Wrestler’s enormous heart
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- January
- 26
Looking back over a couple of weeks’ worth of newspapers, I couldn’t help but think back to meeting pro wrestler Paul Fuchs of Sloatsburg, who was found dead at his parents’ home earlier this month.
It was in 2007, when he and two other Suffern High School alumni — Scott Wright and Kevin Clark — were visiting the Camp Venture Select Day Habilitation Program in Stony Point.
The trio, all of them professional wrestlers, were there to promote a benefit for Venture and for Suffern’s High School’s Touchdown Club, which supports the school football teams.
Fuchs, who went by the name Paul E. Normous, was just that. But he was clearly a gentle soul.
He told me how he was chasing a dream of making it to the big time with World Wrestling Entertainment, the successor to the old WWF. He had one shot, but didn’t get a contract.
Then there was a setback, one that makes you think twice about just how fake the wrestling action is.
An opponent had come off the ropes making a spin move, he told me. “I didn’t get out of the way. His knee landed on my face. If people think this is fake,” he said, “those must have been fake screws in my fake face.”
He was coming back from the injury, still on that quest, hoping the benefit show at his alma mater might attract enough attention to get another call from the WWE.
He was still chasing the dream when he got a bit part in “The Wrestler.” They even mention him by name.
But the day it opened was the day the quest ended, where it began, back home in Sloatsburg.
This entry was posted
on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 3:42 pm by Bob Baird.
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Bob, he worked out for years at Premier Fitness in Nanuet. You should call Lorna or Ellen over there for comment if you’re thinking about writing a column. They knew him pretty well – he was a fixture there. We saw him all the time.
After reading this blog makes me want to start my own