Kali Terza walked into 216 Coworking looking every bit the record-breaking hammer thrower and future WWE superstar she is, and by the end of the conversation, host Logan Lewis had gotten a lot more than a highlight reel. Kali holds Kennesaw State's school records in the hammer throw and weight throw, was named a first-team All-American, and has represented Team USA at the World Championships on two separate teams. She just finished a one-year master's program in cybersecurity, on top of a full-time D1 track schedule, and she's signed a multi-year NIL contract with WWE's Next In Line program.
She didn't even know what a hammer was
Kali started as a sprinter, not a thrower. She ran the 100, the 200, and hurdles for Etowah Youth Track Club starting at age nine, and won a state title in the 200 her freshman year of high school. It wasn't until her senior year, chasing a fuller scholarship offer, that a shot put coach looked at her and said, "You're going to pick up a hammer." Kali walked into the equipment shed looking for a claw hammer and a nail. "I'm like looking for a nail and hammer," she said. "And I'm like, I don't see a hammer."
Two weeks after her first real throwing session, she had an offer from Kennesaw State. She turned down a path toward Tennessee to stay close to home, broke KSU's hammer record in her first few meets, and has held it since.
Going viral for squatting men at the bar
Kali was open about the other side of building serious muscle mass as a college athlete: the online comments. Her first TikTok that gained real traction drew a wave of harsh feedback about her body before it drew support. "I remember the comments were just brutal," she said. "It was like a lot of, dude, this is disgusting." That period, she said, was the first time she ever became self-conscious about her body — something that never registered for her in high school.
She turned it around by leaning into it. Her signature TikTok bit now is picking up random guys at bars and squatting them, a video that's pulled in millions of views, including one of her squatting WWE Hall of Famer AJ Styles. "I kind of just make fun with it now," she said. "When I go out, I'll go up to people and ask them to arm wrestle me."
How a viral clip turned into a WWE contract
That same squat video is what got WWE's attention. The company reached out to her directly on Instagram after the video blew up, and Kali — who admits she knew almost nothing about wrestling going in — ended up loving it. She signed with WWE's Next In Line program, the company's version of an NIL deal: WWE trains student-athletes while they finish their college eligibility, and once that eligibility ends, they move into a full wrestling career.
Her tryout date, originally set for August 2026, got pushed to December after she made Team USA again for the World University Games in Peru. Once her track career wraps, she'll move to Orlando to train full-time — including one-on-one work with AJ Styles, who's building a new training facility. "He's like the most humble, nicest guy I think I've ever met," she said.
The cybersecurity backup plan
Kali's academic path traces back to a childhood spent watching true-crime documentaries with her mom. She earned her undergraduate degree in criminal justice with a minor in criminology, originally eyeing the FBI or a homicide detective track. An internship with the Kennesaw Police Department — working on a continuity-of-operations plan for what happens if the department's systems go down — pulled her toward cybersecurity instead. She finished a two-year master's program in one year, graduating with a 4.0, while training and competing at the D1 level.
The reasoning was practical: "I know better than anyone you can get injured at any point," she said. "If I don't have track, who am I? I want to make sure I have something stable that I can do outside of that."
Who are you without the sport?
The most candid stretch of the conversation had nothing to do with throwing distances. Kali described a six-week identity workshop at KSU built around one question: who are you without sports? Her honest answer was that she's still figuring it out. Every conversation with family, friends, and interviewers circles back to track, to wrestling, to her next competition — rarely to anything else.
She talked openly about the cost of chasing an elite level in her sport: missed vacations, strained friendships with people who don't understand the schedule, a long-distance relationship that couldn't survive it, and a pattern of dating teammates because they're the only people whose calendars line up with hers. She also opened up about a two-year break from track in high school after losing a teammate and boyfriend to suicide, and a period after double knee surgery cost her a shot at Olympic trials where she seriously considered walking away from the sport altogether.
What kept her going, she said, was picturing her nine-year-old self and how far she'd come. That, paired with a next-team phone call that turned a heartbreaking near-miss into her first Team USA roster spot, is the thread running through the whole episode: talent got her in the door, but it's been the willingness to keep showing up after the setbacks that's built the record book.
Listen to the Full Conversation
This recap only scratches the surface. Kali also gets into her family's reaction to her physique (baby pictures included), the weirdest DMs she gets on social media, and what it was like meeting Logan Paul on her first trip to WWE's facility. Catch the full episode below.
Listen to Episode #520
Catch the full conversation with Kali Terza on Your Morning Drive, wherever you listen.
