Sometime last week, numerous schoolchildren from Round Rock, Texas came face to face with the World’s Strongest Man.
Texas native Mark Henry, a former Olympic weightlifter, record-breaking powerlifter and Proficient Wrestling World Champion, was joined by a group of ex-NFL stars as well as his WWE best friend, Mark Callaway, AKA The Undertaker.
The event was created to promote the need for schooling, wellbeing and fitness in time for the new school term. Henry flew in from New York in order to visit the children and inspire them to better things for the coming school months. As part of the day’s celebrations, Henry pulled a Semi Truck for a great distance before a group of amazed children, event organizers and parents.
Mark Henry’s inventory of athletic accomplishments is impressive. He competed in both the 1992 and 1996 Olympic games as a weightlifter; Henry was also a Gold Medal winner in the 1995 Pan American Games and was named Drug-Free World Champion Powerlifter in 1995. He was named U.S powerlifting champion twice. He is a reigning world record holder in quite a few areas and is credited with the biggest raw squat and raw powerlifting total ever performed by a drug-tested athlete.
Henry is also a 3-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 numerous feats of power, including pushing a tank.
Mark Henry’s declaration to being the ‘World’s Strongest Man’ is somewhat dubious and not thought official by most organizations, but later set lifting records throughout his life and winning at least one strongman contest, his declaration is respected by most (and the visual evidence is difficult 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 fan. His ensuing career has seen him win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship two times, also as the ECW Championship and also the WWE European Championship.
Notwithstanding his no-nonsense on-screen persona (a character who frequently welcomes his enemies to the ‘Hall of Pain’) Henry is extremely active with the ‘Make a Wish’ Foundation, (a charity group that grants desires to children with life-threatening or fatal illnesses) as well as numerous anti-drug and anti-bullying campaigns.
When interviewed over on the day, Henry said: “I want the kids to have what I did not have. I didn’t have a great deal growing up. I hope more people did it for me, so I try to do it in kind.”
SOURCES: http://www.keyetv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/wwe-star-mark-henry-meets-round-rock-kids-11058.shtml
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
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