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by
Les Honig
He was already a
gifted athlete when he first came through the doors of Ultimate
University but for 21 year-old Trevor Owens, becoming one of the
latest crop of super- talented UPW training rookies has still proven
very exciting and fulfilling.
Growing up in Santa Monica as the son of a history professor dad and
physical therapist mom, Trevor never really entertained the idea of
entering our profession, despite the deep interest of one of his
closest friends.
“I always looked at it as dumb; as garbage,” he admits now, “and that
feeling was only heightened when my best buddy Dave Rodriguez, (now
also a UU trainee), told me one day freshman year to check it out. It
was during a Royal Rumble around 1999 and Hillbilly Jim was returning
for a visit. He carried a slop bucket into the ring with him and when
he used it after his match I REALLY was turned off. I swore I’d never
ever watch again.”
Still, his friend Dave, who he met on the school’s water polo team,
persisted and it wasn’t too long before Trevor checked out the action
once again but this time the reaction was totally different. Appearing
as a new talent, it was Kurt Angle, who immediately grabbed the
youngster’s fancy, as he totally was captivated by the famous
grapplers’ combination of heel talent, charisma and in-ring abilities.
“Soon I was watching Raw just to see him and started to enjoy the
whole experience more and more each week,” he remembers. “When Dave
also exposed me to some classic tapes of Shawn Michaels in his Rocker
and post-Rocker days, I was grabbed once again. He was absolutely the
most amazing talent I had ever seen in this sport.”
Leaving several successful years on his high school’s water polo team
to try out amateur wrestling, (mostly because his idol Angle had
excelled in that area originally), Trevor found great fulfillment,
even digging those long, intense and wearying workouts, although he
was frustrated by the coach’s lack of willingness to let him compete
in meets since he was a newcomer and hadn’t been trained adequately
yet.
Still, he didn’t really consider becoming part of the sports
entertainment field himself until Rodriguez started to encourage him
to do so. “We checked out a UPW training session in 2003 and were
totally impressed and decided at that time to start saving the money
to begin attending.” With college and a full-time job combining to
prevent him from devoting his full energy to becoming a UPW student,
time slowly passed but once he and Rodriguez came up with the
necessary funds to join, the decision proved to be an emphatic one.
The happy moment occurred several months ago when the pair entered the
training facility and were ready immediately to commit to their future
careers. “The folks there were really amazed, since they expected us
to want to check out the facilities in more detail. We were ready,
however, to plunge right in and so we did.”
Beginning with great enthusiasm, Trevor was instantly caught up with
bouncing around the ring and learning his moves. Unlike many others;
perhaps due to his earlier sports training, he did not suffer the
usual first bouts with extreme soreness that often follow first
training sessions; instead adjusting well and savoring every training
moment.
Taught the first few days by our own Nate Nickerson, who he felt did a
“brilliant job”, he was also totally blown away by the abilities of
the regular teaching staff, headed by the Ballard Brothers.
“They are phenomenal,” he says, “often teaching class with the
approach you might expect from an outstanding tag team like
themselves.” Explaining that moves often are demonstrated in almost a
choreographed way, with one brother showing a move and then the other
repeating and reinforcing it, and with the group often divided into
two parts as each Ballard works with their half of the trainees
simultaneously, he finds the Canadians to have perfected just the
right procedure for sharing their instructional duties to produce
maximum success.
Asked where he hopes the future will take him, Owens shoots high, like
many of his training counterparts, hoping he will someday make it to
the pinnacle of pro success; the WWE. As he learns, however, his
immediately target is to first master basic moves so that he can
“protect” himself from any injuries in case of mistakes made by match
opponents or fellow classmates. After that accomplishment he would
just enjoy becoming “a paid talent” who performs widely; using those
opportunities as steppingstones to his ultimate goal.
A talented guitarist who also is learning piano while dividing his
time up between work, college, the gym, UPW learning, and the game of
dodgeball which he enjoys for its tremendous intensity, Trevor Owens
is indeed a man of action, whose tireless efforts in our own favorite
pastime, professional wrestling, are certain to bear their own
limitless benefits in the months and years that lie ahead.
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