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Mojo Rawley says Rob Gronkowski was supposed to compete in multiple WWE pay-per-view matches, including a tag team match at WWE SummerSlam 2020.
Gronkowski retired from American football in 2019 after cementing his status as one of the most successful NFL stars of the last decade. A lifelong WWE fan, the 32-year-old signed with WWE in 2020 before deciding to return to American football.
Rawley, Gronkowski’s close friend in real life, recently appeared on the Straight Shooting podcast with Matt Rehwoldt (f.k.a. Aiden English). The former WWE star said Gronkowski was supposed to follow up his WrestleMania 36 hosting role with matches at SummerSlam and in Saudi Arabia.
“What we wanted to do is set up multiple pay-per-view matches, like a program with him,” Rawley said. “SummerSlam was going to be in Boston that year, so we were gonna have some fun at ‘Mania. We had a few different plans for that. I think it was gonna lead into a tag match at SummerSlam and then probably set something up with me and him for after. I think the plan was to do one in Saudi Arabia.”
Rob Gronkowski also won the 24/7 Championship during his short run with WWE. His 57-day reign, which began at WrestleMania 36, is the longest in the title’s two-year history. R-Truth recaptured the title from Gronkowski in the NFL star’s backyard before the June 1, 2020 episode of RAW.
Rob Gronkowski did not want to wrestle full-time
Mojo Rawley clarified that Rob Gronkowski never intended to work at WWE live events as a full-time performer.
Like many celebrities who appear in WWE, Gronkowski was willing to train for a month at the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida before his debut.
“That was the original plan and then from there who knows what it goes into,” Rawley added. “I knew he wasn’t going to be full-time but I knew he also wasn’t gonna come in and just do like, ‘Alright, I’ll give you one RAW leading up to a pay-per-view and then that’s it.’ He wanted to do more than that, and he just kept talking about, ‘You know, if I’m gonna do this, I wanna do this right. I wanna fly down to Orlando for like a month and I wanna train every single day.’”
Rawley added that Rob Gronkowski’s WWE interest was not financially motivated. He even claimed that he has seen his friend turn down hourly rates that are higher than some WWE stars’ annual salaries.
Please credit Straight Shooting and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.
