AEW Star Says He Wasn’t Mature Enough During WWE Run

Most fans know Frankie Kazarian from his work in AEW, Ring of Honor, and TNA Wrestling. However, he also had a brief run in WWE early in his career.

Appearing on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Kazarian spoke about his time in WWE. In short, he said he was not mentally mature enough to succeed at the time. Here is the quote, courtesy of Fightful:

“So for me, when I got to WWE, my short stint there, I never really took wrestling seriously as a business. What I mean by that is, wrestling was my passion. It was what I always wanted to do. What I loved. I worked my ass off, moved across the country to train to do it. I did every show. If you set up a ring, I would be there. I worked so hard at it, and all the sudden I started getting paid to do it. Then all the sudden I got a contact. Then all the sudden I was getting weekly paychecks, and it was just like, ‘Cool, this was all part of it.’ When I got to WWE, I realized quickly, ‘Oh, this is a business.’

At that time of my life, I don’t think I was mentally mature enough to handle the professional wrestling business on that level. WWE is — they’ve been around forever. They have it nailed. WWE is never going anywhere. I wasn’t ready to be the businessman that I needed to be. So, what my short run there taught me is that, yes, this is my passion, this is my heart and my soul, but I’m a businessman and I need to treat this like a business. So I’ll always be grateful for my time there for that because that was one of those lessons that kind of slapped me right in the face at the right time in my life.”

Frankie Kazarian now wrestles for All Elite Wrestling where he and Christopher Daniels compete as SoCal Uncensored.

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