"Everyone at Hooters knew I loved wrestling, I’d be doing bar shifts I’d be putting #WWE on TV, I’d be serving with WWE on TV, it was my thing. Apparently before my time there was a wrestler, who will not be named that used to manage this specific Hooters. So anytime they came around in town they’d go to Hooters. Me being the big WWE fan that I was I saw this wrestler come into Hooters and I knew who they were exactly, so I introduced myself and my manager was like ‘hey we have this girl and she loves wrestling and because you’re a wrestler maybe just talk to her.’
"I kind of just spit all my wrestling knowledge to them and they were like ‘ok you really do love wrestling’ so they intoduced me to this man Joe DeFranco - a world renowned strength and conditioning coach. I went to his gym and he threw me right in with his NFL guys.
"I’d never worked out a day in my life before that, I didn’t even know what workout gear was, I think I wore like sweatpants and a sports bra.
"In my mind this was like my WWE tryout so I’m like giving it my all, and I worked out with him for a couple days and I guess he was just impressed with my resilience, I don’t know because I’m struggling through everything but I wouldn’t quit.
"So he reached out to WWE for me, he was like ‘hey we have this girl, I think she’s just worth a look’. And I had just missed the tryout camp, and they were like ‘we have another one in six months, so just keep training with her and then we’ll fly her in. So I trained with Joe DeFranco every single day for hours a day I’d train with him in the morning then go to my Hooters shifts. Then my tryout finally came and I was very prepared, not in wrestling of course because I had no wrestling training, but as far as strength and conditioning I absolutely killed those cardio drills and I got signed and it was just like the craziest blessing in my entire life."
(Insight with Chris Van Vliet)
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