Titus O’Neil recently spoke with Robert Marawa for SuperSport while promoting WWE’s upcoming tour of South Africa; you can read a few highlights (transcription credit to Bill Pritchard of Wrestlezone.com) and watch the interview below:
Titus on community outreach being important to him
I come from a very unfortunate circumstance. My mom had me at a young age; she was raped at 11, had me at 12years-old. We’ve been homeless, we’ve bounced from family member to family member, and I got a chance to go to the Florida Sheriff’s Boy’s Ranch, which is like a boarding school. It was there that I turned my life around. I was told up to about 12 years old that I would be dead or in jail by the time I was 16 years old, that I’d never go to high school, never graduate, all of these things that people always say when kids come from underserved communities. I’ve proved them all wrong; I graduated from high school, from college, I played professional football, and [now] going around the country as part of the biggest family in the world in WWE. The outreach we have with raising millions of dollars and investing back into people—doing what people did for me—investing in others when I have nothing to gain in return.
Advice to aspiring wrestlers:
First and foremost, get a great education, the highest level of education that you could possibly get. You need to have something to fall back on. Get a good school; find a good school and teachers that teach the fundamentals of wrestling, and you have to actually get out and perform. It’s just like any other artist— if someone wants to be a musician, they aren’t just going to stay in the studio all of the time. They have to learn how to perform in front of other people, they have to learn how to get booed and get cheered. That’s the same way with professional wrestling.
