Nick Aldis Recalls Interacting With Dominick Mysterio In WWE Debut

Nick Aldis made his debut as the GM of Smackdown just over a year ago, and he recently looked back on the segment and interacting with Dominick Mysterio. Aldis debut as the Smackdown GM on the October 13th, 2023 episode of Smackdown, introducing Kevin Owens as a new member of the roster. Aldis spoke about the segment during his interview with Chris Van Vliet for the latter’s Insight podcast. You can see a couple of highlights below, per Fightful:

On working opposite Mysterio: “If ‘Dirty’ Dom Mysterio hadn’t been in that segment, it would have been a much more difficult position for me to get that one thing, which was the ‘big fan of your dad’ line. When I was looking over it during the day, I’m brand new, but I’m also a producer so I have a bit of freedom and leeway to make suggestions. I remember looking at the way it was laid out, and I saw the suggestion of ‘big fan.’ I was like, ‘What if I put a pause in there?’ In my mind, that’s my sense of humor and s**t-talker style. ‘Big fan…of your dad.’ I said it and Hunter and whoever was around at the time laughed. I was like, ‘That might work.’”

On making his debut in the segment: “Looking at it, the segment isn’t necessarily about me. I’m here to facilitate. At the same time, I’ve got ten seconds to smash something. That’s it. That’s my kick-the-door-down moment. I knew I had to do that. I knew the majority of people watching didn’t know who I was. I would have loved to debuted in Chicago or New York or Philly where there may have been a higher concentration of fans who were familiar. Tulsa, Oklahoma, not what I would describe as my strongest market, brother, but I’ll take it. Dom has so much heat and he’s the guy you love to hate. That is the sweet spot, especially in the modern era, that’s the sweet spot as a heel character. You have to be the guy they love to hate. It’s hard now to have real heat because real heat becomes, ‘is it real?’ We don’t want to have a disclaimer, ‘Oh, it’s not real.’ That ruins the whole thing. You have to be a guy they love to hate. That’s Dirty Dom.”