The process for Raja first began in November 2019 and he did not sign until November 2020.
Prior to joining the NXT UK brand, Rohan Raja was known as ‘Tony Cage’ and ‘Gursinder Singh’ in IMPACT Wrestling. He opted to go to a tryout WWE hosted in Canada and out of 50 people, he was the one talent that ended up signing a deal.
While speaking to Jason Powell on the Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast, Raja detailed the route he traveled and hurdles that popped up on the way to him officially signing with WWE. Raja shared that there were conversations held about whether to move him to the U.S. or to be part of NXT UK.
He was asked for thoughts and ultimately decided to relocate to the UK. His first visit to the UK Performance Center was in November of 2019. He then had to undergo a background check and come March 2020, he was doing his pre-contract medical examination but the COVID-19 pandemic began. Raja did not officially sign until November 2020.
I think there were just over about 50 people [at that WWE tryout] and I was the only one that got signed from that so I was really, really fortunate, and then after that, so, it was in talks whether to move me to the States or to the U.K. and they wanted to know what I felt about it and at the time, I was like, ‘You know, I think U.K. would be a cool option. I’d just love to start off there and I feel like for me to progress myself and my potential, I feel like U.K. is probably the better option.’ So then, I relocated to England and they have a Performance Center based in London so my first camp down there was [at the] end of 2019 so it was around — I think it was November 2019. It was kind of like a little bit of another tryout. I was doing everything else, what everyone else was doing but they were watching me kind of like a hawk and then that went well and then March came around, you know, they gotta do those background checks and everything which took a couple months and then March, I was doing my pre-contract medical and I had to do one more thing and then COVID happened and I was like, oh no and then you know, at the time, no one knew what was happening and I was just like, oh no, I haven’t officially signed my contract yet at that point. So that was a really — the first lockdown for me was really stressful because I was like, what am I gonna do? But I feel like what helped that was everyone else was going through it. I feel like if it was just me and COVID was just affecting just me, it probably would have broke me to be honest because you couldn’t leave the house and everything. I kind of just kept doing what I was doing, still kind of — no in-ring training or anything because we were quite a bit still trying to work out everything and then when things started to open up again, obviously they brought me back, I finished my medical, officially put pen to paper and it started November 2020 was I officially signed and yeah, that’s how I got to WWE officially.
Before he signed with WWE, Raja had requested to be released from IMPACT Wrestling. He is of the mindset that everything happened the way it was supposed to because had he not requested that release, he may have been stuck in Australia because his Canadian visa was expiring as the pandemic shutdown was approaching.
If I didn’t ask out of my IMPACT contract, because I would have had to go through all the visa process and that would have taken a little bit, I probably would have had to go back to Australia while that was happening because my Canadian visa was expiring, so I would have been stuck in Australia if I stayed with IMPACT I think. So that was kind of like a blessing and that’s how I was looking at it. I was like, you know what? This could have been a lot worse because Australia got hammered with it and they were on lockdown for so much longer than we were. So I am fortunate I did what I did.
POST Wrestling has an article published with comments from Raja about his release from WWE and his time as a part of NXT UK’s ‘Die Familie’. That article can be read here.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
