Local boy turns into 'Hurricane'
John Stagikas's part-time profession took him to Atlantic City on a recent night where, under an assumed name, he was slammed into a canvas mat, grabbed by the throat, and slung over the shoulder of a man who stands 7 feet tall and weighs 500 pounds.
Then he was taken down one last time. The job lasted about two minutes.
On that night at the Trump Plaza, he was not John Stagikas, Framingham High Class of 1997, but a wrestler called Hurricane John Walters, going up against
Stagikas, once a 140-pound football player in high school and a 2001 graduate of Assumption College in Worcester, where he played 2 years as a wide receiver, is pursuing his dream of reaching the top echelon of professional wrestling, the WWE.
He has wrestled in ''dark matches," preliminary bouts prior to televised WWE matches held at venues like the FleetCenter in Boston. His matches against some of the WWE's best wrestlers, such as Big Show, serve as auditions: Stagikas hopes to latch on full time with the WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation.
It was a quest that began while still in college, when Stagikas enrolled at former wrestling champion Walter ''Killer" Kowalski's school in Malden. Five months later, he was wrestling for no pay on the local circuits, which included matches at Suffolk Downs race track in East Boston, just hoping to get noticed.
''I remember the first day I went to Kowalski's school," said Stagikas, who has paid tribute to Kowalski by using his first name, Walter, as a last name in the ring. ''I walked up this long flight of stairs. It was dark and there was no heat in the building. It was like an old movie, and finally, there was Killer sitting in a chair and boy, was I intimidated. But once you enrolled in his school, you were a member for life."
Stagikas said Kowalski and Mike Hollow, head trainer at Chaotic Wrestling in North Andover, are his mentors.
''Kowalski always told me that to survive in the business, 'Make the people notice you,' " he said.
A communications major at Assumption, he graduated with a 3.2 grade point average. His college football career was cut short after an operation to remove a cyst from his throat. But by that time, wrestling had already taken precedence.
''Ever since his freshman year, John was interested in wrestling," said his former college roommate and football teammate, Ryan MacAllister. ''And once he set his mind to something, it was always a straight course to the end result. He got knocked around a lot as a football player, but he was a real tough kid and just picked himself up and came right back for the next play. It doesn't surprise me in the least that he has taken wrestling this far. He never did anything halfway."
His first paychecks were small: The World Wrestling Alliance paid him $25 per match. The income has improved as Stagikas has climbed the wrestling ladder, but he's not ready to leave his full-time job as a bartender and waiter at Applebee's in Hudson, where ''Hurricane" can count on some of his most loyal fans.
Stagikas, who has wrestled in 13 states, has done quite well with the independent wrestling federations and is a two-time heavyweight champion of Chaotic Wrestling. He also wrestles for the Ring of Honor, headquartered in Philadelphia, and the East Coast Wrestling Association out of Delaware. Next Saturday, he will appear in East Coast Wrestling's ''Super 8" Tournament in Wilmington, Del., which has been a longtime goal.
''It's basically the top eight wrestlers who are not under contract with the WWE -- wrestlers who are well known in their region but not nationally," Stagikas said. ''I try to wrestle in the quality shows, probably six times a month."
Stagikas, (who has a website, www.hurricanejohnwalters.com), has been both villain and good guy -- he's been on the straight and narrow lately -- during his wrestling career. He employs a quick, athletic, technical style, and he doesn't shave for a couple of days before a match just to look a bit meaner.
''If they see something in you that can make money," he said, ''then you could get a break. If not, I could wind up wrestling professionally in Japan, where a lot of Americans have gone."
Roger McDevitt, the business department chairman at Framingham High, recalled Stagikas as the kind of individual who worked hard to make his own breaks.
''I found out through his sister, Gina a couple of years ago that John had gone into professional wrestling, and at first, I couldn't believe it," McDevitt said. ''He was just a 140-pound special-teams football player here, and he only played one year. But I've followed his wrestling career through his website, and we've stayed in touch. I'm happy for him, because he was such a likable young man."
Stagikas has suffered an assortment of bumps, bruises, and sprains in his chosen sport. And while just about everyone knows that pro wrestling is strictly entertainment, Stagikas said that ''the hits are real and the canvas isn't soft."
''You've got to learn to fall the right way," he said, ''and you've got to take advantage of every opportunity."
And so, earlier this month, Stagikas traveled to Methuen, where he put his Chaotic Wrestling heavyweight title on the line against ''Intellectual" Arch Kincaid. There were the usual signs in the crowd like ''Marry Me," which Hurricane appreciates but isn't about to follow up on.
The finish was, well, chaotic.
''The referee got knocked out, the sub ref also got knocked out, I got hit in the head with my opponent's New England Championship belt, then one of the refs woke up and counted me out," Stagikas said.
But when you're Hurricane John Walters, you're not down and out for very long.
Here and thereThe fifth annual Miles C. Page Memorial Scholarship 5K/10K Fun Walk will be held at 11 a.m. next Sunday, with proceeds benefiting a fund that provides a $2,000 annual scholarship for a scholar-athlete graduating Wellesley High School. Page was a founder of the Pop Warner football program in Massachusetts and was a coach and mentor for Wellesley youth in several sports. He was also the town's veterans' services officer. For information about registration fees and specific race times, call 781-235-6062 or e-mail mpage6175@aol.com. . . .
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