The now-former NXT UK talent speaks about his departure from WWE.
On August 18th, members of NXT UK were informed of the 2023 launch of WWE’s NXT Europe brand. With that news came the release of multiple members of the talent roster while some migrated over to NXT 2.0 for the upcoming Worlds Collide event on September 4th.
One of the talents released from WWE was Rohan Raja. In his first post-WWE interview, Raja told Jason Powell on the Pro Wrestling Boom podcast that those on the NXT UK roster constantly received messages online about how the brand would get scrapped.
When it comes to his release, Raja was caught off guard but said he and the company are on good terms. Talents were informed of NXT Europe prior to the press release being sent out.
Obviously, you’re not — even if you kind of hear of things of people might be getting let go, you kind of just, I don’t know, I guess kind of pretend… there was just so much [rumors] and it didn’t help with like — I remember at one point, I think it was during COVID, there was reports coming out of NXT UK’s getting canned so then so many of us would just start getting messages from people saying — just kind of random, I wouldn’t even say ‘fans’ because our fans are pretty loyal but they would just kind of say, ‘Oh yeah, all you guys are gonna get fired’ and all this stuff so we kind of already had to deal with that anyway so when this kind of came out, when we heard of NXT Europe, I for one, I can’t really speak for anyone else but I was super excited because I was like, this is awesome. It’ll be like, when we do tapings, instead of just being at BT Studios the whole time, we’re gonna be going on the road and everything and then when we found out it was going to be — because we got all the details before the press release and all that came out, and then I was excited. I was like, this is gonna be great but then obviously, when they said the launch was coming next year, then I was like, okay, this probably isn’t good news and I’d say I was caught off guard but, we’re on really good terms so, and I solely believe — when it happened, I can’t remember word for word what I said about my release but I really, solely believe that I’ll come back stronger and I’ve got a chip on my shoulder I wanna prove per se. I know I deserve to be there and I know it’s just something of it is what it is. They kind of had to do what they had to do in order to progress the growth of the international NXT brand and I think in the long-run, it’s gonna work out for everyone but obviously, right now, it is kind of a sucky sort of feeling but yeah, it is what it is.
He was later asked when he was told about his release. WWE had their Talent Relations department make those calls. Rohan stated that from what he gathered from his conversation, he thinks he’ll be back in WWE for NXT Europe.
From what I’ve heard, everyone’s kind of, you know, they’ve had different conversations with them [in terms of getting the call/message about their release] but it’s pretty much just, they’ve got a T.R. group so Talent Relations team, kind of what John Laurinaitis was doing so it was a member out of that-that called me and obviously spoke to me about it but, from what I gathered and what they said and everything, I think I’m gonna be back for NXT Europe when that launches.
While part of NXT UK, Raja was one-third of Die Familie which consisted of Teoman and Charlie Dempsey. Raja said the group was a Shawn Michaels idea. Initially, he did not think he would click with Teoman, but the three talents ended up becoming close friends.
So, I’d never met Metehan/Teoman before I got to the P.C. and honestly, my first impression of him, I don’t even think he knows this but, I don’t know, I just kind got a weird vibe from him and I just didn’t think we were gonna hit it off well and it was something that Shawn [Michaels] presented it to us and said, ‘We think you two would really work well together’ and then obviously told us that they were gonna bring Charlie Dempsey, William Regal’s son into the group as well but the more time that went on, me and Metehan and especially Charlie as well, we’re all really close. I made a lot of friends down there but those two, we all got on really close which was really cool.
Episodes of NXT UK are continuing to to air. The last episode of the program is scheduled for September 1st.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Pro Wrestling Boom podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
