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by
Les Honig
His has been a life of overcoming obstacles put in his path; yet for UPW trainee Kent Wilson, this has only served as a motivating force. The 30 year-old Southern California native, who has enjoyed many rich experiences has also faced adversities that severely threatened his future progress . Yet the direction has always continued to be upward; as it is now, making him one of the most promising new Ultimate University talents.
Raised in Lake Arrowhead and then in Torrance, Kent early on became a wrestling fan when at the age of 6, he recalls turning on a match with Hulk Hogan facing the Masked Superstar, and immediately becoming hooked on the sport. “During that match my brother and I saw Hulk constantly trying to fight back against his dirty opponent and soon we were screaming at the TV, ‘Rip off his mask! Rip off his mask!’ When it ended, my brother and I were dropping elbows and leg kicks on each other all over the living room. Looking back now we probably could have killed each other!”
With his parents having been devotees of martial arts, Wilson soon found himself enrolling in classes where he was trained in kickboxing; but most of his energies began channeling into what was to become his primary passion: music.
“In elementary school we had to take up an instrument and I wanted to learn bass guitar; but they told me it had to be either clarinet, trumpet or drums. Because my uncle, who was a kind of idol to me, was a professional drummer, I decided to take that up too.”
While he pursued childhood sports, and later was a member of his high school football and wrestling teams, the interest in music was definitely a youthful preoccupation. “When my friends were out with their buddies, I was home practicing 5, 6 hours a day.”
Such dedication soon started to produce rewards, as Kent began playing in a variety of well-known local bands; and before long, while still a teenager, was traveling all over the country drumming his heart out. “We played everything from heavy metal to hard rock to alternative. I was on the road so much that there wasn’t a border of the U.S. I didn’t reach.”
Chosen as drummer for a nationally-known metal group, where he beat out over 400 others during auditions, his music career reached a pinnacle at the age of only 17, but was abruptly interrupted when a legal conflict over the combo’s attempts to move from a smaller label to a larger one resulted in the group’s disbanding.
As he graduated and was ready to continue his efforts in the music industry, Kent nonetheless enrolled in junior college with the hope of finding a career “he could fall back on,” taking a series of business and computer classes. And while his music auditions for a number of leading groups continued, the earlier love of pro wrestling persisted as well, but without a specific outlet for him to channel that interest into.
“I had seen an ad on a WWF show at one point for the Ultimate Warrior’s training camp but when I would try to reach them, it just didn’t seem to work out. In addition, I kept seeing all these gargantuan guys on television and wondered if someone my size could really make it in the business.”
Always a tall, lanky, long-haired, unconventional-looking teen, Kent had returned to his study of martial arts a few years back at Torrance High, when he constantly found himself being picked on by various toughs at the school. “They didn’t know I had a history of studying kick-boxing and I didn’t really want to fight so I would give them a few chances to back off; but if they persisted I would soon be introducing their faces to the pavement.”
And while he had started even learning street-fighting and mixed martial arts, Kent was about to face the first real physical hurdle of many that were to follow. When music didn’t seem to be clicking he was forced to seek other work, and while employed as a lineman for a telecommunications company, saw his hopes fall to the ground as a utility pole he had climbed suddenly broke sending him crashing down 25 feet, blowing out his knee as well as his future plans.
With a slow recovery he spent much of his time learning painting, resulting in a lucrative side business painting and selling miniatures and later he became a stunt double, playing monsters in movies that called for such characters.
As Kent turned 26, and was finally getting back more to his old healthy self, his continuing but so far suppressed, desire to try out pro wrestling began to resurface as he saw a WWE-returning Sean Michael on a Raw episode sporting a tee-shirt carrying the name of his Texas-based training facility. But again, just as he was set to make a new and crucial move in his life, adversity struck with fierce force as Wilson was thrown off a motorcycle and suffered another severe injury; this time shattering his elbow.
“The way it broke caused bleeding inside of my arm and I suffered almost the same amount of nerve damage a person does with a stroke,” he explains.
Losing the movement to several fingers of his right hand, and despite losing feeling to much of that side of his body, Kent still managed to try out for another leading rock band, The Kidney Thieves, and nearly landed the drummer’s slot as he went in for intensive therapy to restore some of the drumming hand’s movement.
“For the first time in my life,” he remembers, “I was really frightened. I’d look down at my hand and not having the control of a body part scared the living hell out of me.”
With a slowed recovery continuing, however, Kent soon again focused on his desire to compete as a wrestler. While putting it off more and more as a new job demanded much of his time, he finally realized that “if I don’t try it now I may never try it at all,” and so he checked out schools, found UPW’s website and before too long was phoning Rick
Bassman.
“He suggested I go on a Saturday to watch the action and that was perfect for me because he told me that “L’il Nate” Nickerson was teaching that day. I had followed UPW for a while on the website and was particularly impressed with Nate. In the articles I had read I loved his motivation. Here he was, the runt of the class, still with a lot more power and determination in wanting to succeed than many of the bigger guys who already have the gift of looking like a wrestler.”
And when he actually arrived at the Raw Center that day, he found that his preconceptions were indeed true as Nate totally impressed him. “This was actually the day of the first Mat Wars show and as class ended they had started setting up when Nate came up to me and asked how I was doing, why I was there and I gave him the whole story. He was very forthcoming with all the information about the school and showed himself to be such a kind-hearted, giving person that he made me want to jump right into the action. It was just the icing on the cake; a great topper to confirm for me that this was the school I wanted to join.”
Following still another health problem, a severe clogging of his nasal passages which had caused surgery about a month before he attended that initial session, Kent soon was cleared to start actual training and his first session two weeks later with the Ballards was another exhilarating experience for him; although he did find himself so sore after that first class that by evening he was “icing my back, my chest, my head, my knees, everything.” Still, the helpfulness, patience and sharing of those instructors as well as many classmates like Nate, Kevin Zacaula, Tony Stradlin, Sam Culver, Shane Roberts, Brandon Hill, Pete Zwissler and Kevin Martenson made him feel, and continue to feel totally welcome.
Physical challenges were not behind him, however, despite entrée into Ultimate U; as he suffered a stress fracture to his left arm several weeks into training and then after returning to action a bit sooner than his doctor recommended, fractured his ankle in four places when his boot got caught under the ring canvas during a bump. This time, however, with the more serious injury, he was sidelined for a longer time and has only recently returned to “light action.”
The need to rest his heeling foot, however, was not to be in vain, as he used the chance to still attend nearly all practices, observing the more experienced students he had come to respect so much and taking note of the way that they executed all the moves that they had earlier suggested he do himself. In addition, Kent has used some of his non-ring time to give back to the federation, utilizing the many skills he has acquired along the way, (he now owns XGN, his own gaming company), to help on audio/visual production as well as with marketing and the recruitment of UPW sponsors.
Recently debuting at the last Torrance “Road Wars” show as part of the Student Battle Royal, Kent knows in his considerable heart that he has made the exactly right decision to become part of SoCal’s premiere indy fed.
His future goals reflect that wisdom acquired from his own sometimes bitter but always personal growth experiences.
“I set short term goals, not long ones, since I realize that life can always change for you in a moment. For right now, therefore, I am just focusing on becoming the best worker I possibly can at Ultimate University and in UPW. Once I master the needed skills, I’d like to extend that knowledge to also become a valuable indy worker throughout the entire Southern California area. For now, though, realizing I have so much to still learn, I want to absorb all I can; becoming a dry sponge to a wet bucket.”
It is that desire to forever improve despite present and future obstacles and the courage that has been the hallmark of his life that makes Kent Wilson a very worthy recipient of July’s Student of the Month honors.
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