|
by
Les Honig
If you attend any current UPW class you are bound to see one quiet but intensely focused guy melding his considerable talents into the workouts that are taking place in earnest. For Kevin Zacaula, however, such dedication is a way of life and it has already brought him very far as an athlete.
Born with a diagnosed irregular heart rhythm that made his folks doubt he could be active like other youngsters, they decided to still enroll him in a local martial arts program to develop some athletic skills, and it was here he quickly blossomed into a standout young talent; with his sensei exposing him to four major martial arts disciplines before he entered high school.
For Kevin, whose family settled in the Los Angeles area, after he spent some time in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, his early love of competing did present its own problems as he was often challenged at school by kids who had heard of his considerable skills. “They wanted to see if I could really beat them up, so it first started with one kid picking a fight, then two, then three and even up to five or six ganging up on me.”
Admitting that he could only comfortably handle a trio of attackers, these lunchtime brawls would either “be broken up by security or I’d lay the kids out.” Suspended and even expelled from several schools, it was indeed hard for Kevin to get through those growth years, but he did and focused ever more on his fighting talent; so much so that he was even written about in some fighting sports press and was given the chance to travel overseas to compete at some top tournaments.
Remembering the thrill of each match where “there would be butterflies floating in my stomach or my heart would be racing”, Zacaula knew something was wrong when he no longer felt such excitement as each match started. (In addition, he had opened his own sales and marketing business in 1998, and while that was successful as well, here too the challenges began to seem largely irrelevant to him.)
“I realized at that moment that it was time to stop competing in martial arts and running the business and turn to another love of mine, pro wrestling.”
Having first been exposed to sports entertainment when he saw Wrestlemania 4, Kevin had long imagined that a future as a pro matman would be totally fulfilling, but it was his decision to refrain from future active martial arts competition, that went hand in hand with his sudden realization that the time was right for his big life move.
“Actually I had been offered a chance to try out for the UFC and they had flown me out to Vegas to watch one of their pay per views, just at the moment that I decided to try out wrestling. I had a choice to make; and it was kind of an easy one actually. Ultimate Fighting involved more competition which I no longer wanted to do; so I made the choice to try out Ultimate Pro Wrestling instead.”
Having seen local phenom Joey Ryan appear on an MTV show where he was interviewed about his own burgeoning mat career, he was turned on to our top university facility by Ryan after running into him at the gym he was training at; and it wasn’t long before he attended a Saturday and then a Tuesday class and was firmly entrenched as a talent-filled rookie.
That was over a year ago now, and as with the other hard-core UU success stories like L’il Nate, Sam Culver, James Lukash and Lamar Timmins, he continues to train religiously and develop his future and current ring identity.
Having studied in Brazil during his formative years and returning their often as he matured, the now 26 year-old Zacaula has now decided to incorporate a favorite discipline called capoeira, into his ring persona, (“There’s that little dance and cartwheels and flips I do which come from capoera and so incorporating that discipline creates something totally different.”)
Creating the character of Antonio Mestre, which he debuted first at light shows and most recently at our San Juan Capistrano house show and at the most recent Galaxy extravaganza, Kevin is using much that is biographical as part of his gimmick, since Antonio was a student of capoeira and decided he would spread the discipline to the rest of the world in a way that would honor his mestre (teacher). As art mirrors reality, this is precisely a large reason why this up-and-comer has also made this fighting form a part of his in-ring presentation.
Admitting that he has learned a tremendous amount from all his teachers, Zacaula also attributes the experience of wrestling with his other classmates, both recent and new, as being extremely valuable as well. “If I miss a move, one of the guys will tell me what I did wrong and that’s really helpful. They teach me and I teach them. We all learn from each other and from our instructors.”
With a goal to gain UPW gold sometime soon, and to someday make it to WWE, we wish this diehard and longtime trainee extraordinaire our very best and name him as our super-deserving October Student of the
Month.
|
