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Accomplishing

Posted: Feb 21st 2010 By: mikeiles

The following is a MySpace blog from native Oklahoman "Impressive" Anthony Wayne, who is currently wrestling professionally mostly in Tennessee. The opinions and views expressed here are those of Anthony Wayne only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of any staff member of Oklafan.

Accomplishing. What does that mean? Is accomplishing graduating school at age 15 with a 4.0 GPA, starting a company and making ten million dollars before you're 25? Is accomplishing simply going to your job every day, doing it because you have a wife and kids at home, and bringing home your paycheck to keep yourself and them fed, clothed, and sheltered? If you're less fortunate, is accomplishing meaning that a kind stranger you meet on the street will give you a $10 bill for lunch and the shelter will have a bed for you that night? You see, the word accomplishing can mean so many different things. It's a wide, wide word to use. Let me tell you what it means to me...

Accomplishing to me means that the 11 year old boy who saw professional wrestling for the first time on TV and decided that that was what I was going to do with my life went to the ring at USWO last night and wrestled a great match against LT Falk ten years to the day after I first set foot in a ring.

Accomplishing to me is from age 14 on, lifting weights in a filthy barn every day with a weight set my dad bought me for $10 at a yard sale, dreaming of someday being a cruiserweight champion, and seeing that come true barely a year into my career.

Accomplishing to me is spending every day of my life from age 11 to age 19 when I started wrestling with zero support from friends or family as far as the wrestling business was concerned, and busting my rear end to prove every one of them wrong.

Accomplishing to me is my trainer, now 47 year veteran Mr. Ebony Tom Jones telling me that if I was a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, I'd be a World Champion somewhere.

Accomplishing to me is absorbing the knowledge that so many, more than I could name here, who helped me along the way, and now, ten years in, being able to give that back to young guys who come to me for advice.

Accomplishing to me is when guys who have been doing this longer than I have come to me for advice.

Accomplishing to me is coming back to a dressing room, seeing every other wrestler on the card sitting around the monitor, and they break into applause when I walk in after my match.

Accomplishing to me is having done what I love, the only thing I've ever wanted to do, professional wrestling, in over 40 promotions in 14 different states, holding 22 titles in these 10 years.

Accomplishing to me is that because of this business, I have friends I could count on at any time, any day, anywhere, for anything I could possibly need, and a wife that I wouldn't trade for all the riches this world has to offer.

Most of all, accomplishing to me is being able, each night when I lay my head down, to thank God for the blessing of having spent the last ten years doing exactly what I want and love to do. Thank you Tom Jones, thank you everybody who has ever had any part in helping me along the way, and thank you God.