Across his many years with WWE, R-Truth has earned respect and admiration from both fans and his fellow wrestlers, with a career that dates back to 1997 in the National Wrestling Alliance. In an interview on “Six Feet Under,” Truth recalled how the Crockett family helped him turn his life around and kick off his pro wrestling career.
“We’re in the halfway house and I’m telling jokes. There’s this little corner over there where the inmates at. We got the weights, got a little bench set, and I’m over there telling jokes and dancing,” he recalled. As it turned out, Jack Crockett was in the same halfway house, and Truth caught his attention. At the same time, Truth says some local police officers saw pictures of Truth with Tupac Shakur and Eazy-E. They encouraged Truth to pursue a career in entertainment and contacted Crockett on his behalf.
“Crockett wanted to talk to me because he thought I was athletic and I looked good and I was entertaining,” Truth recalled. “So me and Crockett ended up talking. And we talked for maybe – he had four months left – we talked all those four months. He’s like: ‘Give me a call when you get out.'”
Truth wasn’t yet ready to make the plunge into wrestling, and he turned Crockett down until two years later. The WWE star has previously relayed that Crockett took him to a WCW show, where he saw Ric Flair and became inspired.
“Crockett’s like, ‘See? That could be you, that could be you! Remember how you was dancing in jail? That could be you dancing, you’re dancing to the ring! And you could get in there, and you can use all those dance [moves] – I saw you do a split in jail -you can do that!’ He pretty much talked my character into existence.”
R-Truth claims he never had aspirations to make it onto TV as a pro wrestler
From there, R-Truth described his journey into pro wrestling as a “fairy tale.” During his initial years in the industry, he was able to meet the likes of AJ Styles, who saw his potential. “He said, ‘You belong on TV, man!’ I said, ‘Bro, I’m just happy I’m not in jail, and I can wrestle,'” he recalled.
From there, he was told to make a wrestling tape and send it to WWE, and two weeks later he got a call from Terry Taylor. “It’s rolling, it’s happening, I’m like, ‘Okay, this is crazy,'” Truth said. “Two weeks [later], I got the call, they … flew me in to meet Vince [McMahon].” Truth then recalled how he lied about his weight and height to get into WWE, but Taylor took him in to meet Vince McMahon anyway. “Vince loved me, and two weeks after that, I was given my first contract.”
Truth also expressed that pro wrestling took him on a different route he never expected, and a part of him wishes he started sooner. “[Wrestling] never was my thing, but sometimes you have to take a different route to get to where you’re going!” he stated. “Wrestling was my different route, it saved my life; it got me out of the streets, it taught me decorum, it taught me how to be a man, how to be professional.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “Six Feet Under with The Undertaker,” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.