The Day We Met

During my years of fandom in New York and Florida, I met several wrestlers in person. Here in Minnesota, I met even more - and these were the guys I really liked all these years - out of their wrestling element and in their everyday personnas. So you can imagine that it was terrific when I finally met Curt face-to-face.

He was hanging out by the front door of THE GYM in Fridley when I signed up for membership in Feb. 1995 and looked like he expected me to ask him for an autograph or say hello when I walked in. I was so shocked, I high-tailed it straight to the back of the gym and talked to Wayne Bloom first, followed by about 20 other people before I finally made it to Curt. By the time I got to him, he was in seemingly involved conversation with a young boy and his grandfather, but after a few minutes, he looked over them at me and politely asked, "I'm sorry - did you want an autograph?"

He did a lot to help me relax, as he saw right through me (and as my camera didn't seem to want to work at the moment either). Curt gave a squeeze to my shoulder, while that grandfather took our picture. I think I was shaking like a leaf. If you think these guys don't notice one face out of the millions of fans they see all the time, it's not true!

I managed to ask him if he had ever thought about signing-on with WCW. At the time I would have loved to have seen that move! He responded that they had given him a few calls and that he had thought about it...

The next time I saw Curt, he was handing me a trophy for my first bench press competition - the beginning of my involvement in the sport of powerlifting. And then four years went by, and then I began to see him train at The Gym in Plymouth, where I had joined. Isn't it ironic... or should I say... perfect?... how things happen?

Curt Hennig with the shy version
of myself at The Gym In Fridley,
February 1995