Wrestle Strong Dojo, By Joey Foxx
By Joey Foxx (Wrestle Strong Dojo Heavyweight Champion)
Adrenaline rushing; nerves kicking in. The crowds chanting “Draven’s gonna kill you!”. All I can think about is the pain in my right arm from the three matches in the twenty-four hours passed. Stepping through the curtain, all I can do is remind myself to breathe. The next few steps and adrenaline takes over.
The next thought I have is like coming out of a state of shock; standing over a legend with as the new heavyweight champion. Nothing beats that feeling, except maybe wrestling in Japan.
Like most wrestlers as a kid, I loved wrestling, I breathed it. It was something that I was excited to sit down and watch on television when it was on. It was something that I wanted to do every afternoon on the trampoline, my opponent a giant Sylvester plushie, complete with a garbage bin for doing coast to coast and Swanton bombs off the back fence onto the bin (thankfully, my parents never knew about that).
As kids we all have that one match that stands out to us. To me, that match was Shawn Michaels v The Undertaker (Wrestlemania 25). As I grew older, and started my wrestling career, I’ve started to notice I take a lot of my style from those favourites, especially HBK.
Wrestle Strong Dojo has helped me get where I am today.
When asked why I picked Wrestle Strong Dojo, I tend to say the same thing. If you look at it from a career standpoint, nobody has lasted longer in the Australian scene without getting injured than Amy Action and Dean Draven, who have a combined forty-one years between them, and there are few who have the vast knowledge and understanding of the industry that they do.
At the end of the day, you want to entertain the crowd and go home safe and be able to have longevity in your careers as wrestlers. The wealth of knowledge that goes back to 1995, and still counting, is unreal. Holding championships from coast to coast and wrestling some of the best there is to wrestle.
Dean Draven has been in the ring with Japanese Legend’s Super Delphine, Takashi Sasaki and T-Hawk, Australian wrestling great Ryukyu Dog Dingo, and former WWE superstar and current AEW wrestler Buddy Murphy, to mention a few.
At Wrestle Strong, we train four days a week with extra classes available for people with aspirations in wrestling. I tend to train in our dojo five to seven days a week which has led to opportunities unheard of for someone with two and bit years’ experience.
With the guidance of Amy and Dean I’ve been able to wrestle in Japan and be in the ring with greats like Ryukyu Dog Dingo, the Kubota Brothers and Mitsu Yoshida, as well as wrestling Dean himself, Robbie Zucco, and Shep Alexander back here in Australia.
They’re all about creating opportunities, we have twenty plus shows this year. So, to me, it’s kind of a no brainer why I picked Wrestle Strong Dojo, and why I think others should.
Looking to the future, short term goals are wrestling interstate across Australia and New Zealand to gain experience from other promotions. I would like to return to Japan at some point and work with FTO Oita and Ryukyu Dragon in Okinawa, and other promotions.
Long term, my aim is to get into the WWE. Each day, I put in the work to reach that goal.
Thank you to all who took time to read this article.
For socials, and ways to see matches, visit the following.
Instagram: @thefoxx_wsd
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WrestleStrongDojo
Tickets to future shows can be found here
