WWE NXT Women’s Champion Kelani Jordan has detailed what she found tough to get to grips with in her early years in WWE.
Jordan, like many on the “WWE NXT” roster, transitioned from another sport to pro wrestling, having previously been a gymnast. She transferred many of her gymnastics skills to pro wrestling and found high-flying moves easy to perform, but struggled to make her wrestling look realistic as gymnastics had taught her to be perfect.
“So some things were a struggle, like some things were easy, as in a sense of, like, body control, air awareness, like those things. High-flying came very natural, and I wasn’t really, like, afraid of anything. But the struggle was, like you said, not being perfect, ’cause like gymnastics, you’re judged on a scale of perfection. So if something was rough around the edges, for me that was way more difficult,” she explained on “Wrastlin’ with E & Matt.”
Jordan also highlighted other differences between wrestling and gymnastics, pointing out how wrestling requires you to work with another person. She also noted that wrestlers must react to their surroundings, unlike in gymnastics, where she was taught to block out external distractions.
“But also, gymnastics isn’t a contact sport. I don’t have to depend on anyone else. I don’t have to touch anyone else, so that was a big difference. But also, even when it comes to, like, speaking in promos, in gymnastics you’re taught to tune everyone out, whereas in wrestling, you have to listen to the fans and just, like — you’re still in the moment, but it’s like you have to be aware of what’s being said.”
Jordan’s transition from gymnastics to pro wrestling has paid off, as she captured the NXT Women’s Championship just three years into her wrestling career. She has also held the NXT Women’s North American Championship and the TNA Knockouts Championship, making her one of the rising stars in WWE.
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