Indi Hartwell Reveals How Her First WWE Tryout Went

– Wide World of Sports recently interviewed NXT Superstar Indi Hartwell, who discussed how she started her career and being rejected by WWE after her first tryout. Below are some highlights.

Indi Hartwell on starting her career at 19: “I was 19 [when I started wrestling]. I had always wanted to start wrestling training when I was younger but my parents didn’t want me to wrestle. So I had to wait until I got my licence so I could drive myself to training. I’m originally from Melbourne and started in Melbourne. I made my way all around Australia. Starting wrestling is tough, I don’t think anything can really prepare you for it. The amount of passion I had for it, and how big of a fan I was made it easier going into it. It would’ve more difficult I wasn’t familiar with it at all.”

On being turned down after her first WWE tryout: “A few months before I had even gone to America to wrestle I had a [WWE] tryout. I was only a few months into wrestling and WWE was coming to Australia for an NXT tour. My trainer at the time let me know there was a tryout and coming up and let me know to send in a resume. Obviously, at the time I didn’t have much on my resume. I think I had maybe less than 10 matches under my belt. But I sent it in any way and I didn’t expect to hear back, but I did. I got invited to the try out which was in December of 2016, so I was only a few months into wrestling. At the time it was a no but that got my foot in the door and since then I was in conversation with them.”

On learning from Norman Smiley and Sara del Ray: “My coach at the moment is Norman Smiley, I’ve been learning a lot from him. I’ve also learned a lot from Sara Del Rey. She’s someone I used to watch a lot on the independent circuit. It’s really cool to have – we have coaches from all different experiences levels. They wrestled back in the day, they have a lot to bring to the table.”