At the end of the other week, hundreds of schoolchildren from Round Rock, Texas came face to face with the World’s Strongest Guy.
Texas native Mark Henry, a past Olympic weightlifter, record-breaking powerlifter and Proficient Wrestling World Champion, was joined by a group of ex-NFL stars as well as his WWE best friend, Mark Callaway, AKA The Undertaker.
The occasion was created to promote the importance of education, wellbeing and exercise in time for that new school term. Henry flew in from New York in order to visit the children and inspire them to better things for coming school months. As part of the day’s celebrations, Henry pulled a Semi Truck for a great distance in front of a group of amazed kids, event organizers and parents.
Mark Henry’s inventory of athletic accomplishments is amazing. He competed in both the 1992 and 1996 Olympic games as a weightlifter; Henry was also a Gold Medal winner in the 1995 Pan American Games and was named Drug-Free World Champion Powerlifter in 1995. He was named U.S powerlifting champion twice. He’s a reigning world record holder in several areas is credited with the biggest raw squat and raw powerlifting total ever performed by a drug-tested athlete.
Henry is also a three-time U.S National Weightlifting Champion, an American Open winner, Two-Time U.S Olympic Festival Champion and NACAC Champion. In 2002, he won the very first annual Arnold Strongman Classic Competition and has publicly performed many feats of strength, as well as pushing a tank.
Mark Henry’s declaration to being the ‘World’s Strongest Man’ is fairly dubious and never thought sanctioned by most organizations, but having set lifting records all through his life and winning no less than one strongman contest, his claim is respected by most (and also the visual evidence is tough to deny).
Henry has also had a 17-year career in Professional Wrestling, competing in the WWE (formerly WWF) ever since corporation owner Vince McMahon learned that Henry was a wrestling fan. His consequent profession has seen him win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship two times, as well as the ECW Championship and also the WWE European Championship.
Notwithstanding his no-nonsense on-screen facade (a personality who regularly welcomes his enemies to the ‘Hall of Pain’) Henry is extremely active within the ‘Make a Wish’ Foundation, (a charity group that grants wishes to children with life-threatening or fatal illnesses) as well as many anti-drug and anti-bullying campaigns.
When interviewed on the day, Henry said: “I would like the children to see what I didn’t have. I did not have a great deal growing up. I wish more people did it for me, so I try to do it in kind.”
SOURCES: http://www.keyetv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/wwe-star-mark-henry-meets-round-rock-kids-11058.shtml
http://pop-break.com/2013/05/08/rant-a-mania-wwe-the-make-a-wish-foundation/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_henry
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/Bios/henry_mark.html
No comments:
Post a Comment