Roderick Strong Reflects On Training With Jim Neidhart As a Kid

Roderick Strong got his start in wrestling very early, and he recently recalled training with Jim Neidhart as a young teen. Strong spoke with KSLA News 12 and talked about how he ended up in a ring with the late WWE Hall of Famer, noting that it changed his life.

“Oh, that’s a long story, long-winded, it’s a long story,” Strong said (per Fightful). “But in the short version, I had a troubled childhood and my dad was a single parent at the time and he actually trained to wrestle. So, the person that was his trainer was Jim Neidhart from the Hart Foundation. I was 12 at the time and he let me get in the ring and that just changed my life forever.”

He continued, “It gave me an escape. You know what I’m saying? So I could do and be whoever I wanted. This technically would be like my 29th year of being around the wrestling business.”

Strong is of course now in AEW where he is a member of the Undisputed Kingdom.