During his appearance on the NotSam Podcast, Isaiah “Swerve” Scott spoke on his decision to wait on signing with the WWE despite earlier interest in him. Here’s what he had to say:
Prior to coming to NXT in 2019, I was contacted from them around 2018? 2017? And I was still in the Lucha Underground phase of my career. And I still felt like I wasn’t finished with a lot of things I wanted to do, especially with Lucha Underground and especially on the independent scene. And around that time me and Aleister Black — especially on his career on NXT, he was taking off. He was an NXT Champion, he was doing big things with the company. He was my mentor. Him, Sami Callihan were like mentors to me. So I was like being mentored by Sami Callihan on the indies and Lucha when he got there, and then then, Aleister Black on the other side of the fence.
So Sami kept telling me, ‘There’s more we can do, there’s more we can do.’ And the Aleister on the other hand was like, ‘I’d give it one more year. Give it one more year, go out there, do as much as you can. Be the man in a lot of places.’ And so that was the guidance for that 2018 year that I had with going in all these independents, winning all these championships, and traveling around. Like, having these top matches with some of the best in the industry could ask for from Japan, from the UK, from America, Mexico, and building these bonds with these people.
You can listen HERE.
Credit: NotSam Podcast. H/T 411Mania.