Reggie was recently interviewed by Wrestling Inc., where he spoke about his time in the circus.

“Circus and wrestling are very similar, I didn’t grind in the indies in wrestling. But I grinded on the indies with circus. I would do a show in Chicago, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I would set up the tent, three shows, three shows, it wasn’t Cirque du Soleil, it was a smaller circus. Then I would drive back at night to be with my daughter. I did the indie work in circus, paying my dues.”

On making the transition from the circus to wrestling:

“Our coach said, ‘hey, WWE wants to do an exchange program, do any of you guys want to do it?’ I said, ‘yes I do, when is it?’ So we did the exchange on Monday, which was our day off. So I went to the Performance Center, and that whole night I was just conjuring up a little plan. I said, ‘this is my exit strategy.’ I was always looking for a way to leave the circus because I was tired of it after 16 years.”

Reggie then explained how it went.

“We did the exchange, I completely crushed it. I did an acrobatic move in the ring, one of the moves I normally do, and Scotty 2 Hotty said, ‘hey kid, do that again.’ I turned around and said, ‘who, me Scotty?’ I showed Matt Bloom, and I went to Matt Bloom a little bit after that and said, ‘hey, how does one get involved?’

“He said, ‘we’ve got a tryout next week if you can square it with your people, I’ll invite you to that.’ I was like, ‘oh, I was off next week, I was going to have a vacation.’ So I flew home Sunday, went back to Orlando Tuesday, tryouts Wednesday, Thursday, crushed it. Basically got offered a contract right there and then.”