How Bianca Belair Got Signed By WWE, Explained
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“The EST of WWE” Bianca Belair has become one of the most popular female stars in WWE over the past few years. She signed with the NXT brand in 2016, and just a few years later main evented Night 1 of WrestleMania 38 along with Sasha Banks.
Unlike many other wrestlers, Bianca didn’t grow up as a wrestling fan, nor did she ever think about becoming a WWE superstar. Coincidentally, Mark Henry contracted her one day and asked if she’d be interested in becoming a WWE wrestler, and the rest is history.
RELATED: 10 Things Fans Don't Know About Bianca Belair's Life Outside WWE
Mark Henry Scouted Bianca Belair
Fans will agree that Bianca’s the most athletic female wrestler in all of WWE. Before joining the company, she was a track and field athlete and a collegiate hurdler. She originally wanted to go to the Olympics, but things didn’t go her way so she decided to become a WWE superstar instead. While speaking with WJBF, Bianca said: “I never imagined myself as a WWE Superstar, I wanted to be an Olympic track athlete or Olympic gymnast, my role models were ‘Flo-Jo’, Gail Devers, and Dominique Dawes.”
After finishing college, she got into CrossFit and powerlifting. On The Bellas podcast, she said that she started doing Crossfit just to have fun, as she had been a competitor for so long and didn’t care about anything but performance. She changed her approach and started incorporating fun into her lifestyle. “So with CrossFit, I was making my own outfits. I was going out there in sequins and tutus and big bows. I was grabbing the microphone and talking to the audience. I was wearing entrance pieces, taking them off, and doing cartwheels and lifting weights, and I got a lot of attention.” (h/t WrestlingNews.co)
One of the people who noticed Bianca was Mark Henry. He commented on one of her posts but she ignored it thinking it came from a fake account. Sometime later, Henry messaged Bianca and asked her if she would be interested in trying out for WWE as she had already been doing everything a WWE superstar would do. This was a unique opportunity for Bianca who already had a job and “thought that was all there was for me.” She had two tryouts and finally received an offer letter from WWE. They assigned her to their developmental brand, NXT. The World’s Strongest Man always had faith in Belair’s capabilities and he knew that “she could do this” after seeing her compete as a CrossFitter. He also attributed her success to her personality and said, “A lot of people can turn a flip, but some people do it with flair and demonstrative movements and still get it done. That’s what wrestling requires. To be able to make other people understand without using words is the brilliance of what we do.”
Henry didn’t stop after recruiting Bianca to WWE, he also helped her develop in NXT. During an interview with Metro (H/T Fightful), she talked about the one best piece of advice she received from Henry. “He’s been a mentor for me. He’s obviously been at a lot of the major matches that I’ve had at TakeOvers – the best advice that I feel like he’s given me was way before Belair existed, he said ‘Who do you wanna be? What do you wanna showcase in the ring?’ You want people to know who you are without even opening your mouth… That really helped with my development. The main thing that he did say to me, he basically told me, ‘I can get you a tryout, that’s about it. You have to do the rest of the work.’ That’s what I’ve been doing – he really set the tone, that if you’re going to do this, you’ve gotta do it on your own.”
Bianca Belair’s WWE Career So Far
There’s no doubt that Bianca has now become one of the most important parts of WWE’s women’s division. She’s excellent in the ring, and the fans really like her. They are already familiar with her athletic prowess and she has inspired many young fans. Belair is still not firing on full cylinders yet as she still hasn’t mastered her promo game, and even her character has started to feel a bit bland now. A heel turn in the future could certainly turn things around and make her character really interesting.
Speaking of wrestlers Mark Henry scouted, Braun Strowman, Apollo Crews, and Jade Cargill are also among them. Henry helped these wrestlers get opportunities they likely wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. He’s working for AEW now, and even there Henry is scouting talents for the company and helping young talents as a coach.
