The story of American wrestling at its greatest is the story of its most illustrious champion, Frank Gotch. He dominated the field. Through his extraordinary ability, he gained for wrestling many converts. It was Gotch's victories over the hitherto invincible Hackenschmidt that made him the post popular mat star in America and started a movement among college men to take up wrestling.
Wrestling has positively impacted my life in many ways, but perhaps the one singular thing that I gained from wrestling that stands out the most is wrestling provided me with the opportunity to learn mental toughness!
In college wrestling, you see a lot of talented athletes come in and fail because Division I class wrestling is the pinnacle of wrestling in America.
A lot of U.K. wrestlers are very good at chain wrestling, telling a story through holds, while American wrestling is a little more flashy, with lots of high-spots.
One of the things that made me love wrestling in general was my career in amateur wrestling in high school and college. Just being on the mat made me feel a type of aggression I wasn't really able to produce in my regular life.
I used to be weak - as did all British fighters - with wrestling, because we don't have high school wrestling or college wrestling here.
I feel more a part of the wrestling community than I feel I belong to the community of arts and letters. Why? Because wrestling requires even more dedication than writing because wrestling represents the most difficult and rewarding objective that I have ever dedicated myself to; because wrestling and wrestling coaches are among the most disciplined and self-sacrificing people I have ever known.
I started wrestling when I was 15 years old, and back when I was world champion, I was wrestling 7 nights a week.
My family has been in the wrestling business for over 70 years. I'm a third-generation wrestling promoter, and years ago, when I fist started, there was a wrestling audience in the United States in 22 regions.
The nWo was the greatest time in professional wrestling because we were going into mixed stadiums like the Georgia Dome. That was one of the greatest times in pro wrestling and was the most profitable time in pro wrestling.
Wrestling can be anything... There's some forms of wrestling that I'm not too big a fan of, but I'm not going to say it's not wrestling because it is wrestling.
I was just lucky to be there ahead of the curve to be the driving force behind bringing this amazing style of wrestling from Japan that combined Lucha Libre, American professional wrestling, Canadian professional wrestling and Japanese wrestling all into one beautiful mix that fans worldwide absolutely can't get enough of.
The Rock now the hottest thing. He come from wrestling background. Father, mother, grandfather all from wrestling business: 2-3 generations. I watch his movie. He great movie star, and I be wrestling with his father Rocky Johnson. I love them.
In my first fight, I acknowledged it. I'm a professional wrestler, this is who I am, who you know me as. But guess what, I've also been wrestling since I was 5 years old - real wrestling - amateur wrestling, Olympic wrestling.
It took me a few years to explain to my colleagues and my mentors and the people that I looked up to and I wrestled that I'm not in wrestling anymore. I'm in sports entertainment. Pro' wrestling doesn't mean that we're saying we're a step up above amateur wrestling, because there's nothing above Olympic wrestling.
I'd rather it to just be not so much men's wrestling and women's wrestling but that we're all on the same playing field.
My foray into the wrestling world is well documented in that I have stated many a time that I am not the kid that grows up and aspires to put wrestling trunks and wrestling boots on and get in the ring and flies around to entertain people.