The potential this guy had 
and he had a top 10 theme of ALL TIME. DEBATE ME.
You portrayed a gimmick that was really controversial at the time, and now we have a guy like Donald Trump running for President who thrives on some of the things your character spoke out against in storyline. How do you feel about that?
"In 2005 when Shawn Daivari and I did the character, anti-Islamic feelings were relatively new in this country, there hadn't been many major terroristic threats or events that took place on United States soil with the exception of the World Trade Center attack in 2001. With someone like Donald Trump and everything that he's saying, ten years removed from 2005, ready for the anti-political correctness to come across the airwaves. I think that's why a lot of people are embracing Donald Trump. Back in 2005 it was relatively new. The World Trade Center attacks sparked this anti-Arab, anti-Islamic feelings. Now the United States has kind of settled into it. A lot of people are intrigued and impressed for lack of a better term about how ballsy Donald Trump is."
What were your thoughts when they pitched that gimmick to you?
"I liked it. I always had a feeling it could wind up bad. They prepared me as well as they could for what could and would happen, but nobody really was prepared for what did happen. My initial thoughts were that it was good heat. Jim Cornette was one of the guys who pitched it to me. He was right, it's sustainable heat. There was the Iron Sheik and xenophobic fears of people different in this country for a long time, but this was new and a fresh take on the Muslim, Arab gimmick. I thought it was cool, I was ready, I wanted to do it."
Your character was really protected to start out, too. Is that something that they tell you, that they're going to strap the rocket ship to your back?
"No, because I don't think that's anything they really know ahead of time. They may have in the back of their minds, like this is a character they can shoot to the moon, but you never know how it's going to come off to the fans. Nobody ever told me that. I was aware there would be a huge push, they push a lot of new characters out of the gate. As far as what happened, I was not really aware nor really prepared for it."
What was the reception like backstage? You were a young, new guy getting a big push. There had to be backlash.
"Yeah, there's backlash with really anybody new coming up. That's a part of the process. With a character like that that does start out hot, it's not usually from the top guys, it's from the midcard guys that you feel that heat from backstage. The top guys are kind of settled in, comfortable, their spots aren't going anywhere. It's the midcard guys that feel slighted and overlooked. There was plenty of backlash, and you learn to take it in stride. I think with this character at this particular time and this particular push, there was a lot more than you'd see typically. Some of that I'll put on myself as well. I was young, I was overconfident, and I didn't handle things they way I would now. There was a lot of heat associated on stage and off-stage with that gimmick."
There was a really controversial angle that got your character pulled from TV on the Independence Day Smackdown in 2005. Who tells you that you're going to be taken off TV?
"I think Johnny Ace told Shawn and I what was going on. I think at the time, initially, we were going to fight it. We were going to do publicity, talk shows, that promo in the ring, but eventually we realized if we fought it, we still weren't welcome on Spike, which was showing Raw at the time or UPN which was showing SmackDown. We knew we'd be very limited. I don't remember exactly how I found out, but within a few weeks of the Undertaker segment, we knew that character could not come back in that way to WWE TV."
A story was ran on WWE.com saying yourself and Daivari would be reassigned to OVW. That didn't go down for you, why was that?
"I had just moved from Louisville maybe 8 months prior. We weren't assigned to OVW, it could have been an option. I was also made aware it'd be a while before I was called back up. I was told that explicitly. I guess nobody really knows, but at the same time, the character hit so quickly and hard that from what I gathered, it'd be kind of hard to spin that character into something that people could believe or get heat again. Ultimately, in my experience in that last year and what I had seen...I don't want to say I wouldn't have come back because I would have if something came up in the immediate future, but I realized I needed to move on from wrestling for my own good."
Has their ever been a desire to return, any offers to return from the WWE?
"Not from WWE. I've had plenty of offers from other organizations, but not from WWE. I would say that was more my choice than anything. Seeing what I saw my five years in wrestling personally, and I don't speak for everybody, was that wrestling was the kind of career that if you held on too long, you'd be 50 years old and you'd wonder where the last 25 years went. I made a decision that when I wasn't going to wrestle anymore, was that I wasn't going to wrestle anymore. Part of how I withdrew from that was the conscious decision to move on with my life, because I think it's very dangerous to spent your present focusing on your past and not your future."
Has WWE ever contacted you about WWE Network appearances or anything like that?
"No, I haven't been."
We'd heard rumors that maybe wrestling wasn't your true passion.
"It was at the time, it's definitely not now. I don't watch. I just don't have time to watch. At the time, it was my passion. I've moved on with my life. It takes a very special person to be like a Triple H, John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Randy Orton. Out of all the people who have wrestled, very few make it their lifelong career successfully. It was my passion at the time, but I have no problem saying I was not one of those people. I definitely was not the kind of person who could make wrestling a successful career for 25 years like The Undertaker or Kane or those guys."
There was also the Assassin and Son graphic novel you were doing with Shad Gaspard after your career, tell us a little about that.
"It was an original script Shad had written and given to me. At the time I was living in L.A., and that's kind of what I was doing. I was writing and re-writing scripts, nothing major. I re-wrote it and added and it became a different story. Shad is more actively pursuing that. Shad has been in films, I watched him the other night in Get Hard, he's a fantastically talented individual. I think now he's focused on his acting career. He put a lot of effort in getting Assassin and Son somewhat published. We were up and down, it was something I think he's pursuing in the future. We put it on hold because I have a different career and Shad's acting career is taking off. Shad's a great friend and a great guy, so I hope one day we can work together on this, whether it's as a graphic novel or a film, which is what our original focus was. For now, it's kind of been put on the back shelf. It's a timeless story, so whether we do it now or ten years from now, it's not going to change much of the screenplay."
and he had a top 10 theme of ALL TIME. DEBATE ME.You portrayed a gimmick that was really controversial at the time, and now we have a guy like Donald Trump running for President who thrives on some of the things your character spoke out against in storyline. How do you feel about that?
"In 2005 when Shawn Daivari and I did the character, anti-Islamic feelings were relatively new in this country, there hadn't been many major terroristic threats or events that took place on United States soil with the exception of the World Trade Center attack in 2001. With someone like Donald Trump and everything that he's saying, ten years removed from 2005, ready for the anti-political correctness to come across the airwaves. I think that's why a lot of people are embracing Donald Trump. Back in 2005 it was relatively new. The World Trade Center attacks sparked this anti-Arab, anti-Islamic feelings. Now the United States has kind of settled into it. A lot of people are intrigued and impressed for lack of a better term about how ballsy Donald Trump is."
What were your thoughts when they pitched that gimmick to you?
"I liked it. I always had a feeling it could wind up bad. They prepared me as well as they could for what could and would happen, but nobody really was prepared for what did happen. My initial thoughts were that it was good heat. Jim Cornette was one of the guys who pitched it to me. He was right, it's sustainable heat. There was the Iron Sheik and xenophobic fears of people different in this country for a long time, but this was new and a fresh take on the Muslim, Arab gimmick. I thought it was cool, I was ready, I wanted to do it."
Your character was really protected to start out, too. Is that something that they tell you, that they're going to strap the rocket ship to your back?
"No, because I don't think that's anything they really know ahead of time. They may have in the back of their minds, like this is a character they can shoot to the moon, but you never know how it's going to come off to the fans. Nobody ever told me that. I was aware there would be a huge push, they push a lot of new characters out of the gate. As far as what happened, I was not really aware nor really prepared for it."
What was the reception like backstage? You were a young, new guy getting a big push. There had to be backlash.
"Yeah, there's backlash with really anybody new coming up. That's a part of the process. With a character like that that does start out hot, it's not usually from the top guys, it's from the midcard guys that you feel that heat from backstage. The top guys are kind of settled in, comfortable, their spots aren't going anywhere. It's the midcard guys that feel slighted and overlooked. There was plenty of backlash, and you learn to take it in stride. I think with this character at this particular time and this particular push, there was a lot more than you'd see typically. Some of that I'll put on myself as well. I was young, I was overconfident, and I didn't handle things they way I would now. There was a lot of heat associated on stage and off-stage with that gimmick."
There was a really controversial angle that got your character pulled from TV on the Independence Day Smackdown in 2005. Who tells you that you're going to be taken off TV?
"I think Johnny Ace told Shawn and I what was going on. I think at the time, initially, we were going to fight it. We were going to do publicity, talk shows, that promo in the ring, but eventually we realized if we fought it, we still weren't welcome on Spike, which was showing Raw at the time or UPN which was showing SmackDown. We knew we'd be very limited. I don't remember exactly how I found out, but within a few weeks of the Undertaker segment, we knew that character could not come back in that way to WWE TV."
A story was ran on WWE.com saying yourself and Daivari would be reassigned to OVW. That didn't go down for you, why was that?
"I had just moved from Louisville maybe 8 months prior. We weren't assigned to OVW, it could have been an option. I was also made aware it'd be a while before I was called back up. I was told that explicitly. I guess nobody really knows, but at the same time, the character hit so quickly and hard that from what I gathered, it'd be kind of hard to spin that character into something that people could believe or get heat again. Ultimately, in my experience in that last year and what I had seen...I don't want to say I wouldn't have come back because I would have if something came up in the immediate future, but I realized I needed to move on from wrestling for my own good."
Has their ever been a desire to return, any offers to return from the WWE?
"Not from WWE. I've had plenty of offers from other organizations, but not from WWE. I would say that was more my choice than anything. Seeing what I saw my five years in wrestling personally, and I don't speak for everybody, was that wrestling was the kind of career that if you held on too long, you'd be 50 years old and you'd wonder where the last 25 years went. I made a decision that when I wasn't going to wrestle anymore, was that I wasn't going to wrestle anymore. Part of how I withdrew from that was the conscious decision to move on with my life, because I think it's very dangerous to spent your present focusing on your past and not your future."
Has WWE ever contacted you about WWE Network appearances or anything like that?
"No, I haven't been."
We'd heard rumors that maybe wrestling wasn't your true passion.
"It was at the time, it's definitely not now. I don't watch. I just don't have time to watch. At the time, it was my passion. I've moved on with my life. It takes a very special person to be like a Triple H, John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Randy Orton. Out of all the people who have wrestled, very few make it their lifelong career successfully. It was my passion at the time, but I have no problem saying I was not one of those people. I definitely was not the kind of person who could make wrestling a successful career for 25 years like The Undertaker or Kane or those guys."
There was also the Assassin and Son graphic novel you were doing with Shad Gaspard after your career, tell us a little about that.
"It was an original script Shad had written and given to me. At the time I was living in L.A., and that's kind of what I was doing. I was writing and re-writing scripts, nothing major. I re-wrote it and added and it became a different story. Shad is more actively pursuing that. Shad has been in films, I watched him the other night in Get Hard, he's a fantastically talented individual. I think now he's focused on his acting career. He put a lot of effort in getting Assassin and Son somewhat published. We were up and down, it was something I think he's pursuing in the future. We put it on hold because I have a different career and Shad's acting career is taking off. Shad's a great friend and a great guy, so I hope one day we can work together on this, whether it's as a graphic novel or a film, which is what our original focus was. For now, it's kind of been put on the back shelf. It's a timeless story, so whether we do it now or ten years from now, it's not going to change much of the screenplay."
