AEW star QT Marshall was the latest guest on the Wrestling Inc. Daily to discuss his WWE tryout getting pulled back in 2015, and the conversation he had with NXT General Manager William Regal regarding it. Highlights are below.
Says WWE pulled his SmackDown tryout back in 2015:
“They offered me the tryout at a SmackDown. I was an extra at a SmackDown. Regal pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, in September, you’ll come down and yada yada yada.’ At the time, Danny Cage, who owns the Monster Factory, brought in Gerald Brisco to do a different tryout that he does every year. I think what happened was Gerald had sent four names in, and he’s only supposed to send one collegiate wrestler. And he ended up sending a bunch, and they just took mine out. So I was real livid at the time.”
Why his tryout was pulled:
“I asked Regal, ‘Hey what’s going on? I had the tryout. Now it’s taken away.’ I guess I led him to the answer. ‘Is it because of my age?’ And was like, ‘Yes, unfortunately. We’ll still use you as an extra.’ Even at the SmackDown, he said, ‘If we hired you, how many people would order The Network for you,’ because that was when they were pushing The Network, and I was like, ‘My mom [and] my dad. They might even share their password.’ I didn’t have an answer, and I specifically told him, ‘If you’re telling me that I can’t work here because of that, but I’m good enough to work here, I can live with that deep down.’ Hey, as long as you can tell me my work is great, I’m happy with that, but then I guess he felt bad. So maybe that’s he did the whole ‘well, we’re going to give you the tryout.’ I don’t know what the reason was. [The Rock] always talks about the NFL being the best thing that never happened to him. Same with me. It was the best thing that never happened because it made me go all-in on wrestling.”