When I was 12, I was living in Iowa, and I emailed so many wrestling schools, and one of them was actually in Boston. I joined it at 18 - the New England Pro Wrestling Academy. They were doing a fantasy camp. I was 17 about to turn 18. I told my mom, 'I'm 18 now. I just signed these papers by myself, and I'm going to do this.'
I want to attract as many people to wrestling as I can.
When I returned to wrestling, I went back a changed man. I had adopted a new way of thinking. All I wanted was for God to help me be a good witness on the platform He had brought me back to.
The truth is, pro wrestling is such an incredibly vast, incredibly surreal world. There's no telling how many words could be written about the subject - especially when the subject involves WWE.
I have a very good ground game and very good wrestling. People just underestimate it. That's it. I want to keep it like that.
There's so many documentaries out there right now and everything's exposing wrestling.
When something special happens in wrestling, it's that much more special to me and for me to go, 'That was awesome,' because I'm as bitter as there is, so if you can get me to go, 'Woah, that was cool,' a couple of times, it's a special show.
It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired - you quit when the gorilla is tired.
You're speechless sometimes when you think of the support you've had from the first day I've started wrestling to now.
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.
Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.
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.
Amateur wrestling, you can go by instinct. Pro wrestling, you have to memorize, and you have to go by what moves you said you were going to do. Sometimes you have to feel the crowd and do the moves at the right time and know the timing and tell a good story.
I was dating a guy that was a huge wrestling fan and I'm embarrassed to say it now but I used to make fun of him for watching it.
War has rules, mud wrestling has rules - politics has no rules.
For me, I think you can coach guys in martial artsm, and wrestling can be one aspect of it, but I have no desire to be an NCAA wrestling coach again. It was one of the worst coaching jobs I have ever had.
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.
I grew up in North Carolina, and I grew up on wrestling.
My mom was like, 'What did I do as a mom for you to want to become a wrestler?' They just didn't understand, and it's really hard to explain what made me love wrestling so much. There's something about it that made me fall in love, and ever since I laid my eyes on it, I knew I wanted to be a professional wrestler in the WWE.
We take pride in making our Knockouts Division about wrestling, not about looking pretty.
I remember looking up wrestling schools at the age of 10, and I emailed so many people. The responses were that I had to be 16 or 18 to train, and that was a bummer.
My strength is my wrestling, but I don't focus on it as much. I try to focus on a lot of different things like knees, elbows, submissions, and submission defense - just a lot of different things.
I love to give the fans what they want. They're what I miss most when I'm not wrestling. That time in the ring is like being in heaven for me.
I'm in the game of spinning plates. I'm spinning a boxing plate. I'm spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I'm spinning a Jujitsu plate. I'm spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I'm spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.
Football is my base; that's where I learned to be tough. I was a strong safety, and that's what I do: I hit people. The mentality is football, the wrestling is precision.
Dos Anjos, his wrestling and grappling is supposed to be good, but I feel my Jiu Jitsu, wrestling and striking is way better. I'm better than him all across the board.
As good as I was at wrestling, I never thought I was any good.
I have never seen a wrestling match or a prize fight, and I don't want to. When I find out a man is interested in these sports, I drop him.
One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
It's good to go out and entertain these people, and you've got them on the edge of their seat, they're standing up. Then you know that you've done your job, you've entertained them. My way of entertaining them is going out and wrestling. Everyone's got their different ways.
I'm from a wrestling family, a wrestling dynasty. And as biased as that may be, I firmly believe I am from the greatest wrestling family of all time.
I don't think that McMahon thinks very much about the fact that J.R and I have been successful. I don't think that McMahon thinks the wrestling announcers really have that much to contribute the show.
People go into that arena, and they know the fix is in. They know what pro wrestling or sports entertainment is. That being said, they want it executed to the highest level so that they can suspend their disbelief and buy in, and so, in a world of make believe, you make people believe in you. It's as real as it can be.
Getting the approval of Ric Flair is the wrestling world's version of Johnny Carson calling you over to the desk after you just crushed a standup set on 'The Tonight Show.'
Those who have not seen wrestling before have probably tuned in to 'Lucha Underground' and go, 'Whoa! This is a TV series turned into wrestling.'
I read Claire Messud's 'The Emperor's Children,' I read Joseph O'Neill's 'Netherland' - but to me, they're not 9/11 novels. In 'The Emperor's Children,' 9/11 felt to me like a piece of the plot; the novel wasn't wrestling with what 9/11 meant. And 'Netherland' felt the same way. I liked both books a lot but I don't see them as 9/11 novels.