{"id":34010,"date":"2016-10-25T12:08:09","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T17:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=34010"},"modified":"2016-10-25T12:09:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T17:09:19","slug":"wwe-touts-latest-nine-recruits-added-performance-center-including-ex-nfl-play-standout-indy-wrestlers-big-damo-roderick-strong-tommy-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/10\/25\/wwe-touts-latest-nine-recruits-added-performance-center-including-ex-nfl-play-standout-indy-wrestlers-big-damo-roderick-strong-tommy-end\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE touts latest nine recruits added to Performance Center including ex-NFL player, standout indy wrestlers Big Damo, Roderick Strong, Tommy End"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-550399973\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>WWE latest class of recruits for their Performance Center in Orlando, Fla. includes a 6-6 Army veteran and rugby player, a 6-5 college wrestler who majored in French and\u00a0Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, a 5-11 former NFL running back, and a highly regarded indy wrestler from Holland, Tommy End. The nine new recruits join over 65 others training at WWE&#8217;s training facility with hopes of eventually earning a main roster spot.<\/p>\n<p>WWE touts that recruits, besides being trained to be pro wrestlers (well, they don&#8217;t us that term of course), &#8220;<span class=\"s1\">will be immersed in <\/span><span class=\"s9\">WWE\u2019s Professional Development program that focuses on four key pillars of development \u2013 Life Skills, Education, Wellness, and Career Success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The following is WWE&#8217;s list of new trainees and the biographic information they provided on each in a press release provided to PWTorch today:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s4\">&#8211;<\/span><span class=\"s1\"><b>Alvin Abitz <\/b>(Fond du Lac, Wisconsin) \u2013 Standing 6 feet 6 inches and weighing 285 pounds, Abitz is an Army veteran with a rugby and kickboxing background.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s4\">&#8211;<\/span><span class=\"s1\"><b>Theophilus Agbi<\/b> (Brooklyn, New York) \u2013 At 6 feet 5 inches and 270 pounds, Agbi attended Amherst College where he wrestled and was named to the NCWA All-American team in 2013 and 2015. Agbi graduated from Amherst College with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in French, as well as<\/span> <span class=\"s1\">Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought (LJST).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>-Sarah Bridges<\/b> (Sellersburg, Indiana) \u2013 Also known as \u201cCrazy Mary Dobson,\u201d Bridges trained out of the Kaientai Dojo in Japan.\u00a0 With four years of wrestling experience, Bridges has worked for Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW) in Scotland, HXC Wrestling in England, westside Extreme Wrestling (wXw) in Germany, and multiple companies in Japan.\u00a0 She was named to Pro Wrestling Illustrated\u2019s Top 50 Female Wrestlers list in 2014 and 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>-Demitrius Bronson <\/b>(Gilbert, Arizona) \u2013 Standing 5 feet 11 inches and weighing 215 pounds, Bronson played running back for the Seattle Seahawks and Miami Dolphins.\u00a0 Prior to his NFL experience, he attended Eastern Washington University where he played football and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>-Tom Budgen<\/b> (Amsterdam, Holland) \u2013 Also known as \u201cTommy End,\u201d Budgen has extensive experience wrestling in the UK, Japan and U.S for Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW), Progress Wrestling, westside Xtreme wrestling (wXw), Evolve, Pro Wrestling Guerilla (PWG) and Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW) where he has held multiple titles throughout his career.<\/span><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-1825666543\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s5\">&#8211;<\/span><span class=\"s1\"><b>Taynara Melo de Carvalho <\/b>(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) \u2013 At 5 feet 6 inches and 125 pounds, Carvalho has a black belt in Judo and participated in the 2016 Olympic trials in Rio de Janeiro. She is fluent in Portuguese.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>-Victoria Gonzalez<\/b> (Harlingen, Texas) \u2013 Standing 6 feet and weighing 175 pounds, Gonzalez trained out of the Gulf Coast Wrestling Alliance (GCWA) in Corpus Christi, Texas.\u00a0 Her father, Ricky Gonzalez, worked with WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels at Texas Wrestling Academy (TWA) and made appearances for a variety of independent wrestling circuits.\u00a0 She is fluent in Spanish.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>-Chris Lindsey<\/b> (Tampa, Florida) \u2013 Also known as \u201cRoderick Strong,\u201d Lindsey has trained with WWE Legend Jim \u201cThe Anvil\u201d Neidhart and has more than 13 years of experience on the independent wrestling circuits with Ring of Honor (ROH), New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), TNA, Dragon Gate, Pro Wrestling Guerilla (PWG) and Evolve.\u00a0 Strong has held multiple titles throughout his career including World Champion (ROH &amp; PWG) and Tag Team Champion (ROH &amp; PWG).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>-Damian Mackle<\/b> (Belfast, Ireland) \u2013 Also known as \u201cBig Damo,\u201d Mackle has trained with WWE Superstar Finn B\u00e1lor, WWE trainer Robbie Brookside, and Johnny Moss of National Wrestling Alliance UK Hammerlock (NWA).\u00a0 He has had stints at Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW), Scottish Wrestling Alliance, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) and TNA holding multiple titles throughout his career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-2314522093\"><div id=\"pwtor-970811590\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>WWE latest class of recruits for their Performance Center in Orlando, Fla. includes a 6-6 Army veteran and rugby player, a 6-5 college wrestler who majored in French and\u00a0Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, a 5-11 <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/10\/25\/wwe-touts-latest-nine-recruits-added-performance-center-including-ex-nfl-play-standout-indy-wrestlers-big-damo-roderick-strong-tommy-end\/\" title=\"WWE touts latest nine recruits added to Performance Center including ex-NFL player, standout indy wrestlers Big Damo, Roderick Strong, Tommy End\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[3136,4107,230,172,3026],"class_list":["post-34010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prowrestlingnews","category-news_wwe","tag-big-damo","tag-crazy-mary-dobson","tag-performance-center","tag-roderick-strong","tag-tommy-end"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2016\/10\/StrongRoderick_ValleyJim3x2_600.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34012,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34010\/revisions\/34012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}