During an appearance on the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Wardlow talked about his tryout with WWE and signing with AEW:
“I know people know that I did have a tryout and I smoked that tryout. I was literally the only dude there in a suit. It was mind blowing. Dudes were there in shorts and T-Shirts. That’s because they are not recruiting wrestlers. They are recruiting ex-NFL athletes or college wrestlers, people that have never watched wrestling and don’t care about wrestling. The comments these people were making made me sick to my stomach that they were there getting an opportunity. Of course, my roommate said, ‘man I’ve never even watched wrestling. I don’t even like it’ and I was like, ‘get out of my room. Why are you here?’ It was his second tryout. These people are getting multiple tryouts. So I smoked that tryout. I thought I had this in the bag, so much so that I sold my motorcycle. I sold my house. I literally got rid of everything because I was like, I’m going to put everything into moving to Florida. When the email came in that I was not, I actually had to pull over on the side of the road. I couldn’t believe it. Then I started training personally with Kurt Angle when he was getting ready to make his comeback for his final couple of matches. Me and Kurt clicked in the ring really well. Him and I talked a lot and he expressed that he had a conversation with a certain somebody there about bringing me in. He told me it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. When the opportunity came with AEW and I heard what the plans were and I heard the vision and the passion behind it, I knew there was nothing for me to wait for. This is what it is and I’m very happy I didn’t say no and wait and wait and wait. God knows I could still be waiting at this point. I am most definitely where I am supposed to be.”
(quote courtesy of WrestlingNews.co)
