Roye Isaacs talks about his intro to the wild world of pro wrestling.
Recently, speaking to Spencer Love, former NWA Tag Team Champion Roye Isaacs gave inside on a multitude of topics including singles wrestling versus tag team wrestling, how he got into professional wrestling, and more.
The following quotes were passed along by Spencer Love.
Singles vs. Tag Team wrestling:
“For me, I love that I can do both and I love that at the NWA, I can still do both. I think that teaming with Tom (Latimer) has been great for my growth as a wrestler. Tom obviously has a few years on me as far as experience and everything like that, so there’s so much that I’m already learning from him, and he’s a really good dude, too, so it’s been really cool. But, I do also, of course, enjoy doing the singles wrestling and, I mean, I don’t know of any other places where people have been able to do quite as much in both a tag team setting and a singles setting, so it’s been - I mean, not to dance around your question, but I love both tag team and singles wrestling. Like, I’ve always been part of tag teams, and I’ve always had my own singles career. Even on the Indies and even before I met Tom, I would always do both and I think that both are really important, so it’s nice. I just like being able to do both, so if I can continue to ply my trade at both of the arts, I’m way into it man.”
Making the move to pro wrestling:
“I was always very into pro wrestling, I don’t know if I always thought that I would become a pro wrestler. I liked it; I was always like as a kid, ‘this is the coolest thing,’ but I certainly didn’t do football or amateur wrestling with the intent of eventually being a pro wrestler. It wasn’t until, I guess, my career, my college sports career had been winding down and I was getting to the end of it that I was like ‘oh, I’m not going to be competing in anything upcoming here soon, and I kind of miss that. What can I conceivably do?’ I was division III for football and for wrestling, I wasn’t going to go to the Olympics, I wasn’t going to go to the NFL, and I think as much as wrestling’s really tough on your body, I don’t think my body was going to hold up just to do some kind of like - I’m very all the way in or all the way out, so I don’t think like a semi-pro or an arena type of thing was in my future. I also feel like it wasn’t until - I was an offensive lineman in football, and I was much heavier, I was like 285-295 pounds, and I’m maybe like 230 or so right now. I don’t think I really hit my athletic prime until actually, like, the end of college and past that and wrestling and everything like that. I feel like I was still trying to be an offensive lineman, when I probably should have been a linebacker or fullback or something along those lines, or I should have been cutting more weight and been a 197-pounder in wrestling or something like that.”
“I feel like because I kind of matured athletically late, or didn’t realize some of my gifts until a little bit late that being able to actually be a wrestler myself wasn’t necessarily on the forefront of my mind until I was really getting the itch to compete in something and I thought ‘oh, this is something I could see myself doing,’ and I really liked the mix of athleticism with show and everything kind of being bigger together. I was like ‘I get this, this makes sense to me,’ and it was something that really appealed to me.”
His unique introduction to independent wrestling:
“So, I went to a Lucha Libre and Laughs show. They still run shows in Denver, Colorado. Nick Gossert is the promoter there, and he does an amazing job. Back when I saw it, I mean, they weren’t drawing a crazy crowd, and the wrestling was not of the highest quality, but there was something about it and being in that live setting, that I was like ‘oh yeah!’ Like, everything that I thought was confirmed. This is something that I want to be involved in. So I talked to (Nick) afterwards and he recommended a place in Denver to train: The Butcher Shop, and Lonnie Valdez was the head trainer there at the time, he started training me. So, I started training maybe two days after the show, but Lucha Libre and Laughs, now, talk about growth, they sell out the Oriental Theatre, 600+, wall-to-wall. It’s a nuts show, with stand-up comedy and wrestling. If you’re in Denver, or you’re in town visiting and there’s a Lucha Libre and Laughs show that’s going on, I super, super recommend going and seeing it because it’s one of the most fun, crazy extravagant live shows. And, it’s a good date night, too.
“But yeah, I started training at The Butcher Shop literally the next week which was just - at the time, it was like a big storage trailer in Commerce City in Colorado in this terrible neighborhood. I remember this guy, Bubba, bless his heart. Bubba was awesome, but like I thought he was like an assistant trainer, but I think he was just like living in the Butcher Shop at the time. I pulled up, and he was like ‘someone just stole my truck, like, just now from out front.’ Commerce City is one of the few neighborhoods that’s not great in Colorado still in the Denver area. At this point, it might be better, but this is 2014 and literally, a car had gotten stolen right from out front of (the Butcher Shop), and I was like ‘okay, cool, I’m just going to park my car and I’m going to go in here for hours and train. Hopefully, nothing happens to it.’”
You can also read his comments on Billy Corgan and the NWA at this link.
