Anthony Ogogo is working hard to make it in pro wrestling because he knows he’s on borrowed time in some ways.
During an appearance on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet, Anthony Ogogo spoke about signing with AEW instead of WWE. Ogogo said that he took a chance because he wanted to be part of what Tony Khan and Cody Rhodes were building in AEW.
“They [WWE] never actually got to a point where they offered me money. But they did speak to my agent and they were talking numbers and the numbers were better than the AEW numbers. I was going to be the first developmental talent that they [AEW] signed. Reading between the lines, I don’t think that they were that fussed about signing somebody from scratch, because we had no real school where we trained, we had to figure it out.
“QT [Marshall] was going to train me but QT at the time was also Cody’s assistant, doing the behind the scenes stuff and being an on-screen talent, so he was also really busy. I think they [AEW] actually offered me a contract because they were like ‘He might not accept this because it is not the best contract. But if he does accept it, then let’s see how much he wants it.’ That was quite an attractive offer, but meeting Cody and Tony and the vision, I wanted to be a part of that.”
Ogogo also spoke about his mental health and how he’s looking to fix past mistakes during his jump into pro wrestling.
“When I retired from boxing I felt like my life had ended. I was extremely depressed, suicidal at points. I have got a whole mental health talk I do where I talk about the things that I experienced at the time. I was in a bad place and boxing was my everything. So I said to myself that in this chapter of my life I have got a lot of lessons to learn, life is about learning lessons, and I can’t make the same mistakes in this next chapter as I did with boxing.
“I love wrestling, I’m over here away from my family, I am busting my arse every day. I mentioned earlier that wrestling is easy, it is very hard, it is not easy. But it came naturally to me because I watched it for so long and I am very athletic. Also I am a bit older and I have got no time to waste. I started at 31 and I am on it, I can’t dawdle for 4 years like an 18-year-old can. Lee Johnson is 24 years old, he has got all the time in the world, I haven’t. That is why I train so hard and study so much, time is against me.”
Read More: Anthony Ogogo Clarifies He Didn’t Call Paul Wight A C-nt During Infamous AEW Weigh-In Segment
