Plenty Left In The Tank For Lewis

I will never forget when I first stepped into a wrestling ring with Adrian Lewis. It was 2004, and the amount of meat on my body could have fit into a can of tuna sold at a grocery store. Lewis stood before me, a man easily twice my size.

The show was set in the backroom of a bowling alley in Mt. Pleasant. A crowd of maybe fifty were in attendance. The promotion's World Title was on the line. Lewis, the defending champion, known in the ring as "Tank," was also my trainer. We had wrestled numerous times in the backyard, but never in front of a live audience. 

For all intents and purposes, I should have been a squash victim for Lewis. Instead, he made me look like a viable contender. The finish was a clean job on my part. I would be taking Lewis' finisher, a torture rack turned into a Boss Man slam and laying dormant for a three count victory. It was a move that at full speed could have broken me in my half. Instead it felt like being dropped onto a mattress; like being handled by a professional.  

A fourteen year veteran of the southeast circuit, Lewis found his roots in professional wrestling at the young age of four when he and his brothers would crowd around the family television on Saturday mornings to watch their favorite wrestling superstars.

“We would watch wrestling for about an hour, and then we would have to go outside or upstairs because we would want to wrestle each other, we loved it so much” Lewis, 34, says of his Lowcountry roots. “I loved watching the heels, especially the REAL Nature Boy, Buddy Rodgers.”

Lewis started mat wrestling in seventh grade and carried that into high school. But it was in 1996 that the professional wrestling bug bit Lewis on a fateful trip to Georgia. “We went to a show in Atlanta, and afterwards Ric Flair was signing autographs. But behind him was his agent or someone close to him within WCW. He took me aside and started talking to me about getting into the business.”

World Championship Wrestling was known for its wrestling school, The Power Plant, where ambitious athletes could try their hand at becoming a professional wrestler in WCW. More than a few future stars emerged from the Power Plant in the 90’s including future World Champion Diamond Dallas Page.

Lewis, however, only spent a short time at the Power Plant in 1997 and found working independent promotions more to his liking and nurturing.  “I was homesick when I was at the Power Plant. So I eventually came home to Charleston to be close to my family. Sometimes I wish I had stayed, but what I found with ACW was just as good for me as a wrestler.”

Under the tutelage of “Wildcat” Lee Scott, Lewis began to learn the true fundamentals of being a professional wrestler. One of those essential fundamentals was taking “bumps” and learning how to fall correctly to protect himself. As Lewis recalls it was much easier said than done and almost ended his career before it ever got started. “I thought I was out of my mind when I stood in that ring and took that first back bump. All I remember was that the ring was rock hard. Not like the rings today with the extra padding under the canvas. This was stiff. I remember hitting that back bump and all of the air leaving my body. It took me three months to get comfortable with the basic training.”

By the time the fall of 1997 rolled around, Lewis was traveling with ACW to shows all along the southeast, from North Carolina to Alabama, with most of the shows hosted in Georgia and South Carolina. Like all wrestlers, Lewis was beginning to develop his own character or gimmick.

“I was working with Bob Keller, and I give him this shoulder block. And then he gets up and is like ‘Man, I feel like I just got hit by a tank.’ As soon as he said that, everyone agreed that’s what my name should be."

Wrestling under the name “Tank Adams”, Lewis began to embody the ultimate face character: the American flag-clad hero. When asked about his first match as “Tank,” Lewis jokingly pulls out a logbook. “Yes, us older guys keep log books for this kind of thing.” He turns to a page and begins talking about that evening in Summerville.

“I wrestled Big Jack Spurr that night. Jack was one of my trainers along with Lee. He was a huge heel in the territory. The crowd was instantly giving him heat. Then they started the USA chant for me, and that’s when the adrenaline started pumping. I had no doubt that night, that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t even worry about the match after that. I just wanted to entertain.”

Lewis continued wrestling with independent promotions throughout the end of the 90’s and into the new millennium.  But in 2004, he took another step forward by starting his own promotion based out of Charleston. “Wrestling is huge in Charleston and has a long history in the area. But by that time a lot of promotions were folding. With all of the wrestlers in Charleston, I wanted to give us an opportunity not to have to travel four hours just to be in a show when we could have one right here.”

Taking on the role of promoter/wrestler, Lewis instantly found the hardships that others faced when trying to run a wrestling organization. “You really have to love the business, and you have to expect to sacrifice your personal life with a whole lot of money and not expect to get anything in return.”

Lewis admits he couldn’t pay all of his wrestlers. ”I was up front about it, and they knew I couldn’t always pay them. But it wasn’t about the money for us. Not then. We all got together because we loved wrestling.”

But as a new decade and new era preside over the national wrestling scene, a lot of the scruples changed in the business. The “old school” style of wrestling evolved in the post-Attitude era to high-risk stunts to please the crowd. Lewis admits seeing the changes first hand. “In my training, you worked on an arm bar. Everything about it. The technique, where you stood, how you maneuvered your opponent. Nowadays, it’s about the ‘big spot’ in the match and having creative move sets and, basically, risking your life for the crowd.”

Even some of the time honored wrestling traditions are being phased out, according to Lewis. The ‘two finger’ handshake, for example. A great sign of respect among old school wrestlers was to shake with only their index and middle fingers along with their thumb. Nowadays, it’s looked down upon as being a part of the old guard of wrestling and can find some independent workers out of jobs.

“It’s just so different now with the New Wrestling mentality. But the truth is, you can make it look like you’re killing somebody in the ring, but you’re really not. Hurting your opponent is not the mark of good wrestling.”

Despite Lewis’ criticisms, though, he is still very much a fan of professional wrestling, and very much active in continuing to work the independent scene. With his recovery nearly complete from a recent diabetes scare about a month ago, he is on the verge of moving back to South Carolina and hopefully returning to the OSCW promotion to resume his character as Tank.

“I’ve wrestled a lot of great guys in my career. A lot of guys that are great wrestlers that just have not had the opportunity to get to one of the national promotions. And a lot of people will look at independent wrestling as a joke. But we’re still lacing up our boots, and we’re still going out there to entertain just the same as the guys in the WWE and TNA do.”

Like a true professional...