Childhood & Early Life
Shawn Daivari, was born on 30th April 1984, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, to Iranian immigrants who had moved to the U.S. in the 1970s. He has two brothers, one older and one younger. The latter is also a professional wrestler, and is part of the ‘WWE Cruiserweight Division’.
His father, Khosrow Daivari, owns two award-winning pizza restaurants, called the 'Leaning Tower Of Pizza', in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
As a child Shawn Daivari greatly admired wrestlers Mick Foley and Bret Hart, but his hero was professional wrestling legend Shawn Michaels. He took part in his very first wrestling match at the age of 15.
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Career
Shawn Daivari first debuted as a professional wrestler in 1999, in the upper midwest independent wrestling scene.
On 26th February 2003, he appeared in the professional wrestling television program 'Explosion', wrestling against a tag team of Mike Sanders and Glenn Gilberti, with Ken Anderson.
He appeared on another professional wrestling TV program, 'Sunday Night Heat', on 5th October 2003, but lost the match to fellow wrestler Tommy Dreamer.
Appearing on ‘Ring of Honor (ROH)’ four times in 2004, he signed on to ‘WWE’ in August 2004, and made his debut as Khosrow Daivari in a December 13 episode of television program 'WWE Raw' (also named 'Raw'), beside Muhammad Hassan. They were famous for adopting Iranian-American personas facing discrimination, causing them to hate America.
Mohammad Hassan and Shawn Daivari were drafted to ‘SmackDown!’ on 23rd June 2005, as a package deal. Mohammad Hassan went on to retire, but Shawn Daivari underwent retraining and repackaging with ‘WWE's Deep South Wrestling (DSW)’ developmental territory, returning in September 2005 on ‘Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) TV’.
On 21st November 2005, Kurt Angle handpicked Shawn Daivari as the referee for all his future matches, after he appeared as a special guest referee for a match held at ‘Raw’ just 14 days prior. Angle and Shawn Daivari stayed with 'Raw' until 13th January 2006, when they were both drafted back to 'SmackDown!'. A fight with Angle effectively ended their partnership soon after.
Shawn Daivari managed famous Indian-born American wrestler, The Great Khali, in 2006, and they were moved to the ECW brand (a promotional brand of the WWE), on 31st October, 2006.
He returned to 'SmackDown!' for various matches during the early months of 2007, and was then drafted back to 'Raw' on 17th June 2007, but was released from his contract on October 16th, 2007.
Shawn Daivari debuted in Arlington, Texas, for 'Professional Championship Wrestling' in November 2007. He returned for matches there periodically in 2008. The same year, in April, he became the ‘AMW Light Heavyweight Champion’. He participated in an 'Irish Whip Wrestling' (an Irish professional wrestling promotion company) event, in June 2008.
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Debuting on 'TNA' in 2008, he officially became a part of the TNA roster on 24th July 2008. He subsequently parted ways with the company on 20th December 2009; he had asked to be let go from his contract after his old boss resigned, as he was unable to get along with the new management.
He made sporadic appearances in wrestling events around the globe in 2010; in 'ROH', in the 'Juggalo Championship Wrestling (JCW) with his sibling Ariya, and even winning the 'AWR No Limits Championship' in Bordeaux, France.
He returned to 'WWE' on 3rd May 2011, in a dark match before the 'SmackDown!' TV show tapings. He was also one of the four team captains in the pilot tapings of the show 'All Wheels Wrestling', as announced in June 2011.
December 2011 saw Shawn Daivari participate in 'Ring Ka King', an Indian project undertaken by ‘TNA’, where he performed as Abdul Bashir, with his brother Ariya adopting the persona of Mustafa Bashir.
In 2012, Shawn Daivari participated, again sporadically, in various wrestling events and shows like 'Family Wrestling Entertainment (FWE)', television show 'House of Hardcore's (HOH)', program 'Portland Wrestling Uncut', and the 'Big Time Wrestling Cruiserweight Championship', which he won.
'Mansome', a documentary by Morgan Spurlock was released in 2012, featuring Shawn Daivari along with three other people. Dealing with the topic of male grooming in the modern era, this documentary received mostly unfavourable reviews, getting an overall score of 35 out of 100 on popular review site 'Metacritic'.
Shawn Daivari debuted in the ‘Lucha Underground’ on 15th April 2015, but he didn't appear in Season 2 of the show. He did, however, make an appearance in a dark match at ‘Ultima Lucha Dos’.
He founded ‘The Academy: School of Professional Wrestling’, with his fellow ‘WWE’ alum, Ken Anderson, in 2016.
While he made very few appearances on the independent wrestling circuit in 2018, he did participate in the 'Insane Championship Wrestling', and in wrestler The Brian Kendrick's promotion, ‘Wrestling Pro Wrestling (WPW)'. 2018 was also when he was hired as a producer by ‘WWE’, but was furloughed, along with multiple other producers, on 15th April 2020.
