WWE's Reggie on using the circus to leave gang life behind | "Out of Character"
By Ryan Satin
FOX Sports WWE Analyst
This week on "Out of Character," WWE 24/7 champion Reggie shared his incredible journey of saving himself from gang life by joining the circus — and how it led to his signing with WWE.
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Reggie burst onto the WWE TV scene earlier this year as the sommelier for Carmella on SmackDown. His grind to get there, however, started long before that on the streets of St. Louis, where he was raised.
The WWE Superstar, whose real name is Sidney Iking Bateman, was born as the youngest of eight children and was taken in by his grandmother along with the rest of his siblings at a young age due to the death of their mother.
Unfortunately, Bateman became influenced by some of the older male role models in his life, and before his teens, he joined a gang.
As time passed, the young man assumed that was how the rest of his life would be spent, but a string of unfortunate incidents gave him the reality check he needed to get things back on track.
"I was at an all-time low — getting shot at, going to prison, selling drugs, getting into fights, expelled from school, all of these different things. And so that was a tragic moment in my life," Reggie said on the podcast.
"It started my junior year of high school. I was in a gang fight at school, and I got expelled. I got thrown into prison for a couple of days, and that's when life hit rock-bottom for me," the WWE star continued. "Then, that summer, the guy that I was in a gang fight with, one of my best friends, he was shot and killed. When he got shot and killed, that took me even further south."
Thankfully, Reggie’s passion for acrobatics saved him.
While reeling from the loss, Bateman says he got a message from friends with whom he used to perform in local circus shows, asking him to come to one of their performances.
It was there that he had a revelation.
"I just see this light in the middle of the rings and my friends having so much fun doing what I used to do, the fun that I used to have, and I'm just in this dark spot," Reggie said. "At that moment, I said I’m either going to change my life around or, within six months, I’m going to be dead."
Reggie put his full focus on acrobatics and years later got accepted into one of the most prestigious circus schools in the world.
The courses, however, were strictly in French — the school is located in Montreal — so Bateman had to learn the language before attending.
"It was the most difficult, stressful time of my life because I'm supposed to be able to speak proper English. But I was so far behind, and so it was so difficult," he said of the experience. "It was difficult, but I managed. I passed. I graduated, and I got a job right after school. I was very, very blessed to be very valuable because a lot of circus companies wanted my partner and me to work for their companies."
This led Bateman and his partner to create their own show for a company that ran for a few years. Then he got the call of a lifetime from Cirque du Soleil and performed with them until the end of 2019, when WWE entered the picture.
"At this point, I am stagnant in Cirque du Soleil … I'm already thinking, what's my next step? So I started doing some real estate investing, thinking, ‘OK, this is my exit strategy.’ It’s April of 2019, and our show goes to Orlando, home of the Performance Center. First day we get there, our head coach goes, ‘Hey, guys, just got word that the WWE wants to do an exchange with us immediately.’ I said, ‘Count me in. Let me know when it's going to be.’"
Turns out, Reggie had been a loyal wrestling fan in his youth, but the tragic loss of his uncle with whom he watched had made him tune out.
"I told myself, like, 'There's no way that I'm going to ever become a wrestler. There's no way that I would be a WWE Superstar. There's no way that I'm going to be on any of those TV screens performing in front of thousands of people.' And guess what I did? I stopped watching it. I stopped. I stopped wanting to be a wrestler. I just had to deal with life. Let's just figure out how to get out of the hood."
Years later, when wrestling reentered his life, he jumped at the opportunity to get involved again.
Reggie spent a full day at the PC with other Cirque performers as part of the talent exchange and eventually asked Matt Bloom how he could get involved full-time after impressing the trainers.
This got him a spot at a tryout a few weeks later, and he was signed by the company in January 2020.
Now, as 24/7 Champion, Reggie is impressing audiences with his acrobatic skills on a weekly basis in front of a worldwide TV audience. Going forward, though, he just wants to stay true to himself and continue to grow as a performer.
"I just want to remain humble. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. It’s out of my control. My life has told me that. Bullets this close to my head flying past. If it was meant for those bullets to hit me, they would have hit me. I didn't do anything to make them not hit me. It was just life is life. And so, I'm just going to ride this wave right now, and I'm open. I'm free to do anything. I just have to do it the best that I can when it's presented to me."
Watch Reggie talk more in-depth about his life story on this week’s "Out of Character with Ryan Satin."
