Ariya Daivari Is ‘Counting The Days’ Until WWE Non-Compete Expires, Talks Moving on From WWE

Ariya Daivari is looking forward to the next stage of his career following his WWE release, as he noted in a new interview. Daivari appeared on Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions Podcast, and you can check out some highlights below (per Wrestling Inc):

On being excited for his non-compete clause to expire: “I’m literally counting down the days. I’m starting to get all my bookings figured out, and I can start talking to other companies a little bit more seriously. So yes, I cannot wait till the 23rd.”

Before talking about his future however, Daivari talked about his past with WWE. In particular he focused on his time in 205 Live, where he spent the bulk of his time with WWE. While Daivari loved that the brand gave him an opportunity to fulfill his dream of wrestling for WWE, he also thinks it may have pigeonholed him.

On his time on 205 Live: “It’s kind of twofold. For one, the Cruiserweight Division obviously gave smaller guys like me an opportunity to work in WWE. My entire life I always said ‘I’m going to work for WWE. I’m going to wrestle there, I know I will.’ But in the back of my head you go ‘you’re also 5’10. An average WWE wrestler were these giant hosses of men.’ So that was the only thing that was like ‘that may be the only roadblock I have.’ So when they came up with this Cruiserweight Classic and they said ‘hey we’re going to give another run at the Cruiserweight Division’, I was really grateful for that.

“So that was really cool. Now on the other side of the token, I just know in the history of how WWE does things that once you have that Cruiserweight stamp on you, it might be like swimming upstream the entire time. Because at the end of the day it’s still Vince McMahon’s show and he still likes big giant dudes and stuff like that. So that was the only thing. I was happy it created an opportunity for me to finally wrestle in the WWE but I also know that I didn’t want to be labeled a Cruiserweight. When I was an independent wrestler for ten years, I was never a Cruiserweight, I was never a Lightweight. Because independent wrestling is all shapes and sizes. It doesn’t matter.”

On smaller guys having a harder time in WWE: “The other thing too is it always kind of bothered me when WWE looked as this size thing. Being a WWE wrestler is a really hard job. If you’re not dedicated to pro wrestling, if you haven’t dedicated your life to the craft of pro wrestling, I don’t think it’s going to work out for you. A lot of the guys who were on 205, me, Ali, Gulak, Lince, Tony, like we’re all really dedicated to pro wrestling. We love pro wrestling, and we took it very seriously when we were on the independent scene. So it was always kind of weird to me because WWE should want that. You should want guys that are like ‘I’m here for this business, I’m willing to die for this business.’ WWE should be like ‘hell yeah, these are the guys we want on our team.’ But they use, sometimes they’ll use your love and passion of pro wrestling against you a little bit. It was always kind of weird to me that said ‘you should want a roster of guys who absolutely love professional wrestling and they care about it. And they took it upon themselves to learn the road before they got to WWE.’ So it’s kind of weird to me sometimes, those guys are like ‘eh we don’t want to go with those guys. We want to go with this football player who, this was his second choice. Football was his first love, wrestling is his backup choice.’”

On moving on from WWE: “I’m ready to go. One thing I always thought about before I got to WWE, because I was so laser focused on WWE, it never allowed me to focus on anything else. That’s why I say my shoot jobs I had, I was always moving around and this and that cause every job I had I was like ‘I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be in WWE, I’m supposed to be in wrestling.’ So now I can finally say I went there, I did it, I know what it’s all about. I kind of feel your success is chosen for you there, so you don’t have to harp on that. You kind of just finally move on.

“Luckily my time moving on is when wrestling has blown the f**k up. This company called AEW shows up and just turns the whole wrestling landscape upside down. Things are really changing. It’s awesome. And also, I have so many of my friends that I came up with. I have so many friends in Impact, I have so many friends in AEW, I have so many friends in New Japan. These were guys that maybe didn’t get a shot in WWE, but now they’re thriving in all these different places. MLW, NWA, like it’s awesome to see. So it’s cool that I know that if I go to a different locker room, a ton of my friends are there and this and that. I’m very excited to see what’s coming next.”