From Homeless to Hero: TJ Perkins “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” This is a phrase that now new WWE Cruiserweight Champion TJ Perkins lived by. It represented staying in the moment and not getting ahead of yourself. At first glance, some may think TJ Perkins has it all. What some may not know, is the price he paid to get into the position he is today. It all started when TJ was thirteen years old. That is when he got his start in professional wrestling. He began to train at a wrestling school down in L.A. He enrolled into wrestling school after his first week of high school. From then on he trained constantly to become the best professional wrestler he could be. By the time he was 16, he was wrestling for many promotions in Southern California and even Tijuana, Mexico! While most people his age were worrying about what’s “cool” to wear to school and what to post on twitter, TJ was traveling to a different country and performing in front of thousands and thousands of fans. By 18 years old, TJ Perkins was an independent wrestling phenomenon. He had wrestled for dozens of promotions including New Japan Pro Wrestling. He was on television and Pay-Per-View in the states. Now TJ felt the moment was right. With all this momentum what else would be a better time to peruse his dream of becoming a WWE superstar and traveling to Florida? Well, let’s just say that relocation went rather unfavorably for TJ. With no education, TJ moved down to Florida to hopefully make his way into FCW, a WWE developmental program at the time. That plan ended up not working out. Perkins then got evicted. He was homeless for a while after. His parents over in L.A. went bankrupt. They were banking on him to go big time and catch the WWE’s attention. As TJ Perkins has said multiple times “Sometimes you bet the house and lose” Perkins then went back to L.A. and managed to get back and wrestle for some of the promotions that he had previously. It was basically like he had to restart his career. TJ sees it as a “blessing in disguise”. He feels like that helped him mature more and learn not to take things for granted. TJ ended up being able to help him and his family get back on their feet. Fast forward to 2016 and WWE announces that they will be holding a Global Cruiserweight Classic Tournament. There, they would gather the top cruiserweights (Wrestlers 205lbs and under) from around the globe and put them in a tournament. By this point TJ Perkins had just finished wrestling for the second largest wrestling company in the United States, in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Perkins was offered an opportunity to represent his Filipino background in the cruiserweight classic. With no hesitation, Perkins accepted. Little did he know this would be the beginning of something monumental. At the end of the tournament, rumors were floating around that TJ had finally gotten offered a WWE contract. The HEAVY favorite in the Tournament, Kota Ibushi, is set to square off against TJ. Throughout the whole tournament, TJ has been “bracket buster”. Overcoming odds that nobody expected him too. TJ ends up beating Ibushi. Now it’s the finals. Gran Metalik Vs TJ Perkins. The COO of the WWE and former WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Triple H, came out to say a few words to the crowd. He talked about how monumental and how historic this tournament has been. How the winner will go down in history as the winner of the inaugural WWE Cruiserweight Classic tournament. Then Triple H revealed that the winner would debut on raw as the first ever WWE Cruiserweight champion. After a long fought battle, TJ Perkins was able to prevail. After all the adversity he had to overcome, he finally accomplished his dream. To make it to the WWE from the streets to the WWE. From nothing to something. Now, you can catch TJ Perkins on WWE Monday Night Raw with the cruiserweight championship while holding it with pride and joy. I guess you can say, in the famous words of Vince McMahon, “The boyhood dream has come true”. .