Ricochet Talks Difficulties Transitioning To WWE From Indies

Even though he's just 30 years old, Ricochet wrestled on the indies for 15 years before signing with WWE. The independent scene is entirely different than WWE as each promotion asks for something different from its wrestlers.

Ricochet talked about the difficulties in transitioning from the indies to WWE when he joined the State of Combat podcast.

"That was actually one of the things that I was looking forward to the most when I was getting signed was to come to the Performance Center to work on some of the parts that I wasn't really the best at," stated Ricochet. "I was learning from guys like Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Terry Taylor, Norman Smiley as far as character and promos, they would say things that are so obvious but I just wouldn't think about it. I was like, oh dude, you are totally right, and I felt like it really helped me out. Not even with promos and characters, even in the ring stuff that I thought I had ironed out they would tell me things that would make it even better and I would think how they made my process so much better and how I wasn't sure why I never thought about it. I have no complaints for my time at the Performance Center. It was great."

Some consider NXT to really be the crown jewel of WWE and say it's the best thing going under the entire WWE umbrella. In addition to meeting his girlfriend Kacy Catanzaro there, Ricochet talked about what makes NXT a special place to work.

"I will be honest with you, before I even signed with NXT I was like dude, NXT is the place to be right now. It only grew and grew. That 2018 year I personally always take the time and reflect and take in what is going on in the moment. At a time I could really feel the buzz and the fan support just grow and grow. We all felt that, which is why we wanted to go after those TakeOvers and do the best we can because we could feel the emotion and energy from the fans. That is why we really grew because we gave the energy right back, they gave it back to us and we gave it right back, so we definitely could feel that movement happening," said Ricochet.

"We would get our matches and we would wish each other the best of luck. We would say that our match would be the best of the night but you guys would be at a good second. We would say that to each other. We would joke around obviously, but then everyone would go out and try to kill it. I feel like you can take any match on an NXT TakeOver and flip it around and it would still be in the best order. But it was good, a lot of friendly competition, a lot of love. We all knew each other a long time before we got here so it is a new company and would want to grow it as much as possible and try to give it everything we got and help it grow."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit State of Combat with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Peter Bahi contributed to this article.