LINCOLNTON, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – Pro wrestling is famous for dramatic storylines, and the plot really thickens when you find out each wrestler’s angle outside the ring.
Usually, it starts with a guy telling himself, “Why not?”
“Eh, like let’s give it a shot. We’ll see how far I get,” says Adam Davis, attending his second class at the Wrestling Evolution Training Center.
“I’ve always been a huge fan of it from action figures when I was a kid up through just watching it,” he told Queen City News.
Welcome to the school of hard bumps.
“Trust me, I don’t like bumping, haha,” says trainer Beer City Bruiser, best known for his time with Ring of Honor.
He shows his class the ropes, and points out the importance of the camera’s location, too.
“What I always tell guys is, ‘Find the camera.’ So when you bump, our camera is right there, sell this way,” said the savvy Bruiser.
“The experience starts with the fan as soon as they walk through the door,” CEO Tim Wilcox told the group.
He started Wrestling Evolution two years ago in Lincoln County.
The Training Center is his way of developing the next generation.
In the Carolinas, Tim once grappled under the name Sir Jonathan Buffett, an homage to singer Jimmy Buffett.
That’s when he had hair that when down to his “nether regions.”
“You’ve got to want to be a wrestler, or pretend to be a wrestler. Here at Wrestling Evolution, you need to want to be a wrestler,” Wilcox preached.
Their back stories sometimes drive their desire.
In one corner, we found Davis being pummeled by his classmates. Davis lugs big boxes at the Wal-Mart Distribution Center in Shelby.
“I turn 36 tomorrow,” says Davis. “I’m one of those people that every year I start thinking, looking at life, and like ‘Okay, what do I want?’”
