Summary

Kali Armstrong said rapper Wale was the person who first pushed her to seriously consider a move into pro wrestling.

Ahead of her official NXT television debut as a full-time member of the brand, Armstrong explained that Wale kept encouraging her to look at WWE because of her charisma, athletic background and overall presence. That eventually led her to start watching wrestling again, look into WWE's NIL approach with college athletes, and reach out to a recruiter for a tryout.

Armstrong is set to appear on the April 14 episode of NXT, though her opponent was not announced in the provided report. The report also noted that while she had appeared in background roles on television, her last NXT TV match came in September 2025.

Quote from Kali Armstrong

Speaking on Cheap Heat, Armstrong said Wale was persistent about steering her toward wrestling:

"I'm good friends with rapper Wale, and at that time, he was doing WaleMania and stuff so any time I'd post for track and field or just being charismatic, he'd hit me up like, 'Aye man, you're beautiful, you have this charisma, you have the physique. I really think that you'd be a good WWE wrestler,' and when you first hear it the first time, you're like, 'What? That's not something you could be.' So I just kind of brushed it off, I laughed it off."

"No. I used to watch when I was younger but, obviously, once I got older, I stopped watching so, that was just something that was totally out the blue. I wasn't aware of any storylines or anything. So then I keep on posting and just doing what I do and he hit me up like two or three more times, and after that second or third one, I was like, 'Okay, let me really look into this.' So I started looking into it, I started watching wrestling. I started seeing their N.I.L. deals and things that they were doing with current athletes and I was like, 'Wow, so they're really big on athletes at this time.' So I reached out to a recruiter. They got me into a tryout, and that was all she wrote."

Armstrong later said Wale refused to use any connections to help once she got her foot in the door:

"I think it's funny because when I was going through the tryout and stuff, I was like, 'You know all these people. Help me a little bit' and he's like, 'No. Whatever you do, whatever you get, I want it to be 100 percent you. If you get the tryout, if you get to make it to WWE, I want it to be solely because you and your talents.' He didn't wanna have any influence. But I'm like, 'I'm in there now! Now you could help me.' He's like, 'No.'"

What this means for Kali Armstrong in NXT

Armstrong tying her path to WWE directly back to that tryout matters because NXT is now presenting her as a full-time roster member, not just an occasional background presence. The immediate consequence is that her April 14 appearance carries more weight than a routine first match, because it is part of her formal arrival on the brand.

It also reinforces how heavily WWE continues to lean into recruiting high-level athletes with standout charisma. Armstrong's explanation fits that model exactly, and her move from track and field into a featured NXT role is another example of that pipeline in action.

Sources

As reported by Fightful.