WWE's Jade Cargill Had A Very Different Career Path Before Pro Wrestling

Everyone in professional wrestling has their own unique story on how they got in to the business. Some saw their favorite performers wrestling on TV and immediately made it their life's mission to be on TV themselves, others begin life in other sports before transitioning in to a world of sports entertainment, and at times, even reality TV has been a way of finding the next top WWE Superstar. For Jade Cargill, who has only been in the business for a little over four years at the time of writing, her journey to wrestling the first women's singles match at WrestleMania to not be for any sort of championship or have any stipulation attached to it, is full of life's happy accidents.

Much like many children who grew up in 1990s America, wrestling was ever present on Cargill's TV, with WWE dominating the landscape of pop culture, while WCW and even ECW had their fair share of brushes with the spotlight at that time. However, Cargill never imagined herself as a professional wrestler, and merely enjoyed it as a form of entertainment. Instead, she opted for a life as a basketball player, playing at 117 games at Jacksonville University for the Jacksonville Dolphins as both a forward and a guard across four seasons. She would then take her talents to France, where she took part in some modelling on the side of her basketball career, before returning to the United States to pursue a new career.

Cargill went on to attain her masters degree in child psychology, where she began working with foster children in 2019 as a child psychologist. It was a job that Cargill has said that she really loved, and that she wanted to do it for her whole life, but after bringing so much emotional baggage home with her after a days work, one conversation with her friend Kelsey changed everything.

In May 2022, Cargill detailed in The Players Tribune the conversation she had with her friend Kelsey that ultimately led to her becoming a professional wrestler.

"Kelsey is a friend of mine, and one night we were just sitting around having a casual jokey joke situation. We were on Instagram — this is like the fall of 2019 — and I think we were going through comments and stuff like that. People would comment on my pics, like, 'You look like a professional wrestler. You look like a superhero.' I was getting a lot of those comments at the time. And as we're laughing about how funny that is, Kelsey asks me, 'You ever thought about wrestling?' I give her a look and I'm like, 'No way.' We were really just joking with each other. Scrolling online. But then some minutes pass and she's like, 'Actually I'm serious — would you ever get into it for real? I have this friend who is a wrestler.....'"

That friend that Kelsey was talking about was none other than WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry, who would put Cargill in contact with him after she gave it some thought. Cargill would bring it up to her husband, former Cincinnati Reds baseman Brandon Phillips, who according to Cargill said, "Why would you want to go out and hurt yourself?" Her mother had a similar reaction, telling Jade that she was a beautiful girl that didn't need to go into wrestling and hurt herself, asking her "Why would you want to do that?"

Despite the ones closest to her not understanding what was going through her head, Cargill would get a WWE tryout in 2019 thanks to Henry, but ultimately failed to land a developmental contract with the company. However, Cargill's wrestling journey didn't stop there. 

After being told by WWE officials that they were interested in her, but that they needed to know if she was serious about being a wrestler, Cargill began training more extensively, and was eventually put in contact with AEW President Tony Khan. Even though Cargill's end goal was WWE, Khan put Cargill at ease and agreed to sign her to a multi-year deal that began in the fall of 2020.

Cargill would debut on the November 11, 2020 episode of "AEW Dynamite," and moved her training to The Nightmare Factory where she was able to train with Cody Rhodes and QT Marshall, the former of whom she would feud with in her first few months on TV. She would go on a lengthy undefeated streak that led to her winning a tournament to become the first-ever AEW TBS Champion in 2022, defeating Ruby Soho in the final. If that wasn't enough, that undefeated streak would last for a total of 60 televised matches, and was only broken by Kris Statlander at the 2023 Double or Nothing pay-per-view, who had the advantage of Cargill having just wrestled a match immediately before.

Following the loss, Cargill would take some time away and returned in September of that year to confront Statlander and ask for a rematch, which took place on the September 15 episode of "AEW Rampage." This would end up being Cargill's final match for the company, as she once again lost to Statlander, bringing her overall record in AEW to 60-2. Cargill reportedly left the company on excellent terms, but when the chance to sign with WWE at the end of her AEW came about, there was no way she could turn it down, and just a few weeks later, she unveiled as WWE's newest roster member. Her dream of being a WWE Superstar had been achieved.