Bianca Belair Recalls Her First Thoughts When Signed By WWE

Bianca Belair has admitted having to having no idea at what she was getting herself in to by joining WWE.

The former WWE Women’s Champion enjoyed a highly decorated career as a track and field athlete in college, becoming an All-SEC and All-American for the University Of Knoxville in her home state of Tennessee.

A promising career in CrossFit followed and Belair started to find her feet in front of a crowd during this time. Belair’s impromptu promos were caught on video and captured the attention of WWE Hall Of Famer Mark Henry.

Injury would put paid to Belair’s CrossFit days but soon Henry would reach out and encourage the Knoxville-native to give professional wrestling a try. Belair explained the move in more detail in a recent appearance on Baby, This Is Keke Palmer:

“When I got into CrossFit, I was like, ‘I’m gonna have fun with this. So I started making my own outfits, I started grabbing the microphone talking to the crowd, and turning flips before [the competitions].

Mark Henry saw a video of me and he was like, ‘Have you ever thought about being in WWE? Because you have the looks, the personality, the athleticism — it’s a perfect fit.'”

Belair became a fan of WWE after watching Total Divas, but admitted she did not know quite what she was getting herself in for when signing for the company in 2016:

“I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I walked in, I didn’t know how to do a headlock, a wristlock, or any of the moves and no idea about the history of the business.

People think WWE is just about doing flips. But it’s also the performance part. You have to draw people in, tell stories, have feuds … and you have to do all this on live TV.”

Bianca Belair Makes Long-Awaited WWE Return

Belair returned to WWE this past Friday on SmackDown after a near three month absence and looks set to embark on a feud with Damage CTRL.

Belair was attacked by the group after claiming the WWE Women’s Championship win at SummerSlam, enabling IYO SKY to successfully cash in her Money In The Bank contract to lift the gold for the first time.

H/T: WrestlingInc for the above transcription.