Brandon Vera is the son of a Filipino father, Ernesto, and an Italian-American mother, Amelia, and grew up in a family with seven boys and three girls. He was born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, and attended Lake Taylor High School, where he excelled in wrestling and earned a four-year athletic scholarship to Old Dominion University. He however dropped out of Old Dominion after a year and a half when he felt college was not for him, and he enlisted in the United States Air Force.
