Yesterday I ordered a series of videos from a pro wrestling website called RF Video where you can buy digital videos of classic matches, interviews, training sessions and events with more wrestlers than you can name. The series I got was from ECW Legend Taz showing various things from his Wrestling School. In this series, he doesn't show how to take bumps and running through the ropes and all that, believe it or not, he shows how to do takedowns like in the old school style that's also used in Amateur Wrestling, Judo, Greco-Roman and the Japanese Style; the next video is on Submissions which I found really interesting and shows both real and show holds ranging from Ankle Locks, Figure Fours, Arm Bars and a lot more. The last video is on Stretching, Mobility & Conditioning which was mostly very basic stuff.
Now for those who've lived under a rock, Taz in his prime was a backbone of ECW's heyday where Hardcore matches were in practically every match and was the underbelly of the Attitude Era that Paul Heyman ran for a number of years. Taz was one of the few wrestlers in that organization that actually had legit wrestling and judo under his belt and was the king of suplexes and various submissions. The closest to him in that time with technical knowledge was probably Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero and maybe Dean Malenko. If you ever watch highlights, you'll see that his character was a tough son of a bitch that could throw you as well as make you work using wrestling.
I've seen training videos of various pro wrestling schools and almost all of them show some of the same stuff from working a match to some segments of conditioning; this however was closer to MMA and pure wrestling that can be used in real life, yes there are show holds in Taz's highlights throughout the series but his style is about as real as it gets down to what is right and wrong with a move especially on the takedowns. Taz was also one of those guys that wasn't a big dude in comparison to guys like the Dudley Boys, Stone Cold, The Rock or Undertaker; he was roughly 5'8 and no more than 235-240. What he lacked in size, he made up for intensity and using wrestling as a means to make matches look just badass.
In the Conditioning series, he takes you and his students through various stretches and mobility drills. Some are a little fast for most to keep up with and is really vague on most of them but it still holds true regardless. The "drills" he puts them through most these days can figure out especially if you're an MMA fighter or an upcoming pro wrestler but the one exercise I didn't expect to see him put his students through was the Step Ups. Granted these are done on a high bench but it's interesting how he uses Step Ups to condition his guys. He talks about putting them through up to 45 min of Step Ups which at a decent clip in a row (depending on the height you use) is roughly around 1000 reps but he takes things a step further so do speak as the guys work the exercise, he'll blow a whistle while one guy goes in the ring and does other hard drills for a minute or more while the rest do Step Ups. Whistle blows for the next guy to come in and so on and so forth to really make them blow up. If a student starts to get lazy or is acting like a chump, Taz will have them hold a folded chair on their arms while their arms are straight out and have them do step ups with that chair until the exercise is done or have to go in the ring.
That is some nasty training and if you're doing drills, squats, bumps, falls and running the ropes on top of that; it makes you think twice about training at that school. I don't think the school is around anymore and Taz had a podcast for a while and did commentary for AEW for a period. I didn't know much about him when he came to WWE at the Royal Rumble in 2001, I saw some matches he did for ECW but I wasn't into that stuff as much back then. Once I studied him and his matches, it changed my perspective and he was legitimately one of the toughest guys in the business in his time. Trained by Hall Of Famer Johnny Rodz in New York, he made an impact on the business from more of an underground stand point because he wasn't flashy and had some weird gimmick that made him millions, he was primitive, old school, tough, look like he can snap your bones in half and had some crazy strength for a guy his size.
My respect for him amped up a bit more when I saw that he used Step Ups because if you pay attention to some of the stuff they do with Pro Wrestlers, Step Ups isn't one of those exercises that they use; you're talking more of the Japanese Style Karl Gotch perfected with the Hindu Squats, Push-ups, Bridges, Lunges, Ring Sprints and others. This was unique to see. So if someone like Taz uses that exercise to make students bust their ass, you know for sure this isn't some "Lazy's Man Leg Training" that some "Bodyweight Exercise Guru" likes to push on.
Thought I'd share this little review and keep being amazingly awesome.
