“The Million Dollar Arm” Signs With WWE

Rinku Singh, who is known as the “Million Dollar Arm” has signed with WWE.

WWE announced the signing on their website.

Former baseball pitcher Rinku Singh will officially arrive at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Fla., this Tuesday, where he will begin training full-time in his quest to become a WWE Superstar.

The 6-foot-3, 256-pound left-hander from Bhadohi, India, is ready to throw a curveball into the WWE PC landscape. A junior national javelin throw medalist who won India’s 2008 reality TV series “The Million Dollar Arm,” Singh signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates to become Major League Baseball’s first Indian pitcher, while his life story inspired the Disney movie “Million Dollar Arm” in 2014. In April 2017, he joined 40 male and female athletes from India and the Middle East in an invitation-only tryout at the Dubai Opera House. There, he impressed Performance Center coaches and trainers and earned himself a WWE developmental contract.

Singh realizes that transitioning from the pitcher’s mound to a wrestling ring may be his greatest test, but he’s confident in his abilities, and his years as a hurler familiarized him with meeting such challenges. “Take a look at where I came from,” he told WWE.com. “When I started [playing baseball], there was nothing. Now we have 23 states [in India] playing baseball and softball. As I go through my journey at the Performance Center and WWE, it will continue to make things easier, and I’ll have millions of people in my corner. It’s going to be a fun journey.”

Singh joins several other recruits in reporting to the Performance Center this Tuesday, and he looks forward to dealing very different strikes to opponents while training in Orlando.

“As long I stay focused and stay strong, just as I have over the past 10 years with baseball or track and field … it will lead me in the right direction,” he said. “Obviously, it’s going to be a totally different training program [at the WWE Performance Center]. But it does not matter where you came from. You’re trying to be something bigger than yourself, and you’ve got to give it everything you’ve got.”

Despite having won the reality show a decade ago, Singh is only 29 years old. He played professional baseball as recently as 2016, throwing one scoreless inning for the Pittsburgh Pirates’ rookie league affiliate. Tommy John surgery and a broken elbow sidelined him for several years, ending a minor league career that saw him earn a 10-6 record in 85 relief appearances, sporting a 2.97 ERA.