Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/09/21/taylor-rust-signed-his-wwe-contract-while-at-roh-pure-title-tournament-taping/
Taylor Rust discusses almost stepping away from wrestling in 2012 and signing his WWE deal.
At Ring of Honor’s Death Before Dishonor show, Taylor Rust made his return to ROH and went one-on-one with Jake Atlas. Rust picked up the win in his first match since being let go from WWE.
Back in the Fall of 2020, Rust competed for Ring of Honor in their Pure Title tournament and was also in a tag match with Dalton Castle that aired on ROH’s YouTube program. Rust was the most recent guest on the ROHStrong Podcast and said that while he was in Baltimore, Maryland for the Pure Title tourney taping, he signed his WWE deal.
I signed my WWE contract that very week actually, for the Pure tournament. It was sent to me at my hotel there for ROH and I remember I had signed it and sent it back out. My brother lives in Maryland actually and he came by the hotel and picked it up and sent it off for me so yeah, right after the match, I remember I talked with powers that be there ROH and really quickly just like, ‘Hey, what’s your status like? What are you doing?’ And I was just like, ‘I apologize. I just signed with WWE.’ But, I let them know how much — reiterating, again, ‘Hey, I love this place. I love ROH. If anything happens at all, I will be in touch. I’d love to be here more, working with you guys more’ so I’m really happy to be back to be honest. I really am.
In 2012, Rust participated in a tryout for WWE and in attendance at this tryout was former SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley. Rust recalled Bayley being at the tryout and knowing she would get signed because of how helpful she was.
Rust did not get signed and he admitted that he considered the idea of stepping away from wrestling because he had grown tired of struggling on the independents.
I remember even watching Bayley, what she did that got her signed. She was so helpful. The other girls there wasn’t wrestlers, they were just like athletes. But she was so helpful and showing them how to do the wrestling moves and techniques and I think just watching them watching her and they were all in love with the way that she was so helpful to everybody and I was just in awe. Like, ‘Man, she’s definitely gonna get picked up. There’s no way they’re gonna pass on signing Bayley’ and sure enough, when the day came for us to find out, they had said, ‘You’ll either get a phone call or you’ll get an email. If you get an email, sorry, not this time but if you get a phone call, we’re gonna sign you’ and I actually got a text from Bayley that day saying, ‘Oh my God, they just called me, I got it’ and I didn’t have a missed phone call. So my heart kind of sank. I checked my email and sure enough, there was a letter that says, ‘Hey Rust, they said you’re great. They think you’re an amazing talent. But, not this time. We’d like you to stay at it. We want to see you again soon. We like you, but you know, just at this time we don’t have an offer for you’ and to be fair with you, at that time in my life, I was kind of going through some stuff. A transitioning period for myself in life and I was kind of at the end of my ropes there as far as like, ‘Is wrestling gonna be taking off or am I gonna have to change gears and start trying to finish life a different way?’ And it was kind of like, ‘Oh, this could be perfect timing for WWE slides in here. This is everything I need or if not, I may have to just kind of change gears a little bit’, you know? In my personal life and when I didn’t get it, it sucked. I felt I did do the best I could honestly do and I gave ‘em everything I could give ‘em and if that wasn’t good enough at that time, then I felt anything else I would have gave them honestly wasn’t gonna be good enough from me or at least a little bit until I change something.
Following Taylor Rust and Jake Atlas’ match at Death Before Dishonor, Atlas announced that he has decided to step away from pro wrestling. To read more about Atlas’ announcement, head over to this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the ROHStrong Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.