Al Snow Discusses Why He Was Approached To Do WWE's Tough Enough

Last year, former WWE star Al Snow could be seen in Netflix's docu-series "Wrestlers," focusing on Snow running the independent promotion OVW. However, "Wrestlers" was not Snow's first foray into reality television. During a recent appearance on "Developmentally Speaking," Snow was asked about his time as a trainer on WWE's competition series, "Tough Enough," and Snow explained why he was chosen for that position.

"I started my own wrestling school ... 4 or 5 years prior to going to WWF," Snow said. "[I] operated it for probably 8 [or] 9 years, very successfully."

Snow pointed out that he trained Dan Severn for wrestling as well as his first UFC fight. Other WWE performers trained by Snow include Blue Meanie, D'Lo Brown, and, for one week only, Steve Austin — presumably well before he adopted the "Stone Cold" moniker.

"I think that was why JR had [spoken] to Kevin Dunn, and they came and approached me about the opportunity with 'Tough Enough,'" Snow continued. "I enjoyed it at the time, but [training] was never a definitive goal or direction. It wasn't until I started getting a little older that I [realized] the one definitive legacy I would leave behind in the wrestling business is all the people that I trained."

"Tough Enough" was a series focused on finding future WWE talent, with the winner of each season ostensibly going on to receive a contract from the company. The show initially ran for four seasons from 2001 to 2004, and WWE later brought it back for two additional seasons in 2011 and 2015. Past contestants from "Tough Enough" include Maven, Chris Nowinski, John Hennigan, The Miz, Mandy Rose, and Chelsea Green. However, Snow was only involved during the series' initial run in the early 2000s.

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