Jelly Roll fulfilled his promise to Triple H, losing weight and preparing for a match at WWE SummerSlam 2025. On Insight With Chris Van Vliet, he detailed the process of getting approved and training for his in-ring debut, revealing he started with almost no formal training.
The first step was proving he could physically handle it, which involved a late-night “ring check” at WrestleMania. “They were like, ‘Can you do a ring check the night of WrestleMania?’… They were like, ‘Can you wait till midnight?’… And at midnight, I walked into that room with Bruce Pritchard and a couple of the producers, and I proved to him I could take a bump for about an hour and a half,” Jelly Roll said. “I don’t want to say it was a rib, but they were definitely there to see if I had any bitching in me.” When asked about prior training, he admitted, “I knew nothing… I hadn’t really properly trained at all. I knew nothing about it.”
The initial bumps took a significant toll. “You’re just holding the middle rope, swinging back. And they’re showing you how to tuck your chin… You wake up the next day with a pulsating headache all the way down through your neck and spine and forehead,” he described. Despite the pain, he committed: “I text them two days later and said, ‘I’m all in.’ They were like, ‘How sore?’ I was like, ‘Pretty sore, but not sore enough to detour me.'”
He then had to get approval from the Performance Center coaches, including Matt Bloom and Shawn Michaels. “Shawn Michaels comes in, Matt Bloom, Coach Moss, Brookside, it’s that moment… and you got to prove to them you can take the bumps too,” he recalled. Impressed by the environment, Jelly Roll chose to train extensively in Orlando rather than having trainers come to him. “I just fell in love with Coach Bloom, I fell in love with all of them that day… the PC just overwhelmed me. So I was like, I want to go to the PC and do it. For sure.”
The training was intense. “I lived down there for probably 40 days, 45 days. I trained five, six days a week during that time. We did two-a-days, the last two weeks. I had bone bruises… It was brutal,” he revealed. During this time, while visibly hurting, he received encouragement from Charlotte Flair. “Charlotte gave me the best advice… She said, ‘Baby, I’m gonna tell you something. When I came back from my injury, it bruised my back. I’ve wrestled my whole life, you’re fine.’ And I was like, Thank you.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Insight With Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
