By Judy Clabes
NKyTribune editor
Life doesn’t always take you where you meant to go when you started out. More accurately, life intervenes — and you take directions.
Wrestler Elliot Warshaw didn’t even start out with that name. He always enjoyed “the weird, wild spectacle of professional wrestling,” but when he chose a path as a young adult, he chose art and design.
As Ricky Henry of Alexandra, he followed a “safer” path through life — until the pandemic hit and it seemed the whole world was on lockdown. He waited, with the rest of us, for a time when things would return to normal. Then, asked, like the rest of us, will things ever return to normal?
But life intervened again.
“My first thought wasn’t ‘Okay, great! Time off to relax’ or ‘Cool! I can finally finish those video games I’ve been putting off,” he said, and then his mind went directly to those with “mental health challenges and the torment this would cause not being able to be outside or in a normal social setting.”
Ricky knows that challenge first hand, having a loved one who “fights this horrible disease every single day.”
So, he set a goal.
• “I’m going to wrestle a single professional wrestling match. Not only that, I am going to do it for charity and raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Awareness and Prevention.”
Enter Elliot Warshaw who started training with Cody Hawk, hall of fame trainer, and will be wrestling in the main event of the evening for the Future Great Wrestling’s ‘Fight for Life’ in Hamilton on November 27.
“I subjected my body to the grueling torture and torment that it would take to get this 37-year-old dad in ‘ring shape,” he said.
Ouch, right? Right.
For the first month (over a year ago in July 2020), the Ohio Athletic Commission prohibited contact, so Warshaw ran the ropes, took “bumps” on his back, and did intense cardio training. His back was completely black and blue for weeks. As things started to slowly re-open, he continued training for the next year and became a part of an extended wrestling family at Future Great Wrestling.
He found not just a wrestling family — but great friends, including ‘The Librarian’ Leva Bates from TBS and TNT’s AEW Wrestling on cable TV who will be at the show as a special guest in a “women’s wrestling dream match’ with Shawna Reed… along with viral internet sensation Frank the Christmas Gargoyle.
The group has already raised thousands of dollars with help from Cincy Shirts for the cause, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Tickets are on sale now at fgwfightforlife.eventbrite.com and they are limited.
The event includes wrestling, live music, and comedy by Garrett Titlebaum.
And, of course, a debut match featuring Elliot Warshaw, wrestling with a purposeful heart.
