Kindergarten teacher moonlights as pro wrestler
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- At 11:30 a.m., Steve Damico guides kindergartners seated on a carpet printed with ABC’s through the ins-and-outs of colonial life, “Why did the farmers go to town?”
At 6 p.m., Syther, a pro wrestler fluent in gibberish, brushes neon green paint on his face in a men’s restroom. He’ll brawl against Big Bully Parker, among others, in about an hour. He's pumped. “I feel good. I feel tan. I feel like I’m in decent enough shape.”
Many of us have alter egos, but Damico's transmutation is radical. Is Mr. Damico Syther? Or is Syther Mr. Damico? It’s hard to know. Mr. Damico wears a ponytail. Syther leaves his long hair loose and wild.The pair do share traits: the even bronze from a tanning bed, their age (27 years) and a muscularity framed by exuberance.
Syther excuses himself to hash out the rumble with his rivals, “That’s more of the closed-door secret part. You get to watch it unfold.”
The crypt, the birth of a creature
A few weeks earlier, students huffed and grunted as they bounced off the ropes of a 16-by-16 foot ring in an industrial space just off the interstate, east of Fort Myers. Local wrestlers used to set up the ring in a backyard to practice before Damico opened The Crypt.
There’s a banker, a bartender and a 15-year-old girl among the 10 students this evening. It’s an even split of men and women.
“Don’t quit! GO! GO! GO!” Damico barked, surveying his protégés. Damico wore a black T-shirt asserting, “Wrestling is my girlfriend.”
This statement is not exactly true; wrestling is more like his conjoined twin.
Damico traces his infatuation to a WWE wrestling show he watched at 3 years old in his Long Island living room. (Though this seems unbelievable, studies have shown our first palpable memories are formed around this age.)
“I was watching a guy, the Berzerker, trying to stab another wrestler, the Undertaker, with a sword and I was hooked."
His dad later took him to wrestling shows. At one show, Damico, then in high school, pointed to a stocky guy in tights. His name: The Iceberg. “I know that guy,” his father recalls him saying. “He’s a teacher at my school.”
The Iceberg, a.k.a. Gary the special education teacher, referred Damico to a school run by Mikey Whipwreck, anExtreme Championship Wrestling triple-crown winner. But early on, Damico realized his 5-foot-5 stature precluded assured fortune and fame.
"Wrestling is filled with these giants. ...I know that I’m not physically what you see when you watch television."
He just craved to be in the ring.
For the rest of Damico's story, click here:
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