Nova loved portraying Simon Dean, and he also has a lot of love for Maven.
Simon Dean arrived in WWE in 2005, but long before then, Nova had captivated wrestling audiences in ECW. While he would eventually be able to briefly play "Hollywood Nova" as part of a short-lived BWO run in the WWE, complete with a match against the Mexicools at the WWE Great American bash in 2005, Simon Dean was the original character he portrayed specifically for World Wrestling Entertainment.
Reflecting on his days as the proprietor of the Simon System, Nova recently told Sean Ross Sapp that his original name for the character was Sonny Slade, and while he came up with the idea of being an infomercial fitness guru character, WWE pitched the name, Simon Dean, a take on Dean Malenko's real name, Dean Simon.
"That’s the only thing they came up with, was the name of Simon Dean. Everything else I came up with. The original name I came up with was Sonny Slade because I wanted to have Sonny Slade’s Super System of Self-Help and Supplements. That’s what it was gonna be. So I pitched that whole angle, Jack LaLanne, Tony Little, all this stuff was my idea. Then they came up with the name Simon Dean. I didn’t know what Dean’s real name was. Then he came up to me a couple of weeks later and said his name was Dean Simon and the whole deal. I was like, ‘Well, this is great. I can do Simon Says and all that stuff.’ I never looked back. I loved my time in WWE. I loved being Simon Dean. I loved being Nova and Hollywood Nova, but I just liked being a pro wrestler," he said.
In addition to his love of being a professional wrestler, Nova says he has a lot of love for the original winner of WWE Tough Enough, Maven. Believing that the business did Maven an injustice because of the atypical way he got into the industry, Nova says he has a lot of love for Maven and the life that he has been able to build for himself beyond the ropes.
"Me, personally, I hope Maven sees this. I love Maven. I felt the business did him an injustice, a little bit. Because he won Tough Enough, they threw him right on TV, and they tried to just push him to the moon. It was too much, too fast. When I got with him and we were teaming, I remember breaking down matches for him and telling him, ‘Hey, this is why we do this in a tag team match. This is why we do this, this is why we do that. It was almost like starting from scratch.’ He had so much more to offer. I felt the business chewed him up and spit him out a little bit. He deserved better from it. Maven was a class act. He’s an awesome dude. He’s a success story. He had some trials and tribulations, man, and he’s made it past that. He’s another one you can look at and say he made it. He’s done great for himself. I’m proud of Maven. He came out on top," said Nova.
Nova recently retired after wrestling on a Stand Alone Wrestling card. Nova wrestled alongside Aron Stevens and Frankie Kazarian against Pat Buck, Brian Myers, and Matt Cardona, scoring the win in his final match that occurred in December 2022.
As for Maven, he's made more wrestling appearances recently, also opposite the likes of Matt Cardona. Maven recently commented on his famous Royal Rumble 2002 moment, where he eliminated Undertaker. Learn more here.
