Ariya Daivari shares Bill DeMott’s reaction to his ‘Magic Carpet’ move during his WWE tryout.
Former WWE talent Ariya Daivari first began working with the company in 2016 as a part of the Cruiserweight Classic tournament. He then was added to the 205 Live roster and spent over four years with WWE before being released this past June.
Ariya did partake in a WWE tryout in 2014 and during that tryout, he had an eight minute match with the younger brother of former WWE talent Tino Sabbatelli. Daivari went up to the top rope and hit his ‘Magic Carpet’ finisher which sees him hit a ‘Frog Splash’ with a blanket in his hands. At the time, Bill DeMott was coaching for WWE and he was not big on Daivari’s finisher. Daivari shared this story while on Matt Rehwoldt’s ‘Straight Shooting’ podcast.
He [Bill DeMott] did not like it. He was not a fan of the Magic Carpet. Here’s the best part: So we had eight minutes. Everyone had eight minutes to do a match so one thing I was concerned about was don’t go over your time and we were getting to the finish. The Magic Carpet was gonna be the finish and as soon as I hit it, the bell rings and I go, ‘What? The ref didn’t count.’ I didn’t go over my time because the big clock is on the wall and then he gets on the microphone in front of everybody and he goes, ‘We don’t do that indie bullsh*t here. Next!’ And I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’
The only thing that made me feel better about it is so I did it, he says that line and I was like, ‘Man, I might’ve just blown my tryout here’ and I roll out of the ring and [William] Regal immediately pulled me aside and goes, ‘I know what you were doing. Like, we just have different –’ he explained it in a much more normal way. You know, he’s like, ‘I think it’s great but we don’t do that kind of stuff here. Maybe later you can introduce it’ but he didn’t embarrass me in front of everybody like Bill DeMott did.
As far as what’s next for Daivari post-WWE, he was at a cross roads where he contemplated if he should step away from wrestling seeing as how getting to WWE was a main goal of his. After some thinking, he made the decision that he wants to continue wrestling and is waiting for his 90-day non-compete to expire.
You know, there was definitely a kind of crossroads at times when I was like, you know, do I move on to something else or do I continue wrestling? What do I want to do with my life? Because I was very laser-focused on getting to the WWE. So now that I’ve done that, I was like, ‘Okay, do I move on to something else?’ But, I’m still young, I still have the itch for wrestling, I still wanna travel. I still feel I have a lot more to give to the wrestling business. I have more to contribute, you know? I can contribute to shows, I can wrestle new guys, veteran guys, whoever it may be but I still wanna wrestle. I think that’s what I — I wanna transition into a producer role eventually when I’m a little bit older maybe but right now, I still feel like I have a lot of good years in me and just being at home during this 90 days, I think it’s like maybe 60 days left now but like, the first week or so, it was kind of like, ‘Ah, nice vacation.’ Not even thinking about wrestling. But when I started watching some shows again or watching some old stuff, I started getting that itch and I started shadow wrestling in my living room and stuff like that so I’m like, ‘I need to get back in a ring. I need to get back in a ring soon.’
Along with Daivari, Tony Nese, Fandango, Killian Dain, Ever-Rise (2.0 — Jeff Parker & Matt Lee), The Bollywood Boyz and more were released from the company. There were more cuts from the NXT/205 Live brand[s] this past Friday and to read about that, check out POST Wrestling’s article about the topic.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Straight Shooting podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
