Ari Daivari has worked for WWE and AEW as a backstage producer. He recently appeared on the “AEW Unrestricted” podcast to talk about his journey to the wrestling industry and how his brother, Shawn Daivari, shaped his mindsight before competing in the ring.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On getting advice from his brother before he started in the business: “I give a lot of credit to my older brother Shawn. Before I even broke into wrestling, he was already in the WWE. And he knew I wanted to become a wrestler too. So he was always giving me advice that he would get from guys in WWE, and I’m talking legendary guys. Chris Jericho, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Eddie Guerrero. All those types of guys were giving him advice, because he was kind of like Dante Martin minus all the athleticism. He was a 20 year-old in a WWE locker room, he got signed really, really young.
“So he was getting tons of advice from these legendary performers. And he would come home and he would tell me about it. ‘Eddie Guerrero told me this, Chris Jericho told me this. The Undertaker told me this.’ So I was getting all this information about psychology before I even got into wrestling. And then once I started wrestling, I always kinda kept those things in mind.”
On working as a producer in WWE: “I really feel like I have a good grasp on that, just because I had a little bit of a leg up. So while I was in WWE, I was always thinking about different ideas and watching people’s matches very closely. And I knew it was something I eventually wanted to do. He eventually became a producer at WWE, so I started talking to him more and more about the process and all that kind of stuff. And eventually I started doing it as a trial run there as well too before I started with AEW.”
On his work as a producer in AEW: “A big part of this job, especially here in AEW… a producer here, I kinda feel like, is almost sometimes like reigning talent just a little bit for their own good. For their own good, you know? Because we’ve got some wild, crazy guys and girls that are so dedicated to this business, and if you don’t reign them back a little bit, they’re going to go out there and potentially kill themselves for the love of the business. Which ain’t a bad thing to have that mentality, but sometimes you just wanna rein it back a little bit and say, ‘Hey, we got week-to-week TV, I need you here next week. You can’t kill yourself on this show, because we need you next week, and the week after, and the week after, and the PPV after. So being a producer, you sometimes wanna help instill the psychology, making sure some of the old school rules live on while still adding a new school flavor to it.”
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