rowan recently appeared on The Chris Van Vliet Show. During the interview, Rowan look back on his WWE career, including his departure from the company and his match with The Rock. Rowan also discusses his acting career. Here are some highlights:
On feeling blindsided by his release:
Rowan: “I mean, going from being used every week, having no inkling that I was going to be let go, told the last day I was used that I was in good standing with the company to just a complete blindside and just a, ‘Bye bye, see you later.’ No, ‘Thanks for your service.’ Just, ‘Goodbye, have fun during the COVD. Tthat’s kind of the initial blindside and bitterness to it all. Yeah, you feel banished and cast aside.”
“I thought I was doing well, I started to get a character I really felt like was most me and how I was feeling disrespected. With the whole Daniel Bryan/Roman Reigns storyline, things were looking bright for me, I thought, and then the draft happened, and I was informed I’d have a cage and I basically wouldn’t talk no more, which was a giant step back. But you do your job because you do it to the best of your ability and you hope they have some sort of plan for you because why else would they be using you so much?”
On the end of his WWE run:
Rowan: “When I’m informed of you’re not gonna get any offense on [Drew McIntyre] and we’re killing this gimmick, you know, which you know, if it was gonna be the spider and that’s what it was, I was happy it was dead, but I was upset that my ideas weren’t thought through enough to say, ‘Okay, we’ll use those,’ because this spider thing obviously wasn’t gonna go anywhere anyway because they killed it. So I went to [Paul] Heyman and I said, ‘Hey am I okay?’ I couldn’t make this work, I feel bad I couldn’t make it work because I’m proud of what I do in the ring and at work because it’s an art. What we do, you’re given whatever on a piece of paper and you have to make it work to the best of your ability as a performer. When I couldn’t make it work to the best that I thought I could make it work, maybe it’s a mix of my creative ideas being tossed aside and this and that, but yeah, directly to my face [Heyman] says, ‘Don’t worry, we’re killing the cage, better things are coming, you are in good standing with the company.'”
On his acting career:
Rowan: “I mean, I don’t really know how much I can tell you. It’s a movie called Ghosts of the Ozarks, which filmed in Arkansas, one of the first productions back after the COVID. S it was very strict set where you wear a mask besides when you’re shooting, you have tests almost weekly, almost all extras were tested before they were allowed on set, it was a really safe environment. But also for me, it was a great creative outlet for me and a challenge. I’m very proud of the work I did in the movie because it’s a different side of me than anybody’s ever seen. It’s not the big psycho killer wrestler. It’s a guy with multiple layers and dimensions. I’m very excited to see how the performance turns out with the rest of the talented group that they had.”
On his match with The Rock:
Rowan: “I found out like three days before….I don’t know if he had some sorta deal where he couldn’t do a lot of physicality, you know, I get that. What is he, the highest-paid actor in the world right now? So I get that.”
“He was cool about the moment. I’m a little bit taller than Dwayne, so having that face-to face-moment was pretty cool.”
The full video is available here:
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