I thought wrestling was the stuff where people jumped off ropes. So that was my experience with wrestling.
Growing up, I was a socially awkward kid who didn't know where he fit in, and I didn't have many friends, but I always had wrestling. I always had what was in between those ropes, and that always put a smile on my face no matter what.
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.
Johnny Wrestling, to me, isn't just a cool nickname or a fun thing for the crowd to chant. To me, it's a state of mind, and it's just who I am. I first stepped foot in a wrestling ring when I was 8 years old.
If you've never stepped in a wrestling ring, and you're with me, we can still have an excellent wrestling match, because that's how good I believe I am.
I knew I loved football before I even played it. Uh, but the first time I stepped out on the field playing for the Lakeshore Redskins, I knew that I loved this game. I knew that this was something I wanted to do. And I was only 6 years old, but I loved it.
Part of me wants to stay involved in wrestling, because I love it. But the thing I loved most about it was the wrestling part of it. I didn't get into it to be famous or to be a TV star: I got into it because I loved the act of wrestling.
So I just had to step up how I was doing it and the moment that I stepped up and the moment I focused all my energy on that is when things started to happen. So there's a direct relationship between my inspiration and my output.
When I first stepped into the boxing gym, I loved it. I knew it was what I was going to do.
I quit wrestling in 2006 because I just got lost. My mom didn't want me wrestling. I was wondering if I was going to make it in wrestling; I got injured in a match. I was 19. I was away from home, living in Florida, and I just got lost. I couldn't face it, so I stepped away.
I remember the first time I stepped into the ring at age 16. I loved hitting things... but who likes getting hit?!
I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you.
I still remember the first time I stepped out on the pitch at the Bernabeu. It was a spectacular moment - from another world.
I have known I was destined to live in Goa the moment I first stepped foot on the Panjim docks from the ferry from Mumbai, when I was 18.
Putting yourself in the ring to wrestle - create those emotions, ups and downs within the match - one moment dominates the one, and one moment dominates the other, and without having created a choreography, that is the real wrestling.
Wrestling kept me sane during dental school. That was the hardest time of my life, and I don't know how I would have made it without the distractions of wrestling to keep me afloat.