There is always the underground rapper people enjoy, and you want to see him come up. That’s kind of how it is in wrestling.
The true game of mixed martial arts is putting your wrestling in there, putting your striking in there, but also being deceiving – hiding behind your punches if you’re wrestling and hiding behind your wrestling if you’re punching. It’s just a matter of blending it all together.
I was an All-American in wrestling in high school, was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes, which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company.
Professional wrestling was almost like a secret society when I started, like a Mafia, and it would destroy the Sheik to see how much that has changed.
I think staying away from wrestling for two years with injury and the movie, I lost my focus.
As you evolve, you learn that wrestling is not necessarily about stunts or spots. You need to go out and show the audience that they can love you for the persona you are – not because of the risk you’re willing to take or the jeopardy you’re willing to put your body in.
I knew Randy right from day one when he started wrestling. I helped him put together that image of the Macho Man. He had a way about him. He grabbed your attention through his voice. That allowed him to present himself as a type of a character.
Wrestling introduced me to the idea that my body has a purpose besides trying to look five years younger for the first time.
More enduringly than any other sport, wrestling teaches self-control and pride. Some have wrestled without great skill – none have wrestled without pride.
For many many years, the MMA world shunned on the pro wrestling world. They shunned on us for getting action figures and whatnot.
I was wrestling all the way to high school, but it kind of came in the same season as basketball, so I had to pick and choose one, and I decided to go all the way with basketball.
Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me.
In wrestling, I’ll lay on my back for anybody 1-2-3.
We have a very physical performance art. A lot of times, when you want to achieve a certain emotion, you have to use professional wrestling ingredients, which are moves or a sequence of moves.
Wrestling is a hard sport, but it’s only a sport.
Hollywood’s great, but wrestling is my first love.
Pro wrestling fans love surprises, so let’s surprise them, and not just give them the old stuff.
As a fighter, you need to constantly improve. So that’s what we’ve been doing: constantly improving striking, grappling, wrestling – there’s always different aspects to improve.
I didn’t pick wrestling over football. My coaches picked that for me. I never wanted to wrestle in college. I always wanted to play football. They thought I was too small, but I had a lot of heart.
Regardless of who leaves and who stays, Ring of Honor is going to continue to be a healthy, growing, successful pro wrestling promotion.
Wrestling is second nature: I’ve been doing it for so long, so if it looks like someone’s leg is available, it made sense for my first three fights that I would shoot for legs.
I exposed myself, and I exposed my relationship and deep love and trust for Ibushi in front of the world. And we want to work together and change wrestling for a brighter future.
I’ve been in the ring with so many guys, and I’ve been in the ring quite a bit with Randy. The WWE live events are… a little bit different from what you see on TV. It seems to flow better; more matches, longer wrestling.
From wrestling, I learned what I’m not going to do again.
I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14… I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write.
Hopefully I can become the Babe Ruth of the World Wrestling Federation and be the champion at the same time.
I got no support from USA Wrestling. I was competing against professional Russians that do nothing but wrestle for a living, and I was forced to take a job working for this lowlife loser, John du Pont, who I didn’t want in my life. I just wanted the money.
I left India for U.S. with Rs 2,000 only in hand, where I have gone through some very difficult times before entering into wrestling.
Your humble critic confesses that he has been wrestling with ‘weight issues’ since leaving college lo these, uh, several years ago, so it’s hard to be receptive to the moralistic scolding and patronizing encouragement offered endlessly by the allegedly well-meaning.
The thing that I didn’t take into consideration is that acting, like wrestling, is a skill.
Before going to developmental, I had next to no fundamentals and that was sort of, doing cool chain wrestling and using a lot of holds and stuff.
After intensive body building for eight years, I went to the U.S. for training. There, I learnt the art of wrestling. Later, I went to Japan and joined a wrestling group.
I loved Japanese culture before even realizing it was, in fact, Japanese culture. The cartoons and anime I was watching as a child, my favorite video games, and even in pro wrestling – my favorite wrestlers and matches originated in Japan.
I knew that Michael Bisping didn’t have good wrestling or grappling. I knew this guy had nothing for St-Pierre.
Wrestling is my first love.
That’s one of the things I always tried to do as champ. If you saw me at house shows, I was going to make you think I was going down. If I was wrestling Kane, I could lose. I’m wrestling Batista, I could lose. I’m wrestling Big Show, Undertaker, you name it, I could lose.
MMA and the UFC have taken all of the pro wrestling fans because it’s pro wrestling from 30 years ago, just in an Octagon and the fights happen to be real. But they’re marketed exactly the same way.
Wrestling is more of a creative outlet, and especially for somebody like me, I view it as my creative outlet. Not all WWE superstars and not all wrestlers view it that way, but that’s how I view it, and that’s one of the ways my mind works creatively.
For me, boxing’s like checkers, and MMA’s like chess – there are so many ways to win the match. It’s not barbaric; it’s boxing, kickboxing, Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, cardio and it’s all reached such an amazing level. As fans learn more about the sport, they just fall in love with it.
I think a lot of wrestling companies probably function with one person who at the end of the day has to make calls and go over everything. But we’re a bunch of people working together, we have a system.
Wrestling is not an action; it is a sport.
I left home when I was 13. When I was 15, I was living in a youth hostel, and I was the 167-pound amateur wrestling champion.
I try to live under a rock when it comes to WWE, but you can’t avoid seeing your Twitter feed, people talking about Jinder Mahal wrestling Randy Orton at a pay-per-view.
Cena is awesome on the mic. When it comes to wrestling in the ring and the technical aspect, I feel as if I blow him away. I feel like I’m more of an athlete.
I think the wrestling world needs TNA. I think the wrestlers need TNA. I think the fans need TNA.
As you write about your life, there’s a lot of things that you think about that you regret. It’s interesting, because one of the things I regret the most is spending so much time focused on wrestling as opposed to focusing on my family.
We’ve been very lucky with the ‘Being the Elite’ crew that everyone is very passionate about pro wrestling. There’s no crooks in the group. Everyone’s ideas are valued. And everyone who has something they pick and put on the map, they are fully going to commit to that.
I won a dancing contest to get into wrestling. That involved fans voting.
I’m a family man. I have a daughter and a wife, and I spend more time on the road with my wrestling family than I do with my actual household and my immediate family.
The thing about Brock has always been, who can push Brock to a level where you actually get to see the best of Brock Lesnar, because very rarely have people ever gotten a chance to see that. I mean, really, who can keep up with him? This is not wrestling hype: he’s a once-in-a-lifetime athlete.
One of the wonderful things about wrestling, to me, is that you can protect people who have had head injuries.
Miami was always a town that was kind to me as a wrestler. It’s a great wrestling town, and it’s a great town, period. There’s so much to do in Miami.
I want to get in there and wrestle my sister! That’s the fun part, when you get in there with someone who has the same passion for wrestling and that can work well, and you can put on a good match where you can really just get at each other.
For a long time, almost 14 years, I wrestled in Japan, so I didn’t think I would leave New Japan Pro Wrestling, but I started changing my mind. I wanted to see the other world. I wanted to change something. I wanted to be bigger.
There’s no unemployment insurance if you don’t have a job in wrestling. You really have to be committed, to have a love and a passion for the sport, a belief in yourself that you can do it.
Going from The Shield to singles competition, it wasn’t a really big transition for me. Before we were The Shield, we were all singles wrestlers. And we were wrestling a bunch of guys all the time down in developmental.
