Rippers & Hookers

Sounds like a bad serial killer novel involving the world's oldest profession doesn't it? The funny thing is, it's far from what you might actually think. Back in the day, wrestlers who were known to literally break and tear people apart were called Hookers where they would hook or put an opponent in a dangerous hold where they could if given the chance cripple the guy and be one feared motherfucker. You would not want to get on the bad side of these guys.

These days, nobody would use the term hooker to describe a wrestler, now the word ripper is another story. Like the Hookers of yesteryear, a ripper can be used to describe a wrestler or grappler who could handle himself and tear limbs, tendons or ligaments. Some of the most feared wrestlers of the day were guys like Farmer Burns, George Tragos, Ad Santel, Tom Jenkins and even the legendary Robert Fredrick aka Ed "Strangler" Lewis. These days, the last of the Hookers or Rippers of the old school were men like Karl Gotch & Billy Robinson. 

The men I mentioned above were specialists in knowing the dark side to physical anatomy and could make you tap before you really had a chance to take a breath. These were WRESTLERS and had levels of stamina and mind that they were considered inexhaustible geniuses of their time. Catch Wrestling has it's roots mainly in England for the last 150 years but long before that, you had other cultures that would showcase styles of wrestling that were brought to other countries and became a molded sculpture in today's world. The old timers are long gone and quite a bit of their style of Catch has been left in the dust. 

Now in today's world, Catch Wrestling isn't as big as it used to be and other arts such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing and Amateur Wrestling dominated the landscape in how we see today's MMA. If BJJ is considered the "gentle" art, Catch is considered the violent aspect according to Former MMA champ and current Catch Teacher Josh Barnett. There are competitions purely on Catch and has taken extremely small steps to becoming a larger form of fighting since the early 1900's. You can arguably say the last known competitor in the art was Billy Robinson. The man would be considered the Einstein or Steven Hawking of Catch Wrestling. 

Although the hookers and the rippers don't have that fear factor today, you can still learn some form of that old school style with a small group of fighters, teachers and students of the old art. It's used more of a competition but can it be used in the streets? Afterall, street fights are very unpredictable and sometimes what you may think you know could get you killed or be sent to the hospital but if you were able to not necessarily make a shmuck tap but to save your life using techniques that won't kill the man but put a damper on the limbs he uses would it be worth it? Would it be worth it to save a loved one, defend yourself against attackers or send a message telling them not to fuck with you (in the sense of not upping up somebody like a douchebag but making sure you're not some weak punk). 

Now if you're in law enforcement, would certain techniques help restraining a suspect or defending a fellow officer? Catch can be used in many ways and possibly lifesaving if it came down to it. There are people out there who may understand Catch but wouldn't know how to use it, others have incredible knowledge and have great success, it just depends on whom you learn it from. There isn't a one-way of learning this art and everybody who teaches it especially today can be a gamble as opposed to back in the day where you could go just about anywhere and learn from the masters. All in all, whether a competitor or someone going down on the wrong side of town, Catch can be beneficial.   

 

A World Without WAR

You’re probably wondering why I put war in capital letters. What does it have to do with Physical Culture? Believe it or not I'm not talking about military combat or exercises that help you become a soldier but it’s an actual name of a legendary wrestler that recently passed away; William A. Robinson aka Catch Wrestler Billy Robinson. Born in 1939 in England, he came from a family of boxers but as fate would have it, he became a wrestler.

            A man named Billy Riley opened a wrestling school in England in a town called Wigan, he trained some of the toughest wrestlers not just in Europe but just about everywhere else. The two most famous to come out of that gym were Karl Istaz aka Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson. In the 1950’s when Billy was just starting out, he got tied up in knots, worked his ass off, learned the secrets of Catch Wrestling and ventured off into the world of Pro Wrestling. He won countless titles all over the world but never forgot where he came from. Wigan Wrestling back then would be the equivalent to Dan Gable’s Championship formula of the 1980’s at the University Of Iowa, rough, tough and the most conditioned wrestlers of it’s time.

            In the 1970’s, Billy was considered one of the top if not the top most talented wrestler of that era. He wrestled many top stars of the day. His style of wrestling was unique in that it was scientific, he read other wrestlers like it was a chess match. He had agility very few had and can lock you in a hold where he could cripple you if he had the chance, he was that good. He trained countless wrestlers over the years, some you may even heard of that are hall of famers in pro wrestling such as 16-time World Champ Ric Flair and quite possibly the most hated wrestler of his era The Iron Sheik. In Japan he coached many of the Japanese wrestlers of the time including “Gracie Killer” Kazushi Sakuraba.

            Billy passed away earlier this week leaving a legacy that has long been forgotten but has slowly risen with a new generation of Catch Wrestlers and to continue his legacy before he died he put together a book called Physical Chess which told his life story from his very own words. He was the last of the old-time catch wrestlers of the old Wigan days. To even get a glimpse of his legendary wisdom and training now is to go to Scientific Wrestling and get the DVD series W.A.R which shows his philosophy, training and techniques in the art of Catch As Catch Can Wrestling. I never got the chance to meet him but I've talked to those that have and they said he was the best and was a great man. Maybe one day if I learned some catch I'll be hearing the voice from above “Do it again.”

            One of his many facets on life and wrestling is what he referred to as “Learning how to learn.” I've heard this phrase a few times and what I believe it to be is that you don’t stop learning, if you think you know it all, you haven’t learned a damn thing. He uses it for wrestling for what I use it as fitness, you can do so many things but there’s always something that can be taught that keeps you finding other ways to better yourself no matter how long it takes and mastering it is part of the mystery. Even if you master something you’ll always be a student because knowledge is what keeps us going and how it absorbs who you are and what you want to do. RIP Billy and hope wherever you are, you're having fun wrestling old comrades and crippling those who need to get their ass kicked. 

Ask With Intent & Mindfulness

           In the fitness world, there’s always something to learn, the next big gadget, a new bodybuilding routine, how to develop superior grip strength, get bigger arms or legs, tight abs, lifting 500 lbs. of a specific lift like the Bench Press. We get excited and eager to learn so we ask a million questions but we don’t always get the answer we were hoping for and why is that? Getting so amped up then you find out certain things you didn't expect and often times you find yourself disappointed but how you can you change that around?

            Some of us get asked a bunch of different questions on training or something specific like Muscle Control for example, or how to increase your push-ups, what’s the strength difference between a barbell bench press and a dumbbell bench press hell even about a specific athlete that you love. I don’t get asked a million questions often like some of the other guys like Bud Jeffries, Logan Christopher, Ryan Pitts, Dru Patrick or even the legendary Dennis Rogers but when I do, I do my best to give the right answers but sometimes I’d like to ask the other person what they’re intent is, do you have a specific goal or do you want to know just for the sake of knowing? Knowledge is a powerful tool; it’s how you use it that creates what you want.

            Some of you guys out there are very eager to learn, you want answers and things explained but I’d like to share with you a quote from Master Catch Wrestler Billy Robinson, he says “Learn how to learn.” What does that mean exactly? In my way of putting it it’s learning by following your intuition, you learn certain things and ask about more but in order to find the answer, you have to participate and being mindful about what you want to learn. Ask yourself in your mind, what do you seek, where do you want to go in your training, you picture what you want to do, after that you do it. The questions you seek will come by experimenting, getting someone’s take on the subject and what they’re ideas are, take them in like a sponge but have the intention to go with your questions.

            Some guys like to run their mouth and like a machine gun just asking a bunch of questions without looking at the big picture. Their excitement is great and wants to find out as much as they can but yet don’t always hit the target. If you ever see someone at a gun range, watch how some of them take a shot at the target, they can shoot off all they want but if the bullets don’t hit the target they’re not aiming properly and clearly don’t know how to use a gun but they’re excited to learn and want to hit that target. Asking questions is the same thing, they’re like bullets but you need to have a target otherwise you’re just shooting all over the place. Focus on what you want to target, be mindful and fire at the points you’re looking for. When you look at it like this, you’ll find what you’re intentions are and what you want ask, sometimes it’s not the answer you’re looking for but yet it could be the one that was there all along. 

Catching If You Can

             

              In the realm of Martial Arts there are those few that a not practiced often today but yet one has become a dying art with a little heart beat left and that’s the sport of Catch As Catch Can Wrestling. It is a style of wrestling that requires great practice (as does most Martial Arts) but yet it has a scientific feel for it, it’s a mind game like Physical Chess, you have to think certain moves ahead in order to defeat an opponent but it never gets easy. It may be a dying art but it hasn't sunk into the grave yet and has been rising in the last decade. This is the pinnacle of Submission Wrestling.

            The first rule of Catch is to get into the best condition possible. The reason why is because if you’re in a fight and you have your technique down but don’t last too long, you’re a goner before you can say “Damn.” Before you ever step on a mat, you should train with great intensity to become a conditioned individual. No one knew this better than the great Karl Gotch. To be able to get something, you have to earn it. I've heard about a lot of guys that love wrestling but never get down to condition because they don’t care about the work that goes into it. You want it bad enough; get your ass into gear.

            There aren't many who are left to teach the sport of CACC because most of them are gone including the late Karl Gotch but there are those that are out there that can help bring the sport back from the dead with the new generation. The one that sticks out the most now is the legendary Wigan wrestler Billy Robinson who coaches and helps out with seminars around the country with Scientific Wrestling front-runner Jake Shannon. Learn from who you can because it’s not everyday you learn about wrestling from the old school ways.

            Catch Wrestling has been around for decades has its roots in England, Eastern Europe and even in America with greats like Frank Gotch, George Hackenshmidt, Tom Jenkins, Farmer Burns, Fred Grubmyer and possibly the greatest American wrestler Ed “Strangler” Lewis aka (Robert Julius Fredrick). It is important to learn about our roots about mankind’s oldest sport and how it became what it is today. It is man’s birthright to wrestle, you didn't start out with a ball or a track or a racket, you started by getting your man to the ground and making him cry uncle to be the dominant man. You didn't have the Romans duel to the death by shooting a basketball, you certainly didn't have the Mongolians take down half the world by scoring touchdowns, they fought with powerful weaponry and the might of their body to wrestle and kill if needed to. From my understanding Catch is probably at the top of the list of being the great self-defense program and if you can strike, kick and wrestle masterfully, you’d be a dynamo.

            Not many want to earn their place because of how tough it is to get there. Look at this from a perspective, the conditioning is actually the easy part, it’s the consistency to keep it up and wrestle over a period of time is the hard part but that’s the beauty of it. Training is a constant state of motion and yeah it takes guts and the balls to get through it but at the same time it’s a preparation to help you stay in the game. Very few see that perspective and the rest bitch that they can’t handle it so they just up and run away like a scared mutt. I love wrestling and I've learned that if I want to be good at it, I have to earn my way to get there just like when I had my accident, I wanted so bad to train and walk again but I had to earn it through progression, drive and the will to get what I wanted and I made it happen. If I want to wrestle and learn the holds, I have to go through the trenches first to get there and if it means getting up to 500 Squats and 250 push-ups consistently so be it.

            To learn Catch Wrestling, you have to catch yourself and grab a hold of your conditioning and your will to get to where you want to be, if you want it bad enough, you won’t turn it into a nightmare, you’ll turn it into a dream you’re making come true and knock down the metaphorical brick wall to make that happen. Get at it and catch that light that is Catch As Catch Can Wrestling. 

Expanding Knowledge & Experimentation

            The ability to learn different things that keep your mind and body flowing is a gift in itself. Learning what you want to do makes things all that much simpler even when it gets difficult sometimes. Why is it important to learn what you want to learn? Because the more you experiment and practice, the better knowledge you'll receive and having it become a second language. Billy Robinson of Catch Wrestling legends said it best “Learn how to learn.”

            What is it you want to do? Want to learn to lift weights, practice hand balancing, move like a wild animal, become a old-time strongman or yet you want to learn them all who knows but whatever you decide to do, make not only the best of it but make it your own, you can learn the basics but it’ up to you to find what you're best at and making the habit to become self-reliant in your own style of training. We all use different patterns, moves, training ideals and what can work and what can’t but yet its how you interpret the way you experimented and practiced.

            In the commercial gyms today, you see a lot of trainers who push you when you're not ready, they'll tell you to do something and if you get it wrong they'll let it slide but then they get pissed and give you a hard time when you're just learning. I'm not saying they're all like that, I know a few guys and they're good at what they do but a lot of them just don't give a damn and rather take your money then share and help you succeed in what you want to accomplish. I’d say for the most part avoid commercial trainers. A lot of those guys don’t tell you how to be successful, they tell you to work this, work that and more stuff that has nothing to do with results, just them to keep cashing the checks.

            When you have learned a few basics and have mastered them, the next step is to climb the ladder and get better at some of the harder stuff. After a while, you'd want to put them together to create your own program to suit your goals. Nobody does things the same exact way because our body to weight ratio is different and we have to work things that suit our structure. Use what you learned, from different tempos, speeds, movements and holds that work for you.

            One of the most important aspects of expanding your knowledge and experimentation in what you want to do is this, break the rules. Sure you can learn a thing or 2 but you don't have to follow every single person’s advice, if you did, you're only closing off instead of finding what works for you. When you train, make up your own rules, you already have the basics down so why not rebel and make it your own. You're the king/queen of your own program, you know what works and what doesn't  and nobody can tell you what to do. Once you have mastered what you learned from others, break away from them and become who you want to be.

            Be creative, open up your mind and make it happen for you and only you. You can pass down what you learned but don’t give away all your secrets otherwise you won’t let them discover things for themselves.

Be sure to check out Don Powers’ new book Catch Wrestling For Cops here at Strongerman. You don't have to be a cop to make it work for you.

Follow Blindly With Pride

When you first really learn something, you don’t know what to expect, if you did, learning wouldn’t be that fun or adventurous. When you first learn to walk as a baby, do you research and follow the mechanics, no because you don’t know any better and you learn to do it yourself by putting one foot in front of the other than before you know it you’re off and running. People have this belief that following a certain people blindly without looking into who they are or what they really represent feel that it’s stupid and you don’t know what you’re talking about.

 In the strength training world or in fitness for that matter, we follow all kinds of people, programs, diets, exercises and all sorts of things. Even the “experts” who have big egos try to take down those who don’t believe in their system and that they are blind to what they should really strive for. Hate to break it to you buddy but as cool as your name is on a piece of paper doesn’t make you god among men. Not all people in this industry are like that but it’s very annoying when they give you this B.S about facts and scientific methods that are proven and they expect you to believe them. This is where instead of listening to what they say; find out for yourself what works and what’s proven in your own experiment. Testing the waters is one of the best to learn from.

 When you train, don’t just go through the motions, followyour instincts and find what works for you and when that right program just hits you and you find a passion for it, support it and use it your advantage to what makes that program work for you. I’m not saying go out door to door like a Jehovah’s witness and preach that it’s the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel, talk about it as if to encourage it. Not every program works for everyone, hell I have followed more methods than I care to count and yet I don’t do all of them. I take the very best things I’ve learned and mold them into something that gives me and only me great benefit. I give my insights and encourage those to try it out at their own pace.

 When it comes to following a blind method of training, nothing broke that barrier more than how Slim The Hammer Man became the world’s strongest man for the specialty feats he performed such as chain-breaking, scrolling steel and his trademark, Hammer Levering. An old man taught him the best ways to tap into the mind and go after a feat that just seemed impossible yet made it happen. This was decades before the internet and cell phones, so the only way to do something is just that do it and see where it leads you. In a sense, Slim followed this old man’s methods blindly by just focusing on what worked and didn’t work. He eventually found that itch and developed his own style of training just by experimenting with his own research and look what happens, he became a beast of a legend, sure he hit a few rough patches along the road to success but it didn’t matter.

 There are millions of blind individuals in this world and it’s a shame that they can’t see the world and look into the eyes of the people they treasure the most but not all is lost, sometimes if you watch really closely (no pun intended) those same individuals develop other senses that are more powerful than the gift of sight. The main proven method today is Eco Location where the senses are sought by vibration kind of like a bat in a cave where the method came from. Why am I telling you this? Have I gone off course and just went off topic? The answer is no I haven’t. I’m telling you this because like blindness, when you follow a certain program or experiment with it, you might find some new senses and find that although you can’t tell if it’s going to work, your body will tell you to either adapt or fail. Your mind is very strong, your muscles adapt and your awareness gives you a keen sense of how certain things will play out. When you find that right moment and all that experimentation pays off, you’ll increase these senses and you’ll be able to adapt to that program however you want.

 One of the greatest masters of wrestling Billy Robinson pointed out that in the beginning, you learn, yet in the end you’re still learning. There’ really no such thing as ultimate mastery. If you stop learning and act like a total expert with an ego than you really haven’t learned a damn thing. Mastery is learning how to learn. You never stop finding that key program or exercise or method that keeps you going for life, you develop new things, new ways to come up with what you learned. Also kinds of like Yoda’s quote “You must unlearn what you have learned.”  If you stop learning and not using your mind, how will you be able to know who you really are and what you can help teach others? Teaching is great tool but yet teaching while also learning about yourself gives great insight to how you follow something while others do the same. Following someone blindly isn’t always a bad thing, just make sure you don’t get hurt or end up killing yourself, give it time and if it doesn’t work for you, move onto something else, keep learning and keep building your own senses to what brings you that ultimate high.

When Wrestling Was Fun To Watch

I grew up a 90's kid, watched the saturday morning cartoons, obsessed with The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, there was Keenan and Kel and at night it was Jeapordy, Wheel Of Fortune, Seinfeld and great tv shows of the time but nothing got me more hooked and more tuned in then Professional Wrestling. The very first event I watched on TV that I can remember was Wrestlemania 12 and it was the coolest thing I saw. I saw a 7 foot deadman piledrive a bad ass giant, saw a ringmaster with a million dollar belt, I witnessed a grown man in gold kiss a scottish wrestler on the lips but the one match that caught my eye and the one I still will say to this day was the greatest match in the history of televised events was the Iron Man one hour marathon between the Heart Break Kid Shawn Michaels vs. Bret The Hitman Hart for the WWE Championship. That was the match that started my journey into the history of the sport and gave me the chance to learn about the very best in the sport from its early days in the sticks to the epic era of television.

When I began watching the Monday Night Wars between Raw and Nitro, it was the most fun I ever had as a fan watching these awesome athletes of all shapes and sizes doing the things that they did best. Unlike a lot of fans I wasn't very much interested in what the character was but what happened in the ring that put most of my attention to. Watching these guys jump off the ropes, doing suplexes, power slams, cage matches, 6 man tags and the incredible physiques they had. Yes I was a fan of the NWO and Degeneration X but none of that mattered unless they wrestled in the ring.

I went to a few house shows at the Cow Palace in San Francisco and the old San Jose Arena before it was changed to the HP Pavillion and was at 2 big PPVs and a Smackdown show and it was the most epic time of my life as a fan of the old WWE and WCW. Because of this I became obsessed of what wrestling really was and studied the old school days of the sport going back as far as ancient egypt to presidents and kings being wrestlers to the PT Barnum era of the ACT shows to the epic battles of Frank Gotch and George Hackenshmidt to Ed Strangler Lewis being the transition from real wrestling becoming a profitable industry of characters to Television where Lou Thesz was the talk of the globe. I was also obsessed with how the wrestlers trained and what they did to become stars other then becoming a character.

Even during the early days of television wrestlers with an amature background broke into the business and brought their styles to a whole other level. I will still say to this day from the clips of matches I saw of the early TV era that the best amature wrestlers that made an impact on Pro Wrestling were Lou Thesz, Verne Gagne, Gene Kiniski, The Briscos, Dory Funk jr., Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson. There were guys just as good but none had an impact like those mistros of the mat.

I can never imagine the training wrestlers went through to break into the wrestling business. I mean sh*t the easy part was training in the ring and building a charcter but to put all that infront of hundreds of thousands of people was just brutal. I've seen clips of guys aching and begging for their lives for the torture to stop. I've heard stories of Hulk Hogan training from Hiro Matsuda, Eddy Sharkey who trained guys like Road Warriors, Bob Backlund and Jesse "The Body" Ventura who took these guys to limits that you can't imagine unless you were there and don't get me started on guys like Walter "Killer" Kowalski who was a conditioning machine who taught the art of the business to future WWE Hall Of Famer Paul Levesque aka Triple H.

I've been through torture workouts myself in my later years after being a teenager but never have I or ever want to be put through that kind of training but that also put me on my quest for being in condition and strong. Conditioning is your greatest friend and nobody put that concept better then the late Karl Gotch. It doesn't matter whether you're in wrestling or in other sports, you can have the techniques down to a science but if your condition is poor you might as well get out the door.

I wish there were matches that were just as good if not better then the matches going on today in WWE's PG era which I have no idea what that concept is nor do I care. There are some great wrestlers today like Rey Mysterio, NCAA standout Jack Swagger, College champion Dolph Ziggler but the one guy that really brought his amature status to the ring and brought a whole new meaning to the words Wrestler and even going back to the place where he first gained fame in the Olympics is Kurt Angle. This guy in my opinion is our generation's Dan Gable and he took wrestling in ways that will never be duplicated as far as wrestling goes not rassling. There are a few guys that are good to watch these days but it doesn't live up to the era of my teenage years where you had guys like the Rock, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker and quite possibly one of the funniest cats in the business as well as one of the greatest performers Chris Jericho.

They don't make wrestlers like them anymore and the very few guys that are good to watch every now and then like Randy Orton, John Cena, Kofi Kingston and CM Punk just had me lost interest as a fan of that part of the business and rather watch the guys from my generation to the day days of Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Harley Race, Ricky Steamboat, The Road Warriors, Bob Backlund and believe it or not Macho Man Randy Savage. Nowadays I watch real wrestlers like Brock Lesnar, Matt Huges, The Shamrocks, Tito Ortiz, Josh Barnett, Randy Couture and the great Japanese wrestlers.

Although I have lost interest in the few years of WWE wrestling, WWE gave me the chance to learn and love wrestlers of the past and transition from the loud characters and chair swinging lunitics to the kick ass submission style and scientific version of wrestling. Its all how you tend to look at things. Whether you're a fan of wrestling ingeneral or not its really how you love to watch your heroes and watch the great evolvement that unfolds whether its cool or not and find the best to watch and learn for yourself.

My Thoughts On WWE Tough Enough

Back in the old days (yes even the 80's) it wasn't easy getting into the wrestling business. It was mostly word of mouth or men and women who have met wrestlers in the gym and if the wrestlers felt like you wanted it bad enough they'd recommend a trainer to toughen you up. Some of the best wrestling trainers nearly took out a wanna-be wrestler and wanted to see how long it took him to quit and how long can he last in the ring doing conditioning drills and ring work. Some trainers were wrestlers themselves at one time or another and some were better as trainers and some were great wrestlers and trainers.

The conditioning is a very brutal process, one wrestler went through NFL camps and said wrestling training was far more brutal. Another wrestler quit the first day but then came back and began one of the greatest careers in the business, even one wrestler was a Navy SEAL and found training as a wrestler was worth the price. You see it takes much more then physical ability to bring something to the table in the ring, you need character, poise, charisma and you need a body that people want to see along with how you present yourself as a character.

Here are a few trainers that have helped pave the way for some of the greatest wrestlers in wrestling history:

Hiro Matsuda- Trained Hulk Hogan

Eddy Sharkey- Trained Road Warriors, Jesse Ventura and Bob Backlaund

Verne Gangne- Trained Iron Sheik, Ken Patera, Ric Flair, Verne's son Greg and Ricky Steamboat

Stu Hart- Trained the Hart Brothers (Bret & Owen), Greg Valentine, Superstar Billy Graham & Chris Benoit

These trainers took these men to limits most of us can't fathom and look where they are today (with the exception of the late Hawk, Owen & Benoit), they went on to have some of the greatest careers in wrestling. Nowadays on the internet you can find schools all over the country, in canada and abroad. Some schools cost way too much, some cost too little without ever stepping into a ring and some even cost when you don't train at all. Very very few schools give you hands on training and some even require experience as much as 2 years in the ring. To get to the WWE or TNA takes hundreds of matches, psychology in the ring, mic work and most of all a good character to sell as a product.

Back in the early 2000's WWE Tough Enough started a new trend of reality TV but began to show what training in the ring looks like when up-in-coming superstars are thrown into the ring and trainers will find out who stays and who doesn't. The first couple seasons were ok and had good trainers such as Al Snow who was trained by a couple of the Andersons (Ole & Greg). The winners went onto a moderate career but a couple didn't last long due to either injuries or wanted to persue other career oppertunities.

Now theres a new season with a new host and trainers in the names of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Booker T, Bill Demott & WWE Diva legend Trish Stratus. Austin as the host takes on 14 contestants including 1 Current Miss America and they all have one thing in common and thats being the next WWE superstar & Diva. I have a feeling this season aside from tensions, craziness and pissing off trainers these new contestants are in for the ride of your life. They will live together, eat together, train together and everything else inbetween (hopefully none of that Real World shit). After seeing the first episode I knew how great this show will be and plus you get to see Stars that have revolutionized the wrestling business and know a thing or 2 about getting their asses kicked in the ring so I don't see a whole lot of sympathy from Austin or Booker so it should be very interesting to watch.

If you feel you want to get in condition like an old scohool pro wrestler like early steamboat or Ric Flair back in his training days in minnesota or better yet like the great legends Karl Gotch & Billy Robinson then look here and if you find yourself on Tough Enough you'll pass the conditioning with flying colors and work on the other things. Also if you don't want to be a wrestler and just wanna get yourself in awesome shape then here are a few links to look at that I personally recommend.