career Early career (2001–2007) After training at NWA UK Hammerlock, Devitt made his professional wrestling debut on 23 November 2001. He quickly won the NWA British Commonwealth Heavyweight Championship. After graduating, his wrestling career started quickly, and he began touring Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In mid-2002, Devitt, along with Paul Tracey, opened NWA Ireland, his own wrestling promotion based in Ireland. The promotion soon became the sister group of NWA UK Hammerlock as both promoted under the NWA banner. As part of NWA Ireland, Devitt trained future WWE competitor Becky Lynch. On 8 October 2005, in Nashville, Tennessee, at the NWA 57th Anniversary Show, Devitt defeated Dru Onyx for his second British Commonwealth title. After the match both participants were invited to the New Japan Inoki Dojo in Santa Monica, California to train. During late 2005, Devitt also began competing for the U.S.based Millennium Wrestling Federation (MWF). He made his debut in a triple threat match at Soul Survivor III on 5 November, challenging for the MWF Television Championship against the champion Eddie Edwards and R. J. Brewer. He made his television debut on the November edition of MWF Ultra, in a match against Osiris. After impressing many promoters and trainers, he was invited to train in New Japan's main dojo in Tokyo, where, in early 2006, he began training in the Japanese style of professional wrestling. He lost the British Commonwealth Championship to Karl Anderson in March 2006. In June 2007, Devitt participated in a tournament for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) called "Reclaiming the Glory", which was to crown a new NWA World Heavyweight Champion. The championship had been controlled by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) for several years, but in 2007 NWA had terminated its agreement with TNA. In the first round, Devitt defeated Australian wrestler Mikey Nicholls, but lost in the second round to Bryan Danielson. New Japan Pro-Wrestling Control Terrorism Unit and RISE (2006–2008) The day after losing the British Commonwealth Championship, Devitt signed a contract with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) in March 2006. In April 2006, he made his NJPW debut against El Samurai, using the ring name Prince Devitt. Devitt later stated in an interview with PowerSlam Mag that New Japan renamed him Prince Devitt because nobody Japanese could pronounce his actual name. He was originally going to be called King David until people started questioning why the 24-year-old