Leaping Over The Competition
Courtesy of: lowcountrynow.com
Kickfighter. Submission shootfighter. Toughman. Boxer. Now, Sean O'Haire, a Hilton
Head Island native, has added another title to his resume -- professional wrestler.
So what's in a name?
Flair, Austin and Hogan are some of the marquee names in professional wrestling history. O'Haire might just be on his way to becoming one.
O'Haire, 28, has quickly become a professional wrestling star for Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling, home to such names as former Atlanta Falcon Bill Goldberg, Sting and "Big Sexy" Kevin Nash.
The former owner of Breakthrough Fitness Center on Hilton Head Island broke into main event matches only six months after he started wrestling school. No one has ever progressed that fast, not even Goldberg, who is one of the main characters in the organization and made the transition in eight months.
What made the Hilton Head High School graduate get into the wrestling biz?
"I always wanted to do it," he said a few hours prior to taping "WCW Thunder" on Tuesday from the Tucson Convention Center in Tucson, Ariz.
In the beginning
O'Haire has always been athletic. He trained in gymnastics, kickboxing and submission shootfighting (a combination of kickboxing and wrestling.)
"He worked out almost every day," said Matt Kuhlmann of Atlanta, one of O'Haire's best friends growing up on Hilton Head.
Kuhlmann, who tried his hand in pro wrestling on the independent circuit for a brief time in the mid-1990s, said he and O'Haire were inseparable.
"Once, when Sean was still living at home, he redid his bedroom. All that was in there was a mattress and he made the room a working dojo where he and I would work out and make videos of us working out," said Kuhlmann.
Kuhlmann added that O'Haire was always into martial arts. He even taught classes at Breakthrough Fitness Center on occasion, said manager John Campbell.
"I saw him teach martial arts once, and Sean was just tremendous," said his former workout partner Alan Edwardo, owner of Flying Iron Cycles on Hilton Head Island and a former Beaufort County sheriff's deputy.
After coming up with the concept of Breakthrough Fitness Center, O'Haire was eventually bought out by his partners and left the Lowcountry to pursue other interests.
"Wrestling is the best thing for him; he became claustrophobic on Hilton Head," said Campbell.
He spent time in North Carolina, where he won 17 Toughman competitions before heading north to New York to become a professional boxer. It was while there he called his childhood friend Kuhlmann.
Finding a niche
O'Haire was not satisfied in the Toughman competitions, Kuhlmann said, and he was still a young guy "who didn't want his brains beat in during a boxing match."
So O'Haire asked Kuhlmann if he still had some connections in the wrestling business. Kuhlmann had worked for such performers as Sting, Flair and Lex Luger. Luger and Sting co-owned Main Event Fitness in the Atlanta metro area while Flair owned a Gold's Gym in Charlotte.
Kuhlmann gave O'Haire some leads, and in November 1999 O'Haire packed his bags and headed to Atlanta to join the Power Plant, WCW's wrestling school, which started in January.
"The training was extremely rigorous. At times we (the students) had to do 1,000 squats and 500 push-ups and then go in the ring to wrestle."
O'Haire was a walk-in student with no experience on the independent circuit, unlike some of his fellow classmates.
"One of the reasons I felt I was going to excel was because of my kickfighting experience ... I was able to kick high and flip in the air thanks to my gymnastic experience. The instructors saw something they can work with."
O'Haire said he could not have succeeded without the guidance of fellow classmate and tag team partner, Mark Jindrak, 23, of Auburn, N.Y., and former wrestlers Mike Graham and Paul Orndorff.
"This kid was a winner 15 minutes into his tryout. He had a look about him, experience in martial arts and knew his way around the mat," Orndorff said.
Perfect timing
Still training at the Power Plant, Jindrak and O'Haire decided to form a tag team while touring Nashville on the independent - or non-WCW - circuit.
"Then one night we were wrestling and Vince Russo (WCW's creative director) came to see us in Nashville and he sat down with us and we told him what we do," Jindrak said.
Russo put the team in a match for WCW's syndicated program, "WCW Worldwide," and was impressed with the rookies.
"He told us we looked like brothers and complement each other real well. Then he said we were going on 'Nitro.' (Only a few months ago) we were in training and now we're in the show," Jindrak said.
So, on June 26, Jindrak's birthday, the unknown rookies were placed in a tag team contest against two of the company's more established stars - Juventud Guerrera and Rey Misterio Jr. That night, the rookies won.
New blood
Professional wrestling has become more mainstream over the past few years with newer and different personalities like Jeff Jarrett, Booker T and "The Rock." Russo has taken WCW, known for legends like Hogan, Flair and "Diamond" Dallas Page, and turned the tables by bringing in what he calls "The New Blood."
Russo hopes that O'Haire, along with Jindrak and other graduates of the Power Plant, will make WCW more popular than the juggernaut World Wrestling Federation, an organization that Russo once wrote for.
Being on television twice a week and involved in a major storyline has changed O'Haire's life.
"I was in a Wendy's in Charlotte one day and went to order my food and everyone behind the counter knew me. Then people wanted my autograph. It happens when I go to catch a movie, too. It embarrasses me because I feel I don't deserve this," he said.
Since arriving in WCW, not many folks in the Lowcountry have had a chance to see his face on television.
"I've known Sean and his family for some 20 years. I knew he did a stint in boxing but didn't know he went on to wrestling," said Hilton Head Island Mayor Tom Peeples. "I'm not a big wrestling fan, but I am going to check him out."
Orndorff, speaking as if he were a proud father, said, "Sean's athletic ability, his physical and mental condition, everything about him ... he is way ahead of schedule and I know he is going to be a huge name in this business."