Local Pro Wrestler Always Operating In The Ring

By Tom Archdeacon (Dayton Daily News)

As he was growing up outside Waynesville, he said his mom wanted him to be a doctor.

"Well, I've got the hospital scrubs," Mark Bryant said with a laugh. "But that's as far as it goes." Oh no. It goes a lot farther than that."

His operating room is a wrestling ring. And for years, he's come into it wearing those scrubs while trussed in a straight jacket with his long hair teased wildly above his head thanks to a full bottle of Rave Mega Hold hairspray

He was Maniac Mark Mustang, 325 pounds of bad guy, a heel in wrestling parlance and by the end of the match, he'd be covered in blood and peppered with the insults of a stoked-up crowd.

"I remember one time early in my career when I wrestled under a red sequined mask and claimed I was Russian & we were down in Manchester. That's a rough town and I looked out from the ring and actually saw people pulling out knives."

"When I went to leave that night, a police officer met me at the top of the stairs. I had a towel over my head and he says "Aren't you that Russian?"

"I nodded and he said, 'Boy, I need to follow you outta town.' Finally I told him, 'No you don't understand. It was just part of the show.' But he shook his head and said, 'No, boy, you don't understand. No matter what, these people think it's real.' And he did follow me outta town. Made me feel good. I'd done my job."

Bryant was telling this story the other night while sitting at the bar of the Bada Bing Lounge. He works on a highway crew during the day and is a bouncer at this Whipp Road club on weekends.

While things were pretty tame at the Bada Bing, this night the Lingerie Show wasn't until next Wednesday but he was seeing something he liked.

Immersed in the wrestling world, he was telling stories of matches against big names like King Kong Bundy, Ken Patera and Tommy "Wild Fire" Rich.

The 37-year-old Bryant now runs Maniac Championship Wrestling and Saturday night (7 p.m.) he's putting on a 10-bout show at the Kettering National Guard Armory on County Line Road. The main event is a Texas Bull Rope match that pits Chris "The Kid" McGraw and Big Brother Almighty.

Bryant, who still competes himself, got his best training in the mid-1990s from then-WWF star Al Snow of Lima.

Although he's wrestled across the state since then, Bryant admits there still are butterflies before he gets into the ring:

"I still get nervous and I used to just get beside myself. I was always worried how I'd do. It's like that line from the old David Allan Coe song, 'Boy, can you make folks feel what you feel inside?'

"And when you do, whether you're the heel or the baby face, there's no other feeling like holding the whole crowd in the palm of your hand."

Memories like that were what brought him out of a brief retirement following a torn ACL in a match and then a 3 1/2 year marriage that ended in divorce.

That's when he realized he'd trade one ring for the other.

"I figured what better way to rid my frustrations than to get back into the wrestling ring," he grinned. "That's as good of a release as I could ever get."

So maybe he didn't become a doc. He's a psychologist instead.