Mojo Rawley has spoken about the original plans that had been set for Rob Gronkowski in WWE.
Gronkowski, who is a good friend of Rawley’s, first appeared in WWE at WrestleMania 33 where he got into an altercation with Jinder Mahal during the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal which finished with ‘Gronk’ shoulder blocking the ‘Modern Day Maharaja’. Rawley would go on to win the match by eliminating Mahal last. Gronkowski also guest-hosted WrestleMania 36 alongside Rawley, who he then pinned to win the 24/7 Championship.
In a recent interview with Cultaholic, Rawley gave details on the original plans for a feud between he and Gronkowski that would last through to a match in Saudi Arabia.
“It was pretty cool because we were gonna bring Rob in, we were gonna do a little hosting thing at ‘Mania, but it was gonna set up a tag match with me and Rob at SummerSlam in Boston. We were gonna go over and then I was gonna turn on him. I was going to get his brothers and his dad in on it and it was going to lead to a blow-off No DQ Match in Saudi Arabia. Me vs. him with his whole family there with the thought being that I beat the crap out of Rob in front of his family in his hometown in Boston, he’s gonna come do the same thing to me in Saudi Arabia where my family is from.”
However, it was not to be, as the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the plans were unable to move forward.
“So we had this really cool plan in place with a lot more specifics to it and, unfortunately with the state of the world, all of that got thrown out and it was more or less reduced to co-hosting with the 24/7 spot and that was it.”
Rawley also disclosed that the SummerSlam tag match would have saw the duo facing wither Miz and John Morrison, or Mahal and an undecided partner.
“We were searching for that. I’ve got to think it was gonna be Miz and [John] Morrison. But we were also trying to find a tag partner for Jinder [Mahal] because we had that whole moment with him in the Battle Royal at WrestleMania 33. Either of those guys would have been perfect because those guys are fantastic workers, they would have made Rob look like a million bucks.”
Mojo Rawley was a member of the WWE roster from 2012 until his release in April 2021. During this time he held the 24/7 Championship seven times and had a notable run in a tag team with Zack Ryder known as ‘The Hype Bros’.
Rob Gronkowski has not appeared for WWE since 2020, but there was still discussion of him returning as recently as WrestleMania 37.
H/T to Cultaholic for the above transcription