Free Batista Unleashed by Dave Batista Page B

located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. There’s a lot of wrestling history in that area; Vince McMahon’s father used to do television tapings there before World Wrestling Federation expanded into a national franchise. It’s not so far from New York and other big cities that you can’t get there in a few hours, but it’s far enough off the beaten track that a young guy can learn the trade without being completely distracted.
    MY FRIENDS WERE THERE FOR ME
    Like any other school, the Wild Samoan Training Center charges tuition. Not only did I have to come up with that, but I needed money to live on. Angie was working, but she wasn’t making all that much money and there was no chance of her supporting both of us.
    So I talked to my friends Jonathan Meisner and Richard Salas. Both Jonathan and Richard have been my friends for a long time; even today, they’re still two of my very closest friends. I’ve known Richard since high school, when he and I and his brother Wilbur—another close friend—wrestled together. He’s Filipino and we had a little clique going back then. I still kid him because he hooked me up with my first wife—though believe me, I don’t hold it against him. I met Jonathan a few years later through Richard, and we’ve been incredibly close for years and years. He still helps me out. I can’t even tell you how much he helps me out. He’s my closest friend in the world.
    When I went to them and told them what I wanted to do, they put their money where their friendship was. They bankrolled everything for me. It was probably around $150,000 altogether. They never ever once said no; they never even asked when they were going to get the money back. All they said was, “We know you can make it.”
    Really, they made my dream possible for me. They bankrolled the whole thing. They just did it on friendship. Those are friends. Real friends. I love them both very much.
    WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
    We all went up to Pennsylvania together, my wife, Angie, and Jonathan and Richard, to check out the school.
    Afa was there. I recognized him immediately.
    And in a way, he recognized me. He came up to me and said, “Where’ve you been?”
    It was like I was the student he’d been looking for his entire life. He treated me like a son right off. Afa, he’s a big guy. He’s from a family of big guys. But there were no big guys for him to train there. Until I came. I was kind of like his pet project—his little toy.
    To this day, I think of Afa as a member of my family. I call him Pops. Anytime Pops calls me up to do an appearance, if my schedule permits, I make it my business to help him out. I’ve helped him raise money for his charity organization. It’s a debt I owe to him as a wrestler, and also as a person. He’s really been that good to me. I love him for that.
    ALLENTOWN
    We moved to Allentown, close to Afa. We packed our stuff in a tiny car—my wife owned a Honda Del Sol. I don’t know if you remember the Honda Del Sol, but it was a very small sports car, smaller than today’s Civic. You should have seen me in a Honda Del Sol. It was ridiculous.
    Anyway, we moved up to Allentown. The training center was in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, which is about forty-five minutes away. For a while, Angie was traveling back to Virginia to work, because it was so hard to find a job up there. We lived in the nicest apartment complex around, but just outside of where we lived, there were a lot of real rundown buildings.
    I don’t know about now, but at the time unemployment was real bad. Allentown was part of the “rust belt.” America’s industrial heartland had basically rusted by the late 1990s, as old industries suddenly found they couldn’t compete. A lot of jobs were lost when manufacturing started going overseas. Unemployment surged. Whole cities and regions were suddenly poor. You had a lot of social problems; still do.
    That pretty much described Allentown when I was there. There wasn’t a lot of work, and