Omos Details How He Was Recruited To Join WWE
Omos has shared how he was recruited by WWE while also talking about the company’s current recruiting program for collegiate athletes.
Standing at 7’3″ and over 400 pounds, Omos is the biggest man on the current WWE roster. During his WWE career so far, the 28-year-old Nigerian has already made a big splash despite only being a wrestler for about three years.
In late 2020, Omos was paired with “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles to form a dominant heel tag team. Together, they would hold the Raw Tag Team Titles for about 130 days. After his team with Styles fizzled out, MVP became Omos’ ally/manager in a role that he remains in to this day.
While speaking to the good folks of Fightful, Omos talked about how he was recruited to join WWE.
“It all happened when I was in college at the University of South Florida. I was almost done and I had one of the kids on the football team invite me to a breakfast. As a college student, anybody invites you to breakfast, you go. So he told me he was going to be with this WWE guy. I didn’t care much about it because I was so ingrained in playing basketball and going pro in basketball.”
“So I go for this breakfast and who is actually sitting there? Steve Keirn. I remember the first time meeting him and I saw his eyes light up. He shifted his focus from the kid to me and said how I’d do so well in this business. At that point in time, I was playing ball. Didn’t care.”
“Then I remember in 2014, I tried to go for a tryout. I was in Baltimore, trying to go to Morgan State and then that fell through due to the NCAA rules and regulations, I couldn’t go to that tryout. I put it on hold, tried to go overseas. I was supposed to go to China, but I couldn’t do that because of immigration issues. I was stuck here. NBA couldn’t do anything, and then my buddy was like, ‘Hey, reach out to the WWE again.’ Which I did.”
“This was when Canyon Ceman was still Head of Talent Relations. I reached out to him and set everything up within a week. Because of him I was at the PC doing a tryout.”
Omos also spoke about the opportunity that current college athletes have with WWE’s NIL (Next In Line) program.
“To be honest, I don’t think those kids understand the opportunity that’s been put in front of them. For me, because I’ve been through the whole college process, [doing that open ten], playing college basketball, having to abide by NCAA rules and what you can and cannot do, which prevented me from doing a tryout in WWE in 2014.”
“So seeing that those kids have an opportunity and a direct line to WWE is amazing for them to have that. ‘Cause so many times you think you’re gonna go pro in soccer, football and sometimes that falls through. This is an extremely viable option which a lot of kids don’t know that they have. Which I didn’t know I had back then. I’m happy that they have that opportunity, and this access and communication with WWE back and forth.”
This past Monday on the February 20th edition of Raw, Omos (with MVP doing the talking) challenged Brock Lesnar to a WrestleMania 39 match. We will find out this coming Monday on Raw if Lesnar answers the challenge.