Titus O’Neil wanted to be the superstar who could do it all, hopefully following in the footsteps of Shaquille O’Neal. WWE’s O’Neil was the first-ever 24/7 Champion, and he’s a former WWE Tag Team Champion. Titus has been lauded for his charity work as well, receiving the 2020 Warrior Award.
Titus might not have hit the heights of Shaq, but not for lack of trying. Shaq, who is a four-time NBA Champion, has released rap records, starred in movies, and appeared all over television. He currently sits as a panelist on the very popular Inside the NBA show on TNT. Shaq’s celebrity status in so many different arenas served as Titus’ inspiration, a story that Titus shared recently with the Dad Edge Podcast. He said,
“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.”
Titus is also hard at work on his second book about fatherhood. His first book, There’s No Such Thing As A Bad Kid: How I Went From Stereotype to Prototype was released in August 2019. Titus remains active in the WWE community, but has not wrestled since November 2020.
