During an appearance on Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast, Tay Conti talked about being contacted by WWE for a tryout without having any knowledge of wrestling:
“Wrestling is not a big thing in Brazil. I never watched it, I never knew about it before. That was not a thing at all for me. It’s hard, because normally everybody that asks like, ‘Oh, who was your favorite wrestler growing up?’ I’m like ‘ I don’t have it, because I never watched it till I came here.’ But the WWE contacted me and they asked me to do a tryout, and I said ‘no’ because I was like, ‘I don’t know what it is.’ And in my mind I was like, ‘I’m not getting out of my country to go to a different country to do something that I don’t even know what it is!’ I’m not going to lie, I thought it was some type of like, prostitution or something. [laughs] ’cause I’m like, ‘I’m not getting out of my country!’ I didn’t know, I had no idea what it was. But then, I knew Adrian [Arturo Ruas] and he was in WWE. I asked him, and then I was like ‘Yeah, let’s do it. It’s a good opportunity.’ So that’s how pro wrestling became a thing in my life.”
Conti also commented on her tryout experience:
“I remember more like Bayley because she was screaming at me all the time. Yes … That was crazy because honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. I’ll be 100% honest, no idea. But then, because of my background, I was like, ‘That’s a competition and I want to win.’ And then I was like, ‘What am I winning? I don’t even know. But like, it’s a lot of people, it’s a competition, and I’m going to be the best.’ That was my mentality. And I didn’t know any words [in English]. Like, I didn’t know how to say ‘Hi’ back then, right? And I had to watch it first, and then try to do it. And I’m like ‘Oh my god, I have no idea what I’m doing.’ I had to be copying what other people were doing because I had no clue. But then that was fun. That was a great opportunity I will never forget. And I remember Bayley like, every time I was doing this stance, she was like ‘AHH,’ screaming in my face. She was motivating me and I was like ‘Hell yeah! I like this.’”
