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by Les
Honig
He’s brash and confident as well he should be...because for the massive Greg Groothuis better known to the sports entertainment world as Jack Bull, the total package presented in every local squared circle well exceeds any preconceived expectations.
A regular here in UPW since 2001 as well as in a number of leading indys throughout the American Southwest, Bull traces his earliest roots back to Venice Florida where as a kid he excelled early in sports and dominated any playing field with superior size and strength. A standout on the baseball and track fields, as well as on the gridiron, the larger- than-life young teen early on took up weightlifting, which complemented what was to be a championship high school football career.
Possessing not only the skilled brawn to become an all-state tight-end but the brains to end up regularly on the honor roll, Greg soon found himself earning a full athletic scholarship to Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia where he not only received a B.A. and a Masters in Organizational Training and Development but became an outstanding center on the school’s football team.
Still, this was not your typical academically-oriented guy, but one with dreams as big as his mammoth body, so rather than pursue the career that one might expect from such a scholarly standout, he focused on a field that always had caught his interest from the youngest age: pro wrestling.
As early as age 7, Greg recalls being glued to his TV set watching “Championship Wrestling from Florida” and finding his own childhood idols like Sting, Dusty Rhodes and the Road Warriors. (In fact the name he has chosen for his mat career comes from an earlier promo he then heard from Rhodes who described the situation when you look into a ring full of bulls: “He said the head bull was the Jack Bull; the one who stood out from the others.”)
Deciding early to put these dreams onto hold to instead “fulfill my promise to my mom to complete college, Groothuis nonetheless remembers “wrestling coming up over and over again.”
“When I turned 18 and was ready to head off to Marshall I met Marc Mero who was running all the indys down in Florida at that time. He saw me lifting at the gym in Venice where he also worked out, but I had made the commitment to go to school so I had to pass it up at that time.”
Later, while attending grad school and working as a bouncer at a bar which presented wrestling shows he was asked to fill in for an ill grappler and afterwards was encouraged to take up training himself. “I was studying for my comps and for my finals and so I had to turn it down then too.” Instead he began studying martial arts, working with a noted jiu jitsu master in the Huntington area, and even considered becoming part of the early UFC’s, but once again his need to concentrate on school and a full-time job prevented that.
Finally, after receiving his post-graduate degree, Greg agreed to move out to Phoenix Arizona to help his mom and aunt with an expanding business they were undertaking and while there the third opportunity to enter the field of pro wrestling presented itself.
“I had decided it was finally time for me to search out a good training school and at first I was thinking of going to Shawn Michael’s facility. But through a neighbor I met one of my childhood idols, Superstar Billy Graham, who told me that he had been very close with Bill Anderson who ran the School of Hard Knocks in San Bernadino and suggested I go there instead.”
Arriving at the gym, Greg remembers meeting up early on with the Cubanitos who were working as trainers and recalls getting his first experiences in the ring with Ricky Reyes who did most of the instructing while partner Rocky Romero was recuperating from an injured shoulder. The class would consist of only several other trainees, including well-respected indy talent Pinoy Boy.
“They would bump me, bump me, bump me. That’s all I would do for 3 weeks; bumping and chain wrestling. It was more bruising than college football! I still loved it though, every moment of it.”
It was through Ricky Reyes, however, that Greg made his first entrée into UPW during the famed Saturday light shows which were then held at the L.A. Boxing Club in Huntington Beach. It was there that the name Jack Bull became known for the first time, as Greg would perform in these shows, driving down with his friends from San Bernadino and attracting many fans through his smash and crash action mixed with intense and extremely clever promos. Soon he was enrolling in training as well, and becoming a standout, both in sessions up in El Segundo and at the Boxing Club.
Asked now to recall some of his memorable class matches in those earlier days, he readily brings up classic names like Horshu (now Luther Reigns), John Cena, John Heydenreich and Nathan Jones, “most of the big boys”. His favorite, however, remains his match with Ultimate Pro and Zero One superstar, Skulu which he describes as the Samoan’s “first match; one we worked on and practiced for a full month.”
Having appeared numerous times now in light shows and major venue encounters, Jack Bull has branched out to other squared circle encounters, most notably in Japan where he has been seen in Zero One and Hustle, in Puerto Rico where he appeared in its leading fed ICW, on a number of WWE dark matches and Velocity shows and here in the Arizona-based promotion, Impact Zone Wrestling, run by Navajo Warrior.
“When I moved back to Phoenix in 2002 I decided to train at Navajo’s school and it has been a really good experience for me,” he now explains. Serving both as an instructor as the fed’s heavyweight champ, Greg “Jack Bull” Groothuis returns soon to the Ultimate Pro Wrestling terrain at our upcoming Las Vegas mega-.show.
Sporting a leaner and meaner look, (he has been training heavily and has shed 15 pounds, becoming “harder and more defined”), Greg looks forward to his return where he can “show off the new Jack Bull to the fans.”
We look forward too with eager anticipation and award this amazingly awesome athlete our top kudos as the Wrestler of the Month!!
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