At the end of the other week, numerous schoolchildren from Round Rock, Texas came face to face with the World’s Strongest Guy.
Texas native Mark Henry, a past Olympic weightlifter, record-breaking powerlifter and Professional Wrestling World Champion, was joined by a bunch of ex-NFL stars as well as his WWE colleague, Mark Callaway, AKA The Undertaker.
The occasion was invented to promote the need for teaching, health and fitness in time for the new school term. Henry flew in from New York to be able to visit the children and inspire them to better things for the coming school months. As part of the day’s festivities, Henry pulled a Semi Truck for a substantial distance in front of a group of amazed kids, event organizers and parents.
Mark Henry’s list of athletic accomplishments is extraordinary. He competed in both the 1992 and 1996 Olympic games as a weightlifter; Henry was also a Gold Medal winner during the 1995 Pan American Games and was named Drug-Free World Champion Powerlifter in 1995. He was named U.S powerlifting champion two times. He’s a reigning world record holder in several areas and is credited with the largest raw squat and raw powerlifting total ever performed by a drug-tested athlete.
Henry is also a three-time U.S National Weightlifting Champion, an American Open winner, Two-Time U.S Olympic Festival Champion and NACAC Champion. In 2002, he won the very first annual Arnold Strongman Classic Competition and has openly performed copious feats of strength, including pushing a tank.
Mark Henry’s claim to being the ‘World’s Strongest Man’ is somewhat dubious and not considered official by most organizations, but later set lifting records all through his life and winning no less than one strongman contest, his declaration is respected by most (and also the visual evidence is hard to deny).
Henry has also had a 17-year career in Professional Wrestling, competing in the WWE (formerly WWF) ever since company owner Vince McMahon learned that Henry was a wrestling aficionado. His ensuing career has seen him win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship twice, also as a ECW Championship and the WWE European Championship.
In spite of his no-nonsense on-screen facade (a character who often welcomes his enemies to that ‘Hall of Pain’) Henry is incredibly active with the ‘Make a Wish’ Foundation, (a charity group that grants wishes to children with life-threatening or fatal illnesses) as well as frequent anti-drug and anti-bullying campaigns.
When interviewed over on the day, Henry said: “I want the children to have what I did not have. I did not have a great deal growing up. I hope more people did it for me, so I try and do it in kind.”
http://pop-break.com/2013/05/08/rant-a-mania-wwe-the-make-a-wish-foundation/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_henry
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/Bios/henry_mark.html
Promoting Wellbeing and Exercise, World"s strongest man give a helping hand
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