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Trick Williams: WHOOP THAT TRICK, Being NXT Champion, Pete Dunne Diss Track, Booker T, Ethan Page
Trick Williams (@_trickwilliams) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida to discuss his meteoric rise to the top of NXT, giving up on his first dream of playing in the NFL, winning the NXT Championship and the response from the fans that made the cameras shake, the first time he heard 'Whoop That Trick', Booker T's ad-libs to his entrance song, his diss track on Pete Dunne and more!
Quote I'm thinking about: "No amount of regret changes the past. No amount of anxiety changes the future. But any amount of gratitude changes the present."
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"I'm enjoying all of this, it's cloud 9. This is why I wanted to do this, to feel the rush that I get from the fans, to win the titles and make a difference. Seeing the kids go crazy is awesome."
"To be honest with you, I opened a can of whoop ass at three years old. First cuss word. So Stone Cold was probably my first favorite, at least that's what my people tell me. Then, of course, that whole Attitude Era, Stone Cold, The Rock, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Booker T, that's when I really fell in love with wrestling. But of course my pops, he actually played football. So I took that route. I played football my whole life, from probably 4 years old to 24-25 and then made it to Philadelphia Eagles, got cut and then didn't know what I was going to do with my life honestly, because up to that point, only saw myself being a football player. I had an agent at the time. He said, Yeah, we're gonna get you to another campus no problem. Nothing happened. Then he said he's gonna send my film to the XFL, which was owned by somebody who was connected with WWE at the time. Next day, I got an email from WWE, Hey, if you're interested, we'd love to have you in for a tryout. Up to that point, of course I knew what WWE was, I watched it for a long time, but I never once thought about what it took to actually become a WWE Superstar. So I looked at like, Yo, this is crazy. My pa said man, you better do it. You ain't making no money on the couch. So I went to the tryout man, and I loved it, like the whole idea of promos, being an athlete, I felt like I was right at home. But they didn't sign me. They said, Look, you got a good look, you're charismatic, but you have never wrestled before. So go learn how to wrestle, and maybe we bring you back for another tryout. I went back to Philly, went to CZW, trained there, had my first match, had a character named Sweet Daddy Trick. And I just say I've come a long way since then. But, yeah, that's where I started."
"It was [difficult] because it was foreign to me. For 20 years playing football, I learned how to stay on my feet and be an athlete. My first day of training to be a WWE superstar I learn how to fall and hit the ground, it was just foreign to me. But the crazy thing is, it's funny, like football, I love football. I played for a very long time. I played at a high level, but I felt like I was working extremely hard for the amount of hours I was putting in to be good at the game and received the attention and the notoriety I wanted from the game. It wasn't feeding me back. You ever loved the girl but she never really loved you back? That was football for me, and I was good at it. But with wrestling, I feel at home."
"I'm blessed. I think actions speak louder than words. They asked me to go take that step and take a chance on myself. I'm not sure how many people who aren't familiar with the craft would be willing to do that. Now we have the whole NIL deal and everything like that, and athletes, they almost come into it expecting to be on the roster and have a chance. But that's why I have mad respect for everybody who comes from the indies, because they truly know the craft they put the time in. They are driving from city to city, they're working for nothing. They're working for 20 bucks, they're hoping to get booked. I feel like the bridge, I see it from both sides now, because I had to do both sides. Yeah, I'm an athlete new to the world, and I wasn't spending a bunch of time on the indies, but I learned to appreciate how good of a vehicle this WWE is, and I can't take this for granted."
"Unreal. Shout out to Ilja Dragunov, who I would say really took my career to the next level, especially at that time, all three to four of our matches showed people that I had that next level in me. The day I did take the title from Ilja Dragunov, it was a beautiful moment. I'm not sure if you saw but the whole arena was shaking from the Whoop That Trick chants, people stomping, people screaming, people crying. It was unreal, man, and the emotion that I felt in that ring at that time, it's gonna be hard to duplicate, because it was just 100% everybody was behind, and that's a special moment. Man, that's why I wanted to do this."
"I was actually rocking with Melo at the time, and used to come out to his music and people chanting, Whoop That Trick. Whoop That Trick. I didn't know exactly what that meant, we were heels at the time. And I was like, Are they with I looked at Melo. I said, Yo, are they with us or are they against us? I don’t know. I hit a move or something, got a body slam, and whoop that trick. I said, Okay, I think they like this. Then those Whoop that trick chants, it was started by the crowd. It just continued to grow and grow and grow. It was totally organic, but I think it really took off when they changed my entrance music. This is something else, I'm not sure if people know, but I went to the production team and said Hey, I would like to change my music. I want to go with family ties. Kendrick Lamar, I want heavy horns in the beginning. I need, 808 drums and heavy bass. They came back to me with this instrumental that I have now, I thought, yeah, that's the one."
"Never. It was a beautiful, organic moment. I believe it was Heatwave against Ilja Dragunov if I'm not mistaken. I came out. It was a heated feud. And when the beat dropped, the people's right there on beat with it, whoop that trick. And if you look at my face a little bit, you see a little smirk. Oh, shoot, we just started something, and then we went out there had a banger match. I think that's the day whoop that trick went to a whole nother level and shout out to the NXT crowd, man, there’s nothing like them."
"Oh man. I think we all want that!"
"He stole the title, he conned his way into WWE. He conned his way into the title picture. He conned the title of me. He ain’t gonna con his way into CW, enough is enough."
"We are about to bring the best two-hour show to CW. I mean, I put our show against anybody's. NXT is on fire right now, and shout out to Shawn Michaels. We just clicking on all cylinders and we're ready to put on the show, man. I'm glad about the CW, we are in every single household now. That means everybody gets to see us do our thing."
"That's awesome. Yeah, he's one of my favorites to be honest with you. But yeah, I guess I just feel like I have so much to offer as far as athleticism. In football I played wide receiver, it's kind of similar, I was a big wide receiver. Wide receivers are usually the most athletic guys on the field. So I've been training like that my whole life. So it's cool, it's nothing to run, jump, fly, but heights, I just stay away from the heights."
"I’m happy for Melo. You know, we had our odds about the whole situation, but I feel like sometimes, man, you got two alpha males, two guys who want to be the greatest, two guys who want to be the face of a brand, like, what you expect to happen? You know, we saw this happen with Easy E and Ice Cube."
"I think about it all the time, but I'm happy where my feet are. I mean, NXT is on fire right now, arguably one of the better times NXT has ever seen. So with that, I'm proud to be here. I'm proud to be the face of NXT. Why are we going to CW? Why we got the biggest TV deal NXT has ever gotten, why we're doing this traveling and stuff now. I'm part of it, and it feels good to say, hey, we part of something special here."
"He's another guy who's been just so helpful to me. We see the ad libs and everything he does with the entrance, but behind the scenes we break down film. He says, See that step right there? Get rid of that. We are talking about skill and why I'm getting better. It's people like Booker T's, people like Shawn Michaels, people like Matt Bloom and, of course, Terry Taylor, who I train with every day. But these guys definitely."
"I mean, he's the top guy in the business right now. I mean, shout out to Cody Rhodes, who is amazing. I'm glad that he finished and started his new story. But Roman, he's the guy who's been the cornerstone of the business for a while now. So if you don't want to match with him, then you don't really want to be here."
"Health, strength, family, friends, and that I get to do this."
