Erick Rowan spent the majority of his WWE run alongside Luke Harper (Brodie Lee in AEW) as part of the Wyatt Family and then the Bludgeon Brothers.
But when he was given the opportunity to be more on his own as the man who tried to "murder" Roman Reigns, he succeeded, and WWE wasn't quite prepared for that.
"The first time they gave me a promo, a long promo, I knew I had to be as close to me as possible," Rowan said on the Lewis Nicholls Show. "I started talking and the next day, people backstage came up to me and are like, 'I didn't know you had it in you.' What do you mean 'I didn't know you had it in you?' I'm right here. I've been here the whole time, I've always been able to talk. I'm not a mute, but I played a mute and a guy who is quiet for the longest time. We play the character given unless you're a certain person. You have your essential characters and your background characters. Not everyone can be an essential character, I get that. To finally be an essential character, that meant everything. I wanted to show them I could do this and I did."
Rowan continued, "It was too short and a lot of it was the victim of, we had the draft coming up and SmackDown was switching networks. They didn't have a plan for me because they didn't think I was going to succeed. I know they didn't because I wouldn't have had people come up to me being like, 'I can't believe you can do this.' Then, all of a sudden, they're letting me talk and do more. So, they were trusting me more, but it stopped when I got put on Raw."
On Raw, Rowan began carrying around a cage that started as a good mystery but dragged into a payoff that couldn't deliver. Rowan discussed the failed "what's the cage?' angle elsewhere during the interview. You can read his full comments by clicking here.
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