In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Big Kon (formerly Konnor of WWE) spoke about being pitched The Ascension and how the group changed from its original incarnation. Here are highlights: On the start of the group: “It all started when it would’ve been NXT season five, the original NXT version, where I got voted off, and no one likes be rejected. So I was pissed. And I was hurt. So I get a text message from Bill DeMott who says, ‘Listen, we got some ideas for you, so report to practice on Wednesday please.’ And I was like, ‘Yes, sir.’ So I show up, and he goes on about the idea they were looking to do, and this is what they’re thinking. So then I saw it was Shaul [Guerrero], it was Epico, it was Tom Latimer (Bram), it was Ricardo Rodriguez, and it was me. And I’m looking at the five of us and I’m thinking this doesn’t make any sense at all. Like to me, I’m shooting straight right now, it looked to me like this is just five rejects that no one knows what to do with. And I was like, “this just doesn’t make sense’. And Bill was like, ‘Just trust me, trust it, Dream sees something.’ And of course then Ricardo, Ricardo Rodriguez was the one that actually came up with this. The actual idea of this was going to be based off of the five chakras. And this was the direction he wanted to go with it. He tried to explain everything to me because I think he knew that I was a little upset at that time from the night before, he was trying to calm me down, because you know, your mind is just all over the place at this point.”