13 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: Zach Gowen
11. Zach Hid His Amputation At Training School
As a teen, Zach found a local pro wrestling training school and applied to sign up. When he turned up for the first day, he wore a prosthetic leg and long trousers so nobody would suspect that he only had one real leg. He also paid in cash, and knew he was set after that because the trainer wouldn’t want to give him a refund once he found out about the whole one-legged thing.
Sitting down and getting ready, Gowen popped his prosthetic off, looked up and the whole room was staring at him. The trainer, to his credit, encouraged the rookie to get in the ring and break the ice. “The truth is, I was a natural. I was very good right away”, Zach told VICE. That wasn't misplaced confidence or outright cockiness, it was simply the truth.
The unnamed trainer (Truth Martini trained Gowen but it's unclear whether or not he was the guy standing in the ring that day) quickly saw the potential that Zach had, and he was off to the races. Instincts told him to keep his amputation a secret until nobody could back out. That's how tentative he was about being treated like an outcast.
Somewhat ironically, being different is what bagged Gowen a gig with the market leader, but he had to go through TNA first to get there. Enter John Laurinaitis, a man who must've felt like an absolute moron when WWE chiefs instructed him to get in touch with 'the one-legged wrestler' who was turning heads for Total Nonstop Action.