MLW is set to return to new programming tomorrow night. A new episode of Fusion will air for the first time since the spring. The show will be headlined by Jacob Fatu defending the MLW World Championship against Davey Boy Smith Jr.
Alexander Hammerstone is MLW’s reigning National Openweight Champion. He is part of the Dynasty along with Richard Holiday as well. Hammerstone recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet about how he almost gave up on wrestling after a frustrating experience stemming from a WWE tryout.
Hammerstone’s WWE Experience
As it turns out, WWE contacted Hammerstone in November of 2017 and implied that he was going to be brought into the company.
“It ended up being like ‘Hey, well I think we want to bring you in. We’re going to start the hiring process’. And I remember, I was on the toilet at work when I read that email and I had to read it four times over and then I started crying because I was like ‘Holy crap! Dream come true! It’s happening.’ And then I literally burst out of the bathroom and knocked on my boss’s office. It was just like an involuntary reaction, I was like ‘Jeff, read this!’ and he was like ‘Oh my God!’ and he legitimately called a staff meeting to tell everybody what had just happened and everyone congratulated me,” Hammerstone said.
He continued to talk about how he was getting ready to start his WWE career. Despite what they had told him earlier, however, WWE decided against bringing him in.
“The next step is my whole medical test and it’s not happening, it’s not happening, it’s not happening. And then I start pestering them to see what’s going on. Then in April, and keep in mind in my head I’m moving there in May, so in April they say ‘Sorry to inform you but we’re just way too full right now, we hired too many people this year and we can’t bring you in’. And it doesn’t say like ‘Give us three months’ or ‘Give us this’ it just says ‘We can’t bring you in’. And that was it. And I was like what?”
Similar Stories From Other Wrestlers
Hammerstone’s story is similar to ones told by other wrestlers in the past. Willie Mack once detailed being hired by WWE only to be released before actually reporting to the PC. Taya Valkyrie has told a similar story about WWE reneging on an offer that had been promised to her. This was before Taya started performing with AAA in Mexico.
“A little unknown fact is that about seven months before I went to Mexico, I was offered a contract by WWE. And I went through all the steps, I was waiting to get all my medical tests done, and they decided to not take me, so needless to say I wasn’t given an explanation and to this day I don’t really know what happened,” Taya said on Talk is Jericho in 2017.
Almost Quitting Wrestling
Hammerstone continued to talk about how the experience with WWE almost led to him quitting wrestling.
“And for the next couple of months someone every once in a while would be like ‘Hey, when are you going to Florida?’ and I’d have to explain the whole thing to them. I had to explain this so many times and every time it was like a punch in the gut, you know? So it was rough, man. It was a rough time and literally that experience almost made me quit wrestling. I was very close.”
Hammerstone goes into detail on a range of other topics as well during the interview. It can be viewed in its entirety below: