Adam Cole has recalled a time before he signed with WWE when the company contacted him while thinking he was Xavier Woods.
By the time Adam Cole joined WWE as part of the NXT roster in 2017, Xavier Woods had already made a name for himself on the main roster as part of The New Day alongside Big E and Kofi Kingston.
However, things were almost the other way round as Cole has revealed that WWE contacted him when he was only nine months into his career to ask him to come to a tryout and told him he was likely to get hired. The only problem was that they had got him confused with Woods, who was going by Austin Creed at the time.
Adam Cole explained what happened during a recent appearance on The Kurt Angle Show (available early on AdFreeShows),
“So I was, I think it was 19 at this point. I had been wrestling independently for nine months, like wrestling for these smaller, independent promotions, with not a tonne of buzz or anything.
“There was a website at the time. It was like a recruitment system, where you would put your name in and your information and they could potentially call you for a tryout or for, you doing extra work when they’re in town, which is an interesting little system.
“So of course right away, I plugged my information in there. Three months later, I get an email from the head of talent relations at the time, and he said, ‘Hey, you know, we got your email, we got your information, we’re very interested. We’d like you to come down for a week to FCW so you could try out.’
“I’m like, ‘Oh my god here we go!’ To the point where I talked with him on the phone for 30 minutes. He said ‘Yeah, we’ve seen your stuff, all you got to do is show up and do your thing and you’re gonna get hired. Here’s who you’re rooming with, here’s what you’re doing, I’m sending you your flight information.'”
Adam Cole was justifiably excited by the call, but then he received an email with Woods’ name on it and things went downhill from there.
“I’m freaking out. I’m calling my mom, like, ‘Mom, I think it’s happening.’ I get the email and the last name is different. The first name is the same, but the last name is different. So I ended up googling that name, and it is Xavier Woods, it’s Austin creed. And so we became buddies from that right away.
“But I ended up sending a picture of myself to the head of talent relations at the time. And I said, ‘Hey, by the way, this is me. I just want to make sure just the name’s not right.’ And all he responded with was ‘So sorry, huge mistake. Are you available for extra work in Philadelphia?’ So I got to do that. But yeah, I was crushed. Crushed.”
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