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November
Sylvester
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by Les Honig Here, indeed, is a guy who is in the certain
mold of recent pro wrestling greats; from Shamrock, to Angle, to
Severn to Lesnar; a man who has seen championship gold in the
collegiate mat world before focusing his awesome talents onto a
pro wrestling career. A giant of a man, now standing 6’6” and
over 300 pounds, his roots are traced back to the days in rural
Pennsylvania, where he was just your typically gangly kid,
watching the pre-Hogan WWE 70s superstars on the tube and in the
nearby arenas. “My family were big fans,” he reminisces,
“and we used to head down to Pittsburgh’s Civic Center to see
stars like Bob Backlund and Bruno Sammartino.”
The son of a steel worker, Terkay never had things easy and
notes that his whole life was one of having to earn what he got
with plain old hard work. Fortunate
to develop an early interest in amateur wrestling, he found
himself competing early and soon excelled, becoming a 10 year-old
state finalist in his earliest battles.
This affinity for headlocks and half-nelsons led into
continuous successes as a top grappler though his junior high and
senior high years, as he attacked practices and weight training
with passionate intensity, and as his growth spurts continued, he
chalked up continuous winning records at Pittsburgh’s
Canon-McMillan High, but due to unforeseen and poorly timed
injuries, Pennsylvania championships continued to elude him. “Because of this I had to enter college as
a walk-on and earn my spot on the squad,” he remembers, but
after a red-shirt year at North Carolina State, his clear
superiority as a heavyweight began to register clearly and
quickly. Placing 3rd
in the Nationals in his sophomore year and second in his junior
year, (losing in a heartbreaker to, of all people, Clarion
University’s Kurt Angle), he finally won it all in his senior
year, claiming his own 1993 NCAA championship. Not only an athletic but also an academic
All-American, Terkay, who graduated with a major in political
science and was offered a scholarship to pursue Master’s studies
in Public Administration, decided to put off such a commitment in
place of another dream; so he packed his possessions and headed
out to the West Coast in search of an acting career. What followed was six years of continuous
success gaining roles from bouncers to football players to thugs
in a host of TV shows and commercials, opposite stars from Bill
Goldberg to LL Cool J, that is, until the work slowed down and a
new opportunity suddenly arose.
“I had a buddy who was already a successful action star
named Andrew Bryniarski, and he was really excited because he had
begun training to be a pro wrestler at a new training facility
called Extreme University in Mission Viejo.” Indeed, that was
the earliest manifestation of our own Ultimate U. run by Rick
Bassman and taught by Tom Howard, and with Bryniarski’s
encouragement Sylvester was soon one of Bassman’s best new
recruits, and after a successful brief trip to Japan,
(foreshadowing his recent successes there), Terkay was scouted by
WWE talent and soon offered a prestigious development deal,
packing his bags once again, but this time for Ohio Valley
Wrestling, where he spent 18 months preparing to become part of
Titan’s primetime roster. “They say there was just a failure for that
‘lightbulb’ to go on,” he says, explaining that he was
unexpectedly released, but for this philosophic giant, it was
simply not his moment. “It’s all God’s timing and it was
either meant to be or it wasn’t.” So in late 2001 he returned back to So Cal,
ready to try acting again and continue, in his usual typically
determined way, to see what opportunities might present themselves
through UPW. While fans were obviously impressed with some
sensational Galaxy moments that followed in the past year, for
Terkay a true niche has now been created with his super successes
in Japan’s Zero One, as
he has highlighted major cards as a tag partner of Tom Howard’s,
in six man melees and as a solo star as well. “There is no bigger thrill,” says
Sylvester, “than appearing in a cage match headlining a
pay-per-view with 9000 fans watching your every move as you
compete against some of Japan’s greatest legends.. It is also
awesome to know that you can make an impact in a company that’s
just starting out while finding a whole brand new fan base there
too.” And despite the fact that Japanese fans are
often petrified by this vicious man-mountain swinging his chain
wildly in and around the arena, the appreciation has been
gratifyingly great as Predator was recently voted the most popular
foreign wrestler on Samurai TV, a channel devoted to wrestling and
mixed martial arts. While many might make comparisons with the
top names of today, thinking that this former collegiate champ
might have a chance to follow in other’s footsteps and perhaps
someday have a chance to himself become the next “next big
thing”…his life of hard knocks mixed with triumphs has
obviously sobered him to the realities of the real sports
entertainment world. “My future?,” Sylvester “Predator”
Terkay muses. “Well, wrestling has been really good to me. The
ride is as much fun as actually getting there. And whatever
happens you just never know.
I could get hurt tomorrow or have a fantastic break.
I just enjoy it all now by living each day as much as I can
and thanking the good Lord above for allowing me to continue to
pursue what I love”. Then in typically hard-nosed Terkay fashion
he switches gears to sum it all up: “Opportunites only present
themselves through hard work.
The only way to make things happen is to work constantly to
make them happen and to be ready to seize the moment when it
arrives.” Indeed, for this man monster with a mind to match, the validity of that life credo becomes ever more apparent with each passing day, indicating that Predator’s ultimate moment of mat triumph may already be looming much closer and larger than many may even dare to imagine or realize. |
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