10 Things WWE Fans Need To Know About Roderick Strong

5. He Was Trained By The Anvil

Strong was a guest on the Ross Report, and told the story of how he got into wrestling in the first place. Surprisingly, he was trained by none other than Natalya’s dad.

It all came about because Strong’s dad was friends with a guy whose wife worked at a clinic that Jim Neidhart went to (bit of a roundabout way to get into the business). The friend asked Strong’s dad if he wanted to learn how to wrestle from Neidhart, and despite being nearly 40 at the time, he agreed to do it.

Because the Strong family couldn’t afford a babysitter, his dad took him with, and he watched on as his father trained. Eventually Neidhart let Roderick in the ring a little, and he started training at the age of 12. Strong described the Hart Foundation member’s training as very intense with a lot of “Japanese style training” involving a lot of squats and push-ups.

He also wasn’t the only child who was learning the business at the time from The Anvil. A young Harry Smith was there too, wrestling with Strong years before either made a name for themselves.