Fred Rosser reveals the origins of his 'Darren Young' name (Exclusive)
It's been two years since we last saw Fred Rosser in a WWE ring under the moniker of Darren Young, but Mr No Days Off has been busy ever since - and he's now looking for a new challenge!
However, we spoke with Fred on Episode 4 of Dropkick DiSKussions about the origins of the name "Darren Young" as so many members of the WWE Universe believed that to be Rosser's real name, and the former WWE Tag Team Champion revealed where it all came from, citing the legendary Dusty Rhodes in his recollection.
Darren Young's new in-ring name, Fred Rosser, is actually his birth name.
Darren Young actually was developed in Tampa Florida, FCW, Florida Championship Wrestling at the time. That's where my Performance Center was before it moved to Orlando.
It was Dusty Rhodes who was helping all the guys with promos and character development, so Dusty was the one that helped me come up with Darren Young, so I like to call myself, when I was with WWE, D-Young because it sounds more hip and stuff like that, but Darren Young was...was worked out with Dusty Rhodes.
Young also opened up about his WWE career.
I had a great career with WWE. I didn't just come off the football field and get into a WWE ring. I grinded on the independents, I started September 11th, 2002, professional wrestling. One year after 9/11. I grinded it out from 2002 until 2009 until I got signed, May 4th, 20009 out of 75 guys and girls from all of the world. I beat them all out.
The same day I got signed was the same day that AJ lee got signed. So, I'm very happy with the career that I had in WWE, so what do I do now? I take my platform that I built with WWE and I speak to schools, I am heavily involved with the community. I do so much work for the Covenant House here in California that deals with homeless youth, I deal with Athlete Ally, an organisation that deals with athletes that are LGBTQ. I'm involved in so much.
You can check out the entire interview here.