NXT star Bronson Reed recently spoke with Sporting News to discuss a variety of topics, including his run in the Australian independent scene and how he grew up a major fan of pro-wrestling. For reference, this interview was done prior to his matchups at this past week’s NXT Takeover: Stand & Deliver pay per views. Highlights are below.
How he use to dab in everything, including football and basketball:
I was one of those kids that dabbled in everything. I did a year of soccer, I played footy for two years – as in AFL, I have to say that because if you say football here, they talk about gridiron. I played rugby for two years as well, and I played basketball for two years. I sort of just dabbled in everything as a child and through high school, until I finished high school and I got into pro wrestling.
Says he was always a fan of pro-wrestling:
I was always a fan of pro wrestling, since I can remember. I had my uncle who lived with us at the time, he was a huge wrestling fan, so as a little kid at 2-3 years old, he was watching wrestling on TV and I guess I was sitting there watching as well. From there, I just became a fan. As a little kid, I was always like one day I’m going to be a wrestler, but you don’t know if that is going to happen. As a teenager, I saw some local wrestling and that’s when I was like maybe I can do this, join a school and learn how to do it locally.
On working in the Australian independent scene:
A lot of people ask me about that – I wouldn’t change the way I did it at all. It was very hard work. When I started wrestling in Australia in 2007, getting to somewhere like WWE wasn’t really a thing that you thought of because there were no Australians in WWE. That wasn’t even in the back of my mind, I just wanted to be a pro wrestler and go out and entertain fans. That’s the biggest difference with where we are now, compared to when I started – now people can join a wrestling school, and there are a few reputable ones in Australia. They can have that in their back of their head and think if I get good at this, I can go overseas and get signed.