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Like most sports, becoming a top wrestler takes years of hard work and dedication, which is especially difficult without a good support system. Very few are able to do it without support, but the history of wrestling is filled with such figures. Many young boys and girls who run to get away from their troubles at home, eventually becoming household names in the wrestling world.
In this article, we look at wrestlers who overcame the odds they faced in childhood to follow their dreams and succeed.
#11 CM Punk
To say that CM Punk had a difficult childhood would be an understatement. Punk's mother had bipolar disorder, while his dad suffered from alcoholism. In fact, it was his dad's alcohol issues that made Punk go Straight Edge, as he never wanted to end up like his father.
The family issues were so severe that Punk had to be adopted by his best friend's family at a very young age. Pro-wrestling acted as an escape from real life for him, which lured Punk more towards the business.
Fast forward to now, and CM Punk is one of the greatest ever to do it.
#10 Ric Flair
Ric Flair was stolen from a hospital when he was a baby. He spent his formative years at the notorious Tennessee Children’s Home Society. He has admitted in the past that life at the orphanage was very difficult. He has said that the turning point came when he was adopted by Kathleen and Richard Fleihr.
Flair still had problems as a child, including stealing his parents’ car to go on drives and underage drinking, which led to Flair being sent to boarding school.
Flair’s stated on many occasions that without Verne Gagne’s influence on him, with Gagne introducing Flair to the world of pro wrestling and forcing him to stick to it, there wouldn’t be a Ric Flair.
#9 AJ Styles
The Phenomenal One did not have a phenomenal childhood. He grew up in a low-income household with an alcoholic, abusive father. AJ Styles has said in interviews that he wasn’t a wrestling fan as a child because his family couldn’t afford cable. He grew up mentally as a child very early on because he had to, to get by. He has said in the past that the only reason he entered wrestling school was because his friends at the time were doing it.
Styles has since then gone on to become one of the best wrestlers of this generation, having won titles everywhere he has wrestled. For 12 years he was the face of TNA before moving to New Japan Pro Wrestling where he became a two-time IWGP World Heavyweight Champion. He finally made his WWE debut at the 2016 Royal Rumble and is a three-time WWE Champion.
#8 Booker T
Booker T was the youngest of 8 children. By the time he was 14, he’d lost both his parents and ended up running with the wrong people. Booker was sentenced to 5 years in prison for armed robbery at a Wendy’s establishment where he used to work. He ended up serving 19 months of the sentence.
When he left prison, he started training to become a wrestler at the insistence of his older brother Stevie Ray. Booker got his first break as G.I. Bro at a Western Wrestling Alliance. Despite WWA closing soon after, Booker and Stevie Ray continued to wrestle on the Texas independent wrestling circuit before being spotted by Skandar Akbar, who got the duo signed to the Global Wrestling Federation.
Their run there as the Ebony Experience was successful, which led to them being signed by WCW in 1993. The rest, as they say, is history.
#7 R-Truth: One of the most entertaining wrestlers of all times
R-Truth grew up in Charlotte, NC in abject poverty. He and his father sold marijuana while he was still a child in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. Truth dropped out of high school at 16 to pursue a career in music. He made money to fund his music career during this time by dealing drugs on the side and ended up being arrested and incarcerated for 13 months.
Truth lived in a halfway house following his release from prison and continued to focus on his music career. After two years without luck, he contacted Jackie Crockett of the NWA, whom he’d met since his release and expressed his desire to become a wrestler.
Truth debuted in PWF in 1997 and spent the next three years either training or on the road. Since then he’s enjoyed multiple runs in WWE and also TNA, where he became the first recognized African-American NWA World Champion and the fourth African American wrestler to win a World Heavyweight title.
#6 Rowdy Roddy Piper
The late Rowdy Roddy Piper grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where his father was an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Roddy had a difficult relationship with his father and was expelled from school at a young age for carrying a switchblade. Following a falling out with his father, Piper hit the open road and spent a lot of his teenage years in youth hostels.
His first brush with professional wrestling came at local gyms where he picked up odd jobs running errands for several professional wrestlers. Before becoming a professional wrestler, Piper was an amateur wrestler and former Golden Gloves boxer. His first pro wrestling match came against the legendary Larry Hennig in the AWA.
#5 Jon Moxley
Jon Moxley had a childhood that no one would be envious of. Most of his grim childhood was spent in public housing in Cincinnati, where Moxley essentially raised himself.
As a child, he found solitude in wrestling soon after discovering it. He rented old WCW and WWF videos to watch the Monday Night Wars unfold, but his real fascination came with the dark, edgy, violent world of ECW. Wrestling acted as Moxley's distraction from the real world and the troubles that came with it.
With no other options in hand, Moxley had always known what he’d wanted to do with his life, be a professional wrestler. He dropped out of high school at 16 and joined a wrestling school.
Moxley's dream finally came true when he signed with WWE in 2011. In 2019, he signed with AEW, becoming one of the few wrestlers to have held the promotion's World Championship.
#4 Batista
Dave Batista’s parents divorced when he was young. He’s spoken in the past about how he came from a poor family as he recounted how his grandfather would take in odd jobs to put food on the table. By the age of thirteen, he’d gone on to steal cars for a living.
He’s recounted in the past how bodybuilding saved his life. It was at a bodybuilding show that he met Curt Hennig, who got him a stint at WCW’s Power Plant around the new millennium. In another colossal WCW blunder, they told Batista he’d never make it as a wrestler. Batista later made his professional debut for WXW before soon being signed to a developmental contract for the WWE.
#3 AJ Lee
AJ Lee has in the past described her childhood as having to live in motels, other people's houses, and her car. After graduating from high school, AJ Lee worked several part-time jobs in order to save up the money she needed to both support her family and enroll in wrestling school. She also attended NYU for six months before her family’s floundering financial situation forced her to quit.
Shortly after leaving university, AJ Lee started training under Jay Lethal to become a wrestler. In 2009, she invested all her money to fly down to a WWE tryout which ended up changing her life and made her one of the most famous female wrestlers in the industry.
#2 Sweet Saraya
WWE fans know Sweet Saraya (Julia Hamer-Bevis) better as the mother of two-time WWE Divas Champion, Paige. Julia's childhood was littered with abusive behavior from her mother and stepfather which caused her to run away from home at the tender age of 15.
At the age of 18, Saraya had to have her stomach pumped after she overdosed on pills, which prompted the then-young Saraya to get clean and turn things around. She met wrestler Ricky Knight while working as a chef in Norfolk. The two became inseparable and she left her job and joined him on the road.
She initially worked on making the wrestlers' costumes and setting up the ring before Knight asked her to join him on stage as his manager. She later started training with a view to wrestling herself.
Today, she has two children and a step-child, all three of whom are professional wrestlers. The family runs the World Association of Wrestling (WAW) promotion in Norwich. She has long been considered as one of the best women’s wrestlers in Britain and is considered one of the best women’s wrestlers to never wrestle for WWE.
#1 Chyna
Chyna’s parents divorced when she was about 4. Since then, she’d had three different stepfathers. Her first stepfather threatened suicide at one point, and her biological father battled alcoholism. As a teenager, she battled bulemia and drug addiction. She left home at 16 when her mother tried to force her into drug rehabilitation, choosing instead to go live with her biological father.
She began bodybuilding soon after, which she’d claimed in the past to have saved her life. She also worked several jobs while in college: a cocktail waitress, singer in a band, and a 900-number chat line worker.
After college, Chyna continued on with her fitness career as a bodybuilder, before joining “Killer” Kowalski’s wrestling school. She would soon meet Triple H and Shawn Michaels at an independent wrestling show that changed her life.
After sending in a videotape of her performances to the then WWF, she was approached by WCW while waiting on the WWF’s decision. She initially accepted WCW’s offer before reneging when she learned from Shane McMahon that WWF was about to hire her.
She made her WWF debut as Triple H’s bodyguard at WWF In Your House 13: Final Four and the rest is history. Chyna went on to become one of the biggest wrestlers of WWF’s Attitude Era and a household name. She broke barriers wrestling men and became the first and only female Intercontinental Champion when she defeated Jeff Jarrett for the title.
May her legacy live on.
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