Drew Gulak basking in WWE Cruiserweight Classic experience

Drew Gulak tried to approach the WWE Cruiserweight Classic like any other booking on his calendar.

Although he recognized the significance of taking part in the inaugural tournament, he didn't want the stage to feel too big. For him, it was just going to be business as usual. He was simply going to handle business and move on to the next endeavor.

That was before he made his way to the WWE Performance Center and Full Sail University in Orlando for the first set of television tapings for the tournament, that were held back on June 23. Once he got to see the enormity of the opportunity first hand, he was taken aback -- by the level of work WWE put in to pull off the event and by the level of talent competing with him in the tournament.

It was a surreal experience for the Philadelphia native who once sat in the front row of Combat Zone Wrestling events with his little brother Rory.

"I can't stress how surreal it was for me," Gulak said. "I came from here. I came from Philly. I came from the crowd watching these events growing up and I watched guys that made it into the tournament, Tajiri especially. It's cool to just be amongst him in a WWE ring.

"I started watching tournaments like the Super J Cup and all of those classic wrestling tournaments growing up," he added. "Best of the Best was my first live event. That's a huge tournament on the independents, and now I'm in WWE's version of that. That's wild, right? That's nuts."

Since returning home to Philadelphia, he has also been taken aback by the all of the attention he has received from fans, the wrestling media and even people within his own family who have taken a renewed interest in his wrestling career.

He has since realized that being one of the 32 men to take part in the first WWE Cruiserweight Classic is not just another date on the calendar, but is actually a potentially career-altering experience.

"My phone has been blowing up a lot more," he said. "A lot of people just asking what's going on. Getting new opportunities to go different places. It's cool to have my name thrown around with guys like Tajiri and Brian Kendrick on a regular basis, and on top of that, you have the rest of the talent that came in for this."

But before Gulak could look ahead to the rest of his career, he had to take care of the task at hand in Orlando, which was to show WWE's staff of coaches why he was deserving of a spot in the tournament to begin with.

Fortunately for Gulak, he didn't have to make a slew of adjustments. He has experience wrestling in front of television cameras and actually likes wrestling in WWE's larger ring.

WWE is one of the few promotions that use a 20-foot-square ring. Most other promotions use smaller rings.

While Gulak has more experience working in the smaller rings, he said he loved the larger one because it suited his style of being a mat technician.

"For me, I didn't really have to change much," he said. "I didn't have to change anything, actually. It was very simple as far as transitioning there. I work for a lot of other independent promotions that have television deals or local television deals -- like Championship Wrestling from Hollywood is one of them on the West Coast. That's the same kind of structure that they have there. I think that kind of training and that background really helped."

Gulak got to work with talented performers such as Zack Sabre Jr., Gran Metalik and Kota Ibushi, as well as learn from legends such as William Regal, Tajiri and Kendrick.

"It was amazing to see it all go down," Gulak said. "These guys are all super, super talented. It's a lot of people and they're from all over the place, so no one was showing any kinds of sluggishness or anything. They were all ready to go and at their peak."

It has taken 11 years for Gulak to reach this point, but he does not see it as his peak just yet. The WWE Cruiserweight Classic is a milestone in his career, but in his mind, it is not the culmination. It has made his hunger for success become even more insatiable, as he got a taste of what it is like to be in the mainstream spotlight while in Orlando.

Until his time comes to reside in that spotlight longterm, it will be business as usual for the Northeast High School grad.

"[I'm going to] just work hard and keep doing what I love and as long as I keep loving it, it'll love me back," he said. "If anything, this has just motivated me further, so I'm going to keep working harder and harder."

The WWE Cruiserweight Classic will debut Wednesday, July 13 at 9 p.m. on the WWE Network.