Wardlow Discusses His Failed WWE Try-Out

AEW Superstar, Wardlow, recently sat down with Chris Van Vliet and recalled his WWE tryout. He shared what stood out from that time and how it affected him.

"I aced that tryout out, I mean, with flying colors and they didn't want me." Wardlow said. "So for the first time in my life, I went, 'oh, well maybe this isn't going to happen'. Fortunately, I stuck with it, and I was determined to make it happen one way or another. I thank God every day that AEW came about. But yeah man, being denied, that was a unique experience and a unique feeling. But it put me where I needed to be, and I'm happy for it."

Filled with determination, Wardlow would describe how the rejection motivated him. He illustrated his next steps to attempt to break out in the sport.

"At that time that was it," Wardlow said. "I mean, you had Impact and I was emailing them, you know, like every other week. Because realistically if it was WWE, the only real thing left was Impact. And if not Impact, then you're just trying to get booked on the indies. Because that's what, you know, they said, 'go make a name for yourself'. I accepted that challenge. Yeah, how do you like my name now? So, yeah man, you know, I just kept going. I was trying to get booked on like, bigger indie shows to make a name for myself and try and get out there. And fortunately, it wasn't too long after that, and it was like Warrior Wrestling, I did that in Chicago, which is a little bit of a bigger promotion. Started branching out a little bit to Canada and then to Greektown Wrestling and then, fortunately, one day woke up to a phone call from QT Marshall and the rest is history."

Now thankful to be in AEW, Warldlow felt he was destined to be a WWE superstar. He discussed what his mindset was heading into his WWE tryout.

"I always believed I was going to walk in WWE's front doors and they were going to go, 'what took you so long? Get over here'. Wardlow said. "So you know, I don't want to sound cocky, I'm very confident that I was confident years ago and it didn't happen. You know, but I still feel like a certain individual in that company would look at me and go, 'you're my guy'. So I'm not surprised, I feel like I'm right up their ally of what their cookie-cutter wrestler would be. But hey, they had their shot."

You can watch the full interview below.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.