- Sesugh Uhaa was born in Sacramento, California and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Having been a fan of wrestling since childhood, he began training at the age of 21 under Curtis Hughes at his World Wrestling Alliance 4 school in Atlanta. He made his debut in August 2009 under the ring name Uhaa Nation, which was inspired by his high school weightlifting coach, who described him as a ’one-man nation’ due to his strength. - Over the next two years, Uhaa competed for various small promotions across the southern United States, before landing his big break in September 2011 when he began appearing for Dragon Gate USA, as well as its WWNLive sister promotions EVOLVE and Full Impact Pro Wrestling, which soon led to him working in outside of the US for the first time for the Japanese version of Dragon Gate. During his time with the WWNLive group, he held the FIP Florida Heritage Title for nearly two years and Dragon Gate’s Open the Twin Gate Titles with BxB Hulk. - In Dragon Gate, Uhaa was part of the heel stable Blood WARRIORS (later renamed MAD BLANKEY) before suffering a knee injury at a DGUSA event in March 2012 which kept him out of the ring for a year. He returned in mid-2013, and worked a program which saw him turn face when he was kicked out of Mad Blankey and formed a new stable named Monster Express. 2014 saw him begin competing regularly for the British promotion Pro Championship Wrestling, holding its Heavyweight title from November 2014 to March 2015. - In October 2014, Uhaa took part in a WWE tryout camp and was announced as having signed a developmental contract in April 2015 and reported to the Performance Center in Florida. After several weeks of vignettes promoting his debut, he made his televised debut for WWE’s NXT developmental brand at the Takeover: Brooklyn event in August under the name Apollo Crews, defeating Tye Dillinger.