QT Marshall Reveals Why His WWE Tryout Was Pulled

QT Marshall has spent his time in wrestling as a performer, producer and trainer for some of the top talent. He chronicled his tryout with WWE in a documentary called The Wrestler: A QT Marshall Story which was critically acclaimed and won numerous awards.

Marshall discussed how he met the doc's director, Frank Zarrillo, when he joined The Wrestling Inc Daily podcast.

"Frank's brother is a mutual friend of ours and we hung out. His brother used to make costumes in Orlando and was into entertainment," said Marshall. "He said, 'My brother is looking to get into wrestling and possibly document it.' He came to the Monster Factory and watched one match that I had with Damian Priest. He said, 'I don't wanna do this and I'd rather just follow your story.'

"I said ok and that he could follow me and we created magic."

The doc shows more than just Marshall in a wrestling ring as his life outside life is also profiled. Marshall was asked if he was hesitant to show anything from his personal life.

"Not really, because he said, 'Just be natural.' I have nothing to hide and I know my rap sheet is clean. I want people to understand that this isn't the easiest industry to get into and I think we covered that really well," Marshall said before going into detail about his 9-5 job before joining AEW.

"I was put into a great scenario with my stepfather to basically take over his whole entire business. He sold tools and had three franchises. I was kinda helping him out in running the business and I'm really good at sales which is what we do in wrestling as well. I'm very personable so I did really well.

"I just didn't know anything about tools and I didn't like the job. I just remember waking up everyday and thinking this can't be my life. This is not what I'm here for and I know what I'm really good at. I'm also not scared of much because I am personable and I think there are ways for me to always survive. But, I don't just wanna coast through life."

Marshall then discussed the situation in which he was seen at a Gerald Brisco camp wrestling one of his own students and how that may have cost him with WWE.

"The weirdest part is, in the documentary Gerald comes to the facility which he did every year. I had already been offered a WWE tryout in the week Gerald was coming as well," recalled Marshall. "[Monster Factory owner] Danny said, 'Hey, you should still come as it can't hurt to have another person throw your name in the hat.' In hindsight it did hurt [laughs] because he was the one that put my name in again and they only chose 1-2 people out of the 4 or 5 he put in. That's part of the stuff that we don't really get into, not to ruin the film for anybody."

He added that the student he did work with in front of Brisco ended up getting a WWE tryout. Marshall then talked more about his own tryout with WWE that fell through.

"I had already gotten the tryout two months before that from William Regal at a SmackDown. Then Danny said come down and Frank said it would be great as I would talk to Gerald and we'd show all this stuff and the movie would end with me taking off in an airplane," said Marshall.

The idea was that Gerald would also vouch for him to WWE. But since WWE didn't see him working in front of Gerald ? and only training others ? then they cancelled his original tryout.

"At the end of the day, no matter what the reasons were that they decided not to bring me in for a tryout, they're probably on me. That's what I told Frank when we put the movie together," stated Marshall. "If I was the one they wanted, they were gonna take me no matter what. So, we don't put heat on anyone else, because at the end of the day, it's all about you. If you're the one trying to pursue your dreams, you do everything in your power to do it which led me to where I'm at right now."

There is one scene in the film where the audience doesn't get to see a conversation between Marshall and Danny and he talked more about that.

"That's him explaining to me that Gerald had called and that they were only gonna bring one of the guys down from the 4 or 5 they put in there and my name didn't make the cut. What wasn't shown was that there were follow-up emails because I'm not gonna take 'no' for an answer. This is my dream. So, I emailed Regal and we spoke about it," said Marshall. "It just had to do with my age and living in New Jersey as they didn't bring me in when I was living in Florida. They'd love to use me as an extra because I'm good at enhancing the talent and so forth. It is what it is and it worked out for the best."

Q.T. Marshall is featured in the documentary "The Wrestler: A Q.T. Marshall Story" which is now available now via Amazon Prime. Q.T. can also be seen every week as part of AEW Dark and AEW Dynamite. QT's full interview aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.