Parker Boudreaux Reveals WWE Began Recruiting Him When He Was 16, Credits CIMA For Bringing Him To GLEAT

By: Lewis Carlan

Current GLEAT and former WWE star Parker Boudreaux revealed in a recent interview with Monthly Puroresu that the WWE began recruiting him when he was only 16 years old and a football standout in high school.

Boudreaux stated that it was Jim Ross and Paul Heyman that began his recruitment for the WWE. He remembers getting tweeted at by Heyman who felt that Boudreaux had the potential to be the next big thing in the WWE.

From Parker Boudreaux:

“A lot of people, I don’t know if they know this or not, but, going into the WWE, it was kind of started years beforehand. So, it was Jim Ross and Paul Heyman. They were hitting me up when I was about 16 years old, and I was getting heavily recruited with college football offers. Jim Ross is a huge Oklahoma Sooners fan and he follows college football. He used to follow college football a lot. And he started messaging me a little bit when I was 16, 17 and he’d be like, you’d be a super monster fit in WWE and to think about it. And right then I was obviously in college football. I signed with Notre Dame when I was coming out of high school, and I went to Notre Dame to play football. And once I transferred to UCF, Paul Heyman started recruiting me really, really hard because I was doing really good at football, but I was also posting a whole bunch of super athletic stuff for my weight. That’s when he would start tweeting at me a little bit, Paul Heyman, and he would be like, I could see him being a monster in WWE, he could be the next big thing.”

Boudreaux also recalled a 5 to 6 hour meeting he had with Heyman in Orlando prior to signing with the WWE with Heyman telling him he could be a pro-wrestling star if he worked hard at it.

From Parker Boudreaux:

And that’s when kind of the hype started building up. Once I took a little tiny break from football, it was my senior year in UCF, I was about to declare for the NFL draft and I took a tiny little break from football because I had an injury, I was recovering, I think it was like a month and a half. Paul Heyman told me to come to Orlando and meet him at this fancy hotel. And of course I went and drove and met him, but it was like a five to six hour meeting and it was basically him introducing himself to me, but also telling me how I could be a star in this business if I worked really hard and do the right things. And because he’s seen what it takes to be a mega star in this business. So he was the one that really convinced me to see the behind the scenes of WWE.”

In addition, during the interview, Boudreaux told Monthly Puroresu a story he always wanted to tell and that was how he became involved with GLEAT in Japan. Boudreaux credits CIMA for bringing him to Japan to compete for GLEAT.

From Parker Boudreaux:

“So, this was always a story that I wanted to tell. I was in Mexico and working [AAA] TripleMania with Jeff Jarrett and all the people I was with down there. And on the bus during the tour for [AAA] TripleMania was CIMA-san, he was on tour [for AAA]. Of course, I’ve known about CIMA-san, especially his Ring of Honor work. He was on the tour bus and he came up to me and he said, “you’re a very good worker, how would you like to work in Japan?” Of course, I was like, I would love to work in Japan that’s a dream of mine, but I didn’t think anything would come out of it because we only talked for four minutes. I got back from Mexico into the USA and within like a couple weeks, CIMA-san sends me a message on Twitter which read, “Parker-san, how would you like to come to GLEAT and have your first tour? I was thankful, grateful, not only to CIMA-san, but to [GLEAT] President Suzuki, of course, Kaz-san and everybody that’s behind the scenes of GLEAT, because I never thought I would get the honor to work in the [GLEAT] Dojo and train in the Dojo, but also to be booked and pushed as really the only American and the top foreigner, it was a dream come true. And I don’t know how to describe it because I couldn’t believe it at the moment and I was so excited. And he told me about the opportunity to, for the World Championship title. That was kind of the craziest part, right when I got the news, because he told me about the future matches that I would have. It would be of course the championship match in Osaka. And then my second match would be against Ishida-san in Korakuen Hall.”

Boudreaux is set to begin his sixth tour of GLEAT and is confirmed for a big six man tag team bout on May 30th. Boudreaux teams with Kotaro Suzuki & Ryuichi Kawakami as they face Katsuhiko Nakajima, DRAGO & Andy Wu.

Photo Credit: GLEAT