Sidney Akeem Recalls Getting Called Up Quickly to the Main WWE Roster

– During a recent interview with Fightful, former WWE Superstar Sidney Akeem (aka Reggie and Scrypts) discussed being called up to the main WWE roster very quickly to be part of SmackDown. Below are some highlights from Fightful:

Sidney Akeem on his quick call up to the main roster: “Well, they didn’t have to tell me because I knew for a fact it was rare. I was blessed with the opportunity. I am a creator, I am a person that, I’m just gonna attack whatever opportunity head on and I’m just gonna go for it. I remember a coach told me, [ACO] at the PC when I got there, he said, ‘Dude, you’re playing catch up. You’re not gonna get better by training for three to four times a week. You have to do more.’ So I said, ‘Okay, cool.’ So I went into goal mode.”

On who he trained with outside the WWE Performance Center: “I started training outside the PC with EJ Nduka, the Judge, Ricochet, Isaiah, Rich Swann, Joaquin Wilde, Moose. I’m training with all of these guys because the pandemic happened—I got there in January—pandemic happened the day after my birthday, was everything was shut down March 14th. I said, ‘I don’t have time to take a vacation.’ So I was training throughout the whole pandemic, and then we get back to training around like August or something like that. I remember I came back and I was in the best shape of my life.”

On his short-lived run on the main roster before returning to developmental “I had a PC live match and some people came up to me and said, ‘Dude, you really impressed a lot of people. We have some big plans for you,’ and then when that happened, not a month later, I get called to SmackDown to be an on screen—not even a character. It was just an on screen moment for Carmella as her sommelier and when that happened, first time that happened, I got my butt whooped. I got thrown to a table, I got hit with a finisher, I got slapped, hit with the clipboard. table flipped on me. It was just insane. I’m like, ‘That was cool, that lasted as long as it lasted. I don’t expect to be back.’ But I was happy because I was going back to 205 live stuff at NXT. Yeah, that is insane.”

WWE started appearing on SmackDown in 2020 as Carmella’s sommelier, Reggie. He would also go on to become a mult-time WWE 24/7 Champion.