New column
by Tom Howard for upw.com
When Rick Bassman asked me to write a weekly article for
upw.com, I questioned him as to which perspective he wanted the
article based. He graciously gave me creative license so I
thought about what I could share that would be of interest to
the casual reader, as well as, informational and hopefully
inspirational to the aspiring wrestler.
I have been a Pro Wrestler for nearly a
decade and have been fortunate enough to have wrestled all over
the world with some of wrestling biggest stars. As an
instructor, I have been privileged to have taught over 200
aspiring wrestlers, many of whom have gone on to stardom in
Japan and the WWE. I have seen and experienced things that I
could have only dreamed of and I owe it all to wrestling. I
have experienced some of the highest highs and lowest lows that
a person can experience and I owe it all to wrestling.
So I decided to title my column… “I owe it all to
wrestling”. I will be sharing a variety of information that
will include anecdotal stories of my experiences in wrestling,
insight from my years as an instructor as to what it takes to
make it as a pro wrestler and tips on training, supplements
and nutritional regimen. I hope that you will enjoy it and
maybe even learn from some of my successes and failures.
I wanted to start by going back to the very
beginning and talk about how I got started in the business. As
a young child growing up in Utah and later in my teens
relocating to Southern California, I was not afforded much
exposure to professional wrestling. I loved watching wrestling
when it was on TV and regularly practiced the moves on my 4
brothers and 3 sisters (I am second oldest in a large Mormon
family of 9). I was never able to attend live events and was
discouraged from watching that “horrible fake wrestling” by my
family.
I ended up
really taking a liking to martial arts, weight training and
amateur wrestling and excelled in all, but lacked the discipline
to become a high level competitor. I treated them all as
hobbies because I felt that there was no real way to make a
living as a pro martial artist or pro weight lifter (or pro
wrestler?). By the age of 24, I had entered the work place and
had a job in the Government Relations department with a large
media company, where I had to put on a suite, tie and a smile
every day. My job consisted of interacting with and befriending
(i.e.: schmoozing and kissing the asses of) government employees
and officials in order to ensure that the permit process went
smooth and to give my company an upper hand in the bidding
process on government contracts. Yes, I had a company car and a
401k but did I have happiness?
I remember
sitting at my desk and going through the internet whenever I
thought no one was looking and reading about the wrestling and
fighting world and wondering how a person could actually get
into something like that. Well, as they say at Disney, when you
wish upon a star?
One day, I went
to the gym near my house and saw a mountain of a man squatting
with the bar so full of weight that it was actually bending over
his back. I asked a friend who this freak was and was told
that he was an aspiring pro wrestler. The guys name was Hank
Hill (yes, my future tag partner at UPW) and at 6’1” and 320lbs.
he looked every bit the part of pro wrestler. I approached Hank
and asked him were he was training. He informed me that he had
actually only been to train once and that he didn’t recall the
schools name but it was located somewhere in San Bernardino. I
called information and could not find any wrestling schools, so
I went so far as to actually drive the hour out to San
Bernardino and drive the streets looking for the school and
asking anyone I could if they had heard of it. No luck!
Then, one day my
buddy Hank called and told me that another friend of his, Al
Burke, AKA: Mr. Outrageous, a pro wrestler and actor, would take
us to the wrestling school. I can vividly remember the magical
feeling of the first time I stepped into the ring with my
instructor, Jesse Hernandez, and proceeded not only to go
through the basics but also try several of the wrestling moves I
had seen on TV. I signed up for the school that very day and
made the commitment to train to be a pro wrestler. It’s a good
thing I committed myself that day because the next morning when
I awoke I felt like someone had driven over me with a Mac truck
and then backed over me and done it again for good measure.
I quickly took
to the physical aspect of wrestling due largely to my background
in amateur wrestling, martial arts, and even surfing, as well
as, a little known fact that my parents actually put me through
tap, ballet and jazz lessons as a kid (to this day I can’t dance
myself out of a wet paper bag). I was also on the National
Heart Association Jump rope demonstration team as a kid. We
would go to schools and sporting events and do jump rope
demonstrations to promote the health benefits of, you guessed
it, jumping rope (yes, even double dutch). It was rather
embarrassing at the time, but in retrospect I am very grateful
to my parents for forcing me to endure the humiliation of being
the only boy around who had to go to dance and jump rope
practice.
After around a
year of training and driving around with my instructor setting
up the ring all around the country, I was told that I was ready
to come up with a gimmick and start wrestling on shows. My
trainer and some of the other guys in school all thought that I
looked like Ivan Drago from Rocky 5 and that my gimmick should
be a former Russian spy named KGB. Hey, it is pro wrestling so
don’t laugh too hard. I had my first match in Las Vegas for the
NWC against the Samurai Warrior (Gary Key) at an old dive of a
casino called the Silver Nugget. My ring psychology was
non-existent back then, but the crowd took to me largely because
I had some decent high flying moves and a reasonably good build.
So what was it
like being an American playing a Russian? Well, I remember one
particularly embarrassing moment when I was booked to team with
Junk Yard Dog (RIP) vs. Louis Spicolli (RIP) & Tim Patterson for
a charity event at a school for a young kid who had a fatal
disease that required him to undergo numerous expensive
surgeries. They got the media involved and I even had to do an
interview for the 6:00 news with my favorite sportscaster.
There I was, with this sick kid and his oxygen tank sitting on
my lap talking in a hideously fake Russian accent about how I
was going to kill my opponents the next night in the ring. I
also attended an assembly where I met and shook hands with the
students and guess who comes walking up…. my worst nightmare,
you guessed it, a Russian foreign exchange student that was very
excited to speak with a fellow Russian about the old country (I
suddenly developed the Helen Keller syndrome and made a b-line
for the door). I clearly remember thinking to myself that I
needed to change my gimmick as soon as possible.
Well, that’s
enough rambling for this week, tune in next week for the
continuing saga. The one moral that I hope you got from the
story is that at 24 years old I took a look at my life and
decided to take a leap of faith. I decided to do whatever it
took and sacrifice whatever I had to in order to follow my
dream. Anyone can do it if I can!
Now on to the
second part of my column, as promised, tips on training,
supplements and nutritional regimen.
The real trick
to training is consistency. More than anything if you
consistently hit the weights, eat properly and use the right
supplements you WILL see results and move in the direction that
you want to. I am constantly asked by my students for advice on
diet and supplements. As for diet, I follow a very simple
regimen of high protein (minimally 1.5 grams for every pound of
lean body mass – for me around 350 grams per day) moderate
healthy carbs (vegetables) and low, healthy fats (preferably
dyacylglycerol). I don’t get crazy with the dry chicken breast
and yams diet that many bodybuilders follow, because I don’t
want to get too lean as I feel that it is conducive to injuries
as a pro wrestler (to be completely honest I lack the
discipline). A couple of the supplements that I would highly
recommend are:
ATP Advantage Creatine Serum (great for putting on a
quick 10 pounds of muscle)
A-100 Anabolic Activator (not a steroid but probably the
most powerful legal supplement made)
Rather than me
trying to give you the scientific information as to what these
products contain or how they work, I have included the link to
the web site that I get all my supplements from, as it contains
all the info you could ever want. I used to go to Max Muscle or
GNC to buy my supplements, but I found that you can always get a
better price from this site and they have free delivery (perfect
for a lazy guy like me).
http://www.musclesurf.com/?AID=8351159&PID=1367623
Until next week
I will leave with some words of wisdom from George Bernard Shaw,
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they
are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in
this world are the people who get up and look for the
circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make
them”.
