Ring of Honor’s Donovan Dijak Talks House of Truth, Cesaro and More in Exclusive Interview

Teddy: For those who don’t know, tell them who Donovan Dijak is.

Dijak: I’ve been wrestling for about three years now. I wrestle consistently for a few companies, most of which are based in the northeast (of the United States). I started at a company called Chaotic Wrestling. I still work for some other of local companies: Northeast Wrestling, XWA, Beyond in Rhode Island and more recently than that I signed with earlier this year with Ring of Honor. As far as style goes, I like to consider myself someone who can do a little bit of everything. I’m a taller guy. I use my height to my advantage.

Teddy: Did you grow up a wrestling fan?

Dijak: Sort of. I started watching wrestling when I was 12. That’s really in the peak of the Attitude Era. My brother started watching around then. Before that, I didn’t really get cable channels, so it wasn’t too available to us. My parents kind of discouraged us from watching it. We would try, but it would be more unsuccessful than usual. Then finally, around 1998-1999 is when I started watching a little more religiously. I would sneak in at night and record Monday Night Raw on VHS tapes. Every so often, we would get pay-per-views over at my friend’s house and things like that and that’s really when I started becoming a wrestling fan. Then from 1998 until about 2002-2003 is when I watched pretty consistently, but after that was when high school sports started to take over most of my time.

I would sneak in at night and record Monday Night Raw on VHS tapes.

Teddy: Who was your favorite wrestler?

Dijak: My favorite wrestler was probably Stone Cold Steve Austin. I enjoyed a lot of the character stuff from him. As a teenager, he is who I gravitated towards.

Teddy: You played football and basketball in college. I saw you’re a New England Patriots fan, so I’m sure you’re happy with the win over the Steelers in Week 1. Do you watch any college football?

Dijak: Not often. I’ll flip on a game when it seems to be exciting, but I never really gravitated towards college football. I played college football, but I never really found the product super exciting just because it’s hard for me to get invested into something if I don’t specifically have a team. I played for the University of Massachusetts, but we were I-AA (FCS) at the time. Boston College was one of the bigger teams, but it never felt like my team so I never gravitated towards college football that much.

Teddy: Who is your favorite NBA team?

Dijak: My favorite NBA team is the Celtics. I always watched the Celtics, even when I was a little kid. Now it’s a little tougher with my training schedule and I’m always on the road. It doesn’t seem like I’m missing too much because they are terrible (laughs).

Teddy: What made you decide to start wrestling?

Dijak: After I graduated from college in 2011, I had a lot more free time, because at the time, I was used to playing two to three sports, so I never really had any sort of free leisure time. After I graduated, I started working full-time and it was a nine-to-five job and I had my nights free. I didn’t really know what to do with them, which was strange for me. So I started watching wrestling again in my free time. That was around 2011-2012, I guess. It was around the time CM Punk was starting to gain some steam and some momentum outside of pro wrestling. That kind of drew me in at the time. So I watched the product, both WWE and TNA, and whatever else was available for about a year casually as a fan. In late 2012, is when I found out the school that I currently train at: The New England Pro Wrestling Academy. That’s when I put all of the pieces together and I signed up there.

Teddy: I saw your tweet the other day about how we will never see CM Punk and Kevin Owens. Man, you nailed it.

Dijak: Oh, yes, yes! I mean, never say never. You don’t know if he could make a comeback in one promotion or another. But yeah, I feel like that would really be an awesome match to watch. Hopefully one day.

Next: In-ring ability, working in Chaotic Wrestling and ROH, working as a heel, making the PWI 500 list