http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2013/10/17/21203321.html
(Three parts. Long as hell.)
Matt Striker believes in fate.
It was fate, he says, that led to his introduction to pro wrestling as a young boy.
"My parents got divorced when I was young, so I spent my weekends with my father and during the week I spent with my mother," Striker recalled during a telephone interview to promote his coming appearance at Tommy Dreamer's House of Hardcore 3. "They lived around the corner from each other so it was essentially very easy."
It was during one fateful visit with his father, a man whom Striker idolized, that the impressionable youngster got his first glimpse of the business that he would one day thrive in.
"I was seven years old," Striker recalled, "it was raining on a Saturday in New York ... October/Novemberish ... and my dad was going to take my sister and I to a movie. Before the movie, my dad said, 'Hey, do you want to see someone fly?' What seven-year-old is going to say no to this?" he said with a slight chuckle. "My father put on the television and Superfly Jimmy Snuka was on TV and I guess, judging by the look on my face, we didn't go to the movie that day."
Instead, Striker's father would, unwittingly, alter the course of his young son's life forever.
"We sat down and we watched wrestling and my father spent the next few hours telling me, word of mouth ... tales and stories of wrestlers from his childhood and how he and his father bonded and it was better than any movie would have ever been."
It didn't end there, however.
"That Monday, my father showed up at my mother's house, which was special in and of itself because he was only allowed to see us on the weekends, and he gave me three wrestling magazines, which I still have to this day.
"Looking back on it, my father knew it would foster reading in a seven-year-old ... it would help me to read and to have an imagination ... and I just became completely immersed in everything that was pro wrestling."
That fateful rainy day, that impromptu wrestling history lesson and those magazines were only the beginning of the bond between that boy and his idol.
"From there, my father and I bonded greatly over wrestling," Striker said. "He started taking me to Madison Square Garden every month. They used to run on Monday nights, so it was a treat because I got to be with my best friend in the world on a Monday, after school go to Madison Square Garden, Tuesday morning I'd go into school and give everyone the results ... I was like a living, breathing early version of the Internet for my classmates. I'd give them all the dirt and show them all the pictures. That's where the foundation of my love of professional wrestling came from. It was an extension of my relationship with my father and it just blossomed from there."
Surprisingly, it was another sport that consumed much of Striker's life as he left childhood and entered his teenage years.
"I played hockey," he said, even declaring himself a closet Canadian at one point during the interview. "I was one of the few New York kids that played hockey. I went pretty far as far New York goes. I played Apple Core (junior hockey), we would travel up to Sault Ste. Marie for tournaments and things like that. That's where I thought I was going. I really thought I was going to go and be a hockey player."
That is, until fate intervened.
"I was in a gym working out, I was wearing a wrestling T-shirt -- I think it might have been an ECW T-shirt -- and across the gym I spotted another guy wearing a wrestling T-shirt," Striker said. "This was at the time when merchandising didn't saturate the market. (If you saw someone wearing a) wrestling T-shirt, you'd stop and actually say 'hey, you like this? So do I.' We started talking and he came into the gym a couple of days later with a very crude printout, in the infancy of the Internet."
That printout contained the names of several wrestling schools in the area.
"I didn't know you could learn how to be a wrestler," Striker recalled. "It was a very closed brethren."
As Striker perused that list, one name jumped out at him.
"I remembered my father would always tell me that his father used to take his shoe off and throw it at the TV any time Johnny Rodz would be on the screen," Striker said. "Johnny Rodz. I'm looking at this list of wrestling schools and lo and behold, Johnny Rodz's wrestling school is on this list."
Fate perhaps?
"I believe in God and I believe in destiny and you didn't need to hit me over the head to see that that was a sign. So I went to Johnny Rodz's wrestling school and that's where it all began."
Under the tutelage of the legendary wrestler and trainer, Striker would hone his skills.
"I learned how to referee, I learned how to set up the ring, and then I learned the ins and outs of what it is to be a wrestler, but not before I got my butt handed to me night in and night out."
That's OK, he could take it.
"Playing hockey, that was second nature ... when they knock you down with a tackle, just get right back up. They would marvel at the fact that this skinny little blue-eyed kid keeps getting up. The passion was there and the rest is history."
Striker would approach his wrestling career just as he did when his dad turned on the television all those years ago, with his eyes and ears wide open. In fact, in just his first year as a wrestler, he would capture an unthinkable 10 championships, a feat he credits to his approach.
"I only had my organized sports background to base things off of ... everything is relative," he said. "In hockey, if you can skate, and you can score and you can make plays, you're going to play. If you can produce, you're going to play.
"In wrestling, though, I began to realize very quickly that even if you're good, that doesn't mean you're going to get booked ... there were a lot of politics, there were a lot of things that were going on that you needed to be a part of and I was never, and still am not, any good at playing that game. I wear my heart on my sleeve, I say what I feel and I'm honest. In a world where so many aren't, honesty is so refreshing."
Titles and accolades were not what were important to the budding wrestler. Respect was much more important.
"I was just that guy that would say to a promoter, 'Whatever you'd like me to do I'll do ... good guy, bad guy, win, lose ...' I never said, 'Well, I don't think my character would lose to Santa Claus.' Nah, whatever you want. And I think that word spread to promoters that this young guy was just here to make the show better. And after everyone would alienate themselves with their politicking, the only person left was me so I think that's why they said, 'You know what, you'll win tonight, you'll be the champion' ... 'Oh you're coming back next month and you don't mind losing to a girl' ... That's how you build trust, and you build honesty and you build a reputation. And I love losing to girls by the way," he added.
As Striker built his wrestling career, his father, his hero, would again guide his son, advising him to get an education.
"The reoccurring thread throughout my life is going to be my dad," Striker said. "My dad grew up in the Bronx in New York, in a very tough neighbourhood, and nothing was ever handed to him. He had to go to work early. Thank God he made quite a living and supported three marriages and five children based on going to work everyday. He always said, 'I don't want you to have to do this. Get a degree. Get a piece of paper so you can always eat, so that you never have to worry, never have to rely on anyone else ... you can always go out and a get a job.' That was his big thing."
Striker's father also figured his son would end up a hockey star somewhere, but wisely urged him to pursue a teaching degree in the event he were to suffer a serious or career-ending injury.
"I did and I pursued a social studies degree," Striker said. "I became enamored with why one child learns differently than another, so I got my master's degree in educational psychology. That's really helped me a lot in life and in wrestling because just because you receive information one way, and process it and apply it, I can read the same exact text and not get the same information. Some people learn spatially, some people learn visually, some people learn hands-on, and I was fascinated by that."
(Three parts. Long as hell.)
Matt Striker believes in fate.
It was fate, he says, that led to his introduction to pro wrestling as a young boy.
"My parents got divorced when I was young, so I spent my weekends with my father and during the week I spent with my mother," Striker recalled during a telephone interview to promote his coming appearance at Tommy Dreamer's House of Hardcore 3. "They lived around the corner from each other so it was essentially very easy."
It was during one fateful visit with his father, a man whom Striker idolized, that the impressionable youngster got his first glimpse of the business that he would one day thrive in.
"I was seven years old," Striker recalled, "it was raining on a Saturday in New York ... October/Novemberish ... and my dad was going to take my sister and I to a movie. Before the movie, my dad said, 'Hey, do you want to see someone fly?' What seven-year-old is going to say no to this?" he said with a slight chuckle. "My father put on the television and Superfly Jimmy Snuka was on TV and I guess, judging by the look on my face, we didn't go to the movie that day."
Instead, Striker's father would, unwittingly, alter the course of his young son's life forever.
"We sat down and we watched wrestling and my father spent the next few hours telling me, word of mouth ... tales and stories of wrestlers from his childhood and how he and his father bonded and it was better than any movie would have ever been."
It didn't end there, however.
"That Monday, my father showed up at my mother's house, which was special in and of itself because he was only allowed to see us on the weekends, and he gave me three wrestling magazines, which I still have to this day.
"Looking back on it, my father knew it would foster reading in a seven-year-old ... it would help me to read and to have an imagination ... and I just became completely immersed in everything that was pro wrestling."
That fateful rainy day, that impromptu wrestling history lesson and those magazines were only the beginning of the bond between that boy and his idol.
"From there, my father and I bonded greatly over wrestling," Striker said. "He started taking me to Madison Square Garden every month. They used to run on Monday nights, so it was a treat because I got to be with my best friend in the world on a Monday, after school go to Madison Square Garden, Tuesday morning I'd go into school and give everyone the results ... I was like a living, breathing early version of the Internet for my classmates. I'd give them all the dirt and show them all the pictures. That's where the foundation of my love of professional wrestling came from. It was an extension of my relationship with my father and it just blossomed from there."
Surprisingly, it was another sport that consumed much of Striker's life as he left childhood and entered his teenage years.
"I played hockey," he said, even declaring himself a closet Canadian at one point during the interview. "I was one of the few New York kids that played hockey. I went pretty far as far New York goes. I played Apple Core (junior hockey), we would travel up to Sault Ste. Marie for tournaments and things like that. That's where I thought I was going. I really thought I was going to go and be a hockey player."
That is, until fate intervened.
"I was in a gym working out, I was wearing a wrestling T-shirt -- I think it might have been an ECW T-shirt -- and across the gym I spotted another guy wearing a wrestling T-shirt," Striker said. "This was at the time when merchandising didn't saturate the market. (If you saw someone wearing a) wrestling T-shirt, you'd stop and actually say 'hey, you like this? So do I.' We started talking and he came into the gym a couple of days later with a very crude printout, in the infancy of the Internet."
That printout contained the names of several wrestling schools in the area.
"I didn't know you could learn how to be a wrestler," Striker recalled. "It was a very closed brethren."
As Striker perused that list, one name jumped out at him.
"I remembered my father would always tell me that his father used to take his shoe off and throw it at the TV any time Johnny Rodz would be on the screen," Striker said. "Johnny Rodz. I'm looking at this list of wrestling schools and lo and behold, Johnny Rodz's wrestling school is on this list."
Fate perhaps?
"I believe in God and I believe in destiny and you didn't need to hit me over the head to see that that was a sign. So I went to Johnny Rodz's wrestling school and that's where it all began."
Under the tutelage of the legendary wrestler and trainer, Striker would hone his skills.
"I learned how to referee, I learned how to set up the ring, and then I learned the ins and outs of what it is to be a wrestler, but not before I got my butt handed to me night in and night out."
That's OK, he could take it.
"Playing hockey, that was second nature ... when they knock you down with a tackle, just get right back up. They would marvel at the fact that this skinny little blue-eyed kid keeps getting up. The passion was there and the rest is history."
Striker would approach his wrestling career just as he did when his dad turned on the television all those years ago, with his eyes and ears wide open. In fact, in just his first year as a wrestler, he would capture an unthinkable 10 championships, a feat he credits to his approach.
"I only had my organized sports background to base things off of ... everything is relative," he said. "In hockey, if you can skate, and you can score and you can make plays, you're going to play. If you can produce, you're going to play.
"In wrestling, though, I began to realize very quickly that even if you're good, that doesn't mean you're going to get booked ... there were a lot of politics, there were a lot of things that were going on that you needed to be a part of and I was never, and still am not, any good at playing that game. I wear my heart on my sleeve, I say what I feel and I'm honest. In a world where so many aren't, honesty is so refreshing."
Titles and accolades were not what were important to the budding wrestler. Respect was much more important.
"I was just that guy that would say to a promoter, 'Whatever you'd like me to do I'll do ... good guy, bad guy, win, lose ...' I never said, 'Well, I don't think my character would lose to Santa Claus.' Nah, whatever you want. And I think that word spread to promoters that this young guy was just here to make the show better. And after everyone would alienate themselves with their politicking, the only person left was me so I think that's why they said, 'You know what, you'll win tonight, you'll be the champion' ... 'Oh you're coming back next month and you don't mind losing to a girl' ... That's how you build trust, and you build honesty and you build a reputation. And I love losing to girls by the way," he added.
As Striker built his wrestling career, his father, his hero, would again guide his son, advising him to get an education.
"The reoccurring thread throughout my life is going to be my dad," Striker said. "My dad grew up in the Bronx in New York, in a very tough neighbourhood, and nothing was ever handed to him. He had to go to work early. Thank God he made quite a living and supported three marriages and five children based on going to work everyday. He always said, 'I don't want you to have to do this. Get a degree. Get a piece of paper so you can always eat, so that you never have to worry, never have to rely on anyone else ... you can always go out and a get a job.' That was his big thing."
Striker's father also figured his son would end up a hockey star somewhere, but wisely urged him to pursue a teaching degree in the event he were to suffer a serious or career-ending injury.
"I did and I pursued a social studies degree," Striker said. "I became enamored with why one child learns differently than another, so I got my master's degree in educational psychology. That's really helped me a lot in life and in wrestling because just because you receive information one way, and process it and apply it, I can read the same exact text and not get the same information. Some people learn spatially, some people learn visually, some people learn hands-on, and I was fascinated by that."