AEW Star MVP Details Getting Into Wrestling After Time In Prison

AEW's MVP has narrated his journey from jail to becoming a pro wrestler, and how a few individuals helped him develop a love for it.

MVP, on his "Marking Out with MVP & Dwayne Swayze" podcast, revealed that he only started learning wrestling after being released from jail, and that his interest in it grew when he was in prison.

"I didn't start studying wrestling till I got out," he said. "I remember, they had — the I think WWF used to come on like Sundays at noon or something, or it was like the half-hour TV version — and it would cut right into count time. So we had this one officer who was super cool. He would try to let us watch as much as he could and was like, 'All right, guys. TV's got to go off now. You got to do count.' So I was watching the Lex Express and Lex Luger slam Yokozuna on the battleship, you know, and then I hadn't seen wrestling until I got to work release."

The former WWE star recalled watching ECW during his time in prison, and how everyone else was forced to watch it when he tuned into the wrestling channel.

"So they'd put us all in the day room, and then I'd put on ECW. And there was a rule back then in the Florida prison system that if a program was already in progress, you couldn't change the channel," said the AEW star.

MVP stated that a corrections officer, Prime Time Daryl D, who was also a wrestler, played a key role in him developing a love for wrestling and helping him train to become one.

"And when I got out, he [Daryl D] called me a few months later and said, 'You still want to learn to wrestle?' I said, 'Yeah, you know, I need a hobby, something to keep me out of trouble, you know.' And then he said, 'Okay, I'll talk to you again in a few months.' Then I didn't hear from him for a while. And then he called me again and said, 'Do you still want to learn how to wrestle?' I was like, 'Yeah.' He said, 'Okay. I wanted to make sure, you know, because hey, you get out, you got life now. You're doing something. Who knows? Maybe you're not interested.' And that's when I started to immerse myself into wrestling."

MVP recalled trading tapes to learn how to wrestle and then trained with Prime Time, initially in the corrections officer's backyard, before training at Duke the Dumpster's wrestling school. 

"I never paid a penny for wrestling school. They didn't charge me a dime. They just taught me. But I was there at practice. I was there for the roads, you know, and they saw something. Those vets, you know, they looked around. They were like, 'Oh, no. This kid got something.' And I was devoted to it. So then I became a student."

After being introduced to Japanese wrestling by WWE trainer Norman Smiley, he fell deeply in love with it and gave up the Memphis style of wrestling that he initially trained under.