Titus O'Neil wanted to follow in Shaquille O’Neal's footsteps by being a superstar who could do everything.
Titus is a former WWE Tag Team Champion, and he was also the first 24/7 Champion in WWE history. Over the years, he has been renowned for his charity work, and he won the 2020 Warrior Award. Meanwhile, O'Neal is an icon in the sports world, as he is a four-time NBA Champion and a former NBA MVP. Outside of basketball, he has released multiple rap albums, appeared in films, and starred in reality shows. He is also an analyst on the popular Inside The NBA program.
During an appearance on The Dad Edge podcast, Titus explained that he wanted to be the Shaquille O'Neal of WWE. He noted that "Shaq" one of his favorite sports-entertainers, as he tapped into a number of other fields. Titus described how he wanted to follow in these footsteps, which was a factor in the creation of his in-ring name, but WWE changed the spelling.
"My youngest son’s name is Titus and Shaquille O’Neal is my fraternity brother, and he’s also one of my favorite all-time sports entertainers, he did more than just play basketball. He was rapping, he was in movies, in every other commercial you could name, pushing every product you could name. I felt that I wanted to be the Shaquille O’Neal of WWE where I didn’t want to just be known as a professional wrestler, I wanted to be a superstar that could do anything and everything. Put me in a movie, put me on the red carpet, put me at a football game, commentate, do whatever and I’d be just fine. That’s how I came up with Titus O’Neil. Of course, somebody thought that I should be Irish so they took the A out and put an I in," O'Neil said.
Kenny Smith recently hit "Shaq" with the Pounce. More information is available here.
On the same podcast, O'Neil named Rey Mysterio as his favorite person to work with. Check out his comments here.
O'Neil recently revealed that he is working on a second book about fatherhood. More information is available here.
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