Phil Brooks was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 26, 1978 and was raised by his mother and father with two younger sisters and a brother named Mike. Mike was also a professional wrestler under the ring name Mike Broox; however, Phil and Mike had a falling out after Mike embezzled several thousand dollars from the Lunatic Wrestling Federation. Phil first wished to pursue a career in professional wrestling after watching Roddy Piper crack a coconut over Jimmy Snuka’s head during an edition of the Piper’s Pit.

While watching his father, who was a long-time alcoholic but eventually quit, and reading that alcoholism may be hereditary, Brooks made a commitment to abstain from alcohol consumption to prevent the possibility from it ever occurring in his life. During high school, at Lockport Township High School, Illinois, Brooks discovered the hardcore punk music genre, most importantly the band Minor Threat, who inspired the straight edge movement. After learning of the culture and its ideals and realizing it matched his own, he declared himself to be straight edge and started endorsing the philosophies of the movement.

After high school, Brooks moved out of the family house and lived for a time with fellow professional wrestler Cathy Corino. He later moved into an apartment with his trainer Chris Guy. Brooks worked other jobs to support himself during his early wrestling career, the last of which was as a laboratory technician for Underwriters Laboratories until he was fired due to poor conduct and work ethic in October 2002.

Source: Wikipedia.org