[8] According to Norris, he joined the United States Army but was later discharged due to striking his captain over viewing his orders as "kind of cowardly.
[13] After being signed and given the ring name "Ahmed Johnson", he made his pre-television debut at In Your House 3 on September 24, 1995, in Saginaw, Michigan.
At WrestleMania XII, Camp Cornette (Vader, Owen Hart, and The British Bulldog) took on the team of Johnson, Yokozuna, and Jake "The Snake" Roberts.
On August 5 edition of Raw, Johnson won an 11-man battle royal, last eliminating the man whom he beat for the Intercontinental title, Goldust, to be the #1 contender for the WWF Championship for the day after SummerSlam.
[18] However, Johnson was diagnosed with legitimate kidney problems, and was forced to miss both SummerSlam and his scheduled WWF Championship match the following night.
Voice-over commentary was added so that Johnson's participation in the battle royal was said to be against doctors' orders, when in reality his kidney problem had yet to be discovered at the time of taping.
[19] Two days later, Johnson and The Undertaker defeated Faarooq and Nation member Crush in a No Holds Barred match at the Triple Threat event.
[20] He began teaming with Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal) and the three fought the entire Nation at WrestleMania 13 in a Chicago Street Fight.
[22] In June 1997, Johnson turned on WWF Champion The Undertaker and joined the New Nation, with Kama Mustafa, D'Lo Brown, and Faarooq.
[18] Johnson was injured soon after this; he was scheduled to face Undertaker at Canadian Stampede for the WWF Title, but was plagued by injuries and was replaced by Vader.
Johnson knew his sister watched the WWF each week and didn't want her to have the image of her brother being beaten and dragged by the neck while she was gravely ill.
According to Johnson, 15 minutes before he was scheduled for the match which would end in his being attacked, he received a call that his sister was "doing really bad" and that he should come immediately to her hospital in Florida.
Johnson then met with Vince McMahon and told him he "had some things to deal with" and immediately left WWF and flew to Florida, where his sister died the following week.
[25][26] In a July 2021 interview, Johnson for the first time also made claims that racism was another reason for his departure saying, "There was a family issue that needed my attention, but, on top of that, there were other things going on behind scenes that didn't sit right with me.
He gained a massive amount of weight at this time, and was aptly named Big T. He interfered in a match between Harlem Heat tag team partners and real-life brothers, Booker T and Stevie Ray.