Dalton Castle looks back on the time he tried out for WWE.
The former ROH World Champion discussed this topic during a recent interview on WrestleJoy, where he reflected on his early days of finding his current character incarnation and how he was getting booked more at that time.
It was probably 2013 or 2014, I started getting a lot more bookings and traveling on the road. I wasn’t doing the act that you see today, I was still Dalton Castle, I was still a peacock, but I wasn’t coming out in the jumpsuit with The Boys. I had tassels and a lot of color, but I didn’t really have a lot of direction in what I was doing. But because I was still functional in the ring and was still charismatic, I got the opportunity to try out with WWE.
Castle states that his 3-day tryout at FCW included a promo day, where he was told to come dressed wearing whatever he wanted, so he came in flip-flops.
Being young, I was on the radio at the time, and I hated my job, and I got called down. At the time, I was like, ‘This is it, this is everything I’ve been working for’. I go down to WWE, I go to one of those 3-day tryouts at FCW. I felt like I was crushing it. I felt so good! Day 3 was promo day, they said come as you want, come comfortable, come as you are. I wore flip-flops, and went up, and I did my promo. Like, there’s no doubt in my mind that I didn’t crush it, because I’m really good! Even then I was really good, I obviously got invited down.
Unfortunately, Castle got chewed out by some unnamed legends that he used to respect, but does say that the late Dusty Rhodes was nice to him.
They just dressed me down the second I stopped talking. They didn’t say one positive thing about the way I talked. They just shit on me for wearing flip-flops. Seven men that I looked up to, that I grew up watching and respecting, they were just running me down. I think the only person who didn’t say something mean and was just kind of nice, was Dusty Rhodes. That was something, that’s kind of nice.
Castle currently works for Tony Khan’s ROH.