UPW Partners

Student of the Month, September 2002
James Lukash

by Les Honig  

When you speak with Ultimate University rookie standout, James Lukash, you are struck by that same dogged dedication and determination characteristic of the whole wave of recent enrollees; and in his case, as with so many others; joining up last June was no mere accident but the result of a lifetime preoccupation.

“My dad says that ever since I was 6, he knew I would be a professional wrestler,” the 5’9” blonde 170-pounder says now and traces his infatuation with the sport to the time when he first viewed the likes of Jimmy Superfly Snuka, Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude, (three of his original favorites) back in the WWE’s mid and late 80s heyday. Indeed, Lukash has always known that to bounce in the ring with the best of them would be his someday destiny.

A standout young athlete all his life, as his family moved from the East Coast to the Midwest and finally to Arizona where he settled for his teen years, (his father was a Secret Service agent),  James always felt that even here, excelling in a whole variety of sports from football to baseball to basketball to hockey to even martial arts might just be a conduit to lead him into the one field he really loved.

“I was interested in playing football so that one day I could join the NFL and that might help me become a pro wrestler.  And when I started studying ju jitsu it was because of Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn. I thought, ‘Hey if I can be in the UFC like them, maybe I can get into the WWE like they did too.”

At 24 now, James can lay claim to a communications degree from ASU, but even while finishing his final semesters of college work, he was busy planning for an eventual entrée into the pro ranks. “I started researching wrestling schools for quite awhile and after considering some others, like ECW’s training facility which attracted me because of teachers like Taz, I just came to the realization that it was UPW which far and away had the best place to train as well as some great pro contacts.”

Visiting the UU training facility at its old LA Boxing headquarters back in May of 2000, he first came into contact with Tom Howard who immediately impressed him because of his “patience with the students and his amazing knowledge of the business.” On a second visit after graduating in early 2001, he encountered the Ballards teaching a class at Raw Center, and was equally blown away by their instructional expertise. “I had already seen them in Phoenix in a couple of matches and I loved watching them already,” he recalls now.

After graduating college, though, personal needs prevented him from immediately heading out to So Cal to begin his pro mat quest, but before long the dream could no longer wait even a day more. “I moved out here on June 7^th and by the next Tuesday, June 13^th  I was enrolled in the school.” Being trained by his favorites, the Ballards, too on his very first session, was an immediate treat for him as they “showed me how to bump and then went out of the way to work with me on the side. I guess they might have seen a little bit of athleticism in me.”

Now a firm advocate of the benefits of Ultimate University, Lukash is even more impressed with the progress achieved by some of his most persistent classmates.

“When I saw guys like Van Ayasit, Sam Culver, Little Nate and Tommy Wilson perform on the last Galaxy card, I was just blown away. These were some of our most dedicated students and it really showed.  After only a relatively short amount of training, they exhibited such finesse and professionalism in the ring, it was truly amazing to see.  It made me even more convinced just how great a place this federation and school truly are.”

Saying that he doesn’t regret one single bump he has taken since arriving here, James sums it up like this: “All my problems go away when I’m in the ring. My back can hurt all week; my knee can be sore all week. But when I take that first bump in the center of the Raw ring at practice, it’s like everything is back at 100% again. Nothing can stop me. It’s just like “Let’s do it!”