Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 23, 1991 TAG: 9103230059
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JANE SEE WHITE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Three hundred and eighty-five pounds riding on a 6-foot frame.
A 21-inch neck.
A 60-inch waist.
A 60-inch chest.
All perched above relatively dainty size 12 feet.
Put them all together and what do you get? Rolling Thunder, a 26-year-old Roanoker who's just won - maybe subjugated is a better word? - the American Championship Wrestling group's Universal Heavyweight Championship.
That is a big deal - especially since Mike Staples, a big wrestler with warm brown eyes and a gentle gap-toothed smile, is the first black wrestler to take home the heavyweight belt.
If you have doubts about whether professional wrestling is a genuine athletic competition or merely a really big show, then observe Mike Staples' pride at being the champ. It's for real.
"I made history as the first black ACW heavyweight champion," he says softly. "My family is really proud."
Family is mom, Pauline, a private-duty nurse in Roanoke, and six older siblings - four brothers (one, says Staples, is bigger than he is) and two sisters. Mike's father died in 1983.
Staples got interested in professional wrestling as soon as he stumbled across it on television, when he was 6. He took up wrestling in school and aftergraduating from William Fleming in 1982 went to a training camp in Charlotte runby the National Wrestling Alliance.
He launched his career as Mahammed Jabar Rodan, but became Rolling Thunder not long after: He was in Hartford for an International Championship Wrestling match and a promoter simply announced he was changing Staples' name.
Staples has wrestled all around the country - Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Phoenix - but his favorite venue so far is Los Angeles, where he performed before a sold-out arena packed with 10,000 fans.
"I love wrestling fans. They come out and support me," he says. "They make me feel good, rooting for me."
Staples has been with the ACW about four years; he is, he says, one of about three black wrestlers on his circuit.
He wrestles every weekend, mostly in school or YMCA gyms in small Southwest Virginia towns for crowds of 150 or 200. Rolling Thunder won the heavyweight belt in an ACW match in Floyd on Feb. 2, nuking a wrestler named Eclipso. He's defended his title a couple of times since then.
Garbed in a black costume dotted with white stars, Rolling Thunder is no malevolent maelstrom. He's a good guy in the ring - and the fans are in his corner most of the time, Staples says: "I'm a fan favorite."
His signature move is the "power slam," a body slam he uses to wrap up a match. "When he does it to another guy, he goes down with him," says ACW Southwest Virginia coordinator Mike Weddle. Another characteristic Rolling Thunder attack is "The Spear," says Weddle, in which he "comes off the ropes and jumps into them with a shoulder block."
Despite his success, Staples hasn't given up his day job at the Radford Arsenal (he prefers not to discuss it, noting a bit ominously that it's "government work.").
"I've had a chance to go into wrestling full-time, but you have to give up a lot - do all that traveling," he says. "I'm not ready to do that."
The money he's making now in wrestling is good, he says. He goes into each meet with a contract and, win or lose, he takes home around $250 to $300 a night. But, he says, "I win 95 percent of the time."
Staples will be defending his championship more often than his predecessors have had to, Weddle says. "We're not going to get him tied up in grudge feuds with the same guy over and over the way Eclipso did," Weddle says. "He'll be defending it almost every week against different wrestlers. We're trying to give everybody a shot at it."
At the Salvation Army gym in Roanoke tonight Staples will defend against Ruthless Roger Anderson.
"I expect to win," Staples says with a small smile.
And he expects to continue in professional wrestling "for at least the next 20 years.
"You get to meet a lot of people and they're real nice." he says. "I just really enjoy it."
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB