Authors Of Pain Say They Want Part Of Their WWE Act To Return

Formerly known as the Authors of Pain in WWE, Sunny Dhinsa (Akam) and Gzim Selmani (Rezar) recently spoke about their time in the company on the Ango YouTube channel.

Their path to the NXT Tag Team Championship began when Paul Ellering became their on-screen manager but before he committed to taking the role, Ellering wanted to get a look at them.

"Actually from what we know is that Hunter brought Paul Ellering in to see us actually train, work out, see us from a distance and you know, just check us out," Selmani recalled. "Like, because, from what I know, he didn't accept many offers after the Road Warriors, right? After Legion of Doom, he didn't accept many and we were the first ones where he actually – really, that he trusted and he really believed in, and yeah.

"I mean, he pushed us," Selmani continued. "He pushed us just like the old days, man. He made us do the squats, do the push-ups, do the workouts before every match. He hyped us up. He hyped us up and 'leave no prisoners'. That was his saying before every match. He grabs by the neck and he said, 'leave no prisoners'. It's going to be everything or nothing. Yeah man, every, every match that we did with Paul, it was all of nothing. Like the motivation, we had for those matches, when he was around with us and it was crazy, man."

The partnership with Paul Ellering ended after WWE called up the Authors of Pain to the company's main roster in 2018. Sunny Dhinsa and Gzim Selmani said they didn't want to split from Ellering.

"We didn't want this, but we're professionals," Selmani said. "You know, we've been training for this all our lives. He helped us push it. He said... once we heard like we had to, we had to do that, we had to leave him after the match, he told us, 'guys, like, you're not even going to try to fight this. This is gonna be it'. He said, "I helped you guys come to here. I did my job.' He said, 'Now it's time for you guys to kill it.' He said, 'Sometimes life sucks, but hey, you've got to continue'. He said, 'It's not over yet, you know?' He knew it. He said, 'It's not over yet'."

"The higher-ups made that decision, not us, you know?" Dhinsa said. "Where we, we loved having Paul with us, you know what I mean? We still do. You know, and if we decide to get back in the ring or whatever, we want Paul to be involved somehow."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the Ango YouTube channel with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.