A great Jackson County sports history trivia question is this: Name the athlete who won a West Virginia State High School wrestling championship as both a Ravenswood Red Devil and Ripley Viking? If you answered Adam Schindler, then please step to the head of the class.
Schindler, who graduated from Ripley High in 2001, is still utilizing his talents on the mat in a totally different way. Schindler is now a successful ultimate fighter with the biggest moment of his young career on the horizon.
Schindler is a part of the Bellator ?Summer Series Featherweight Tournament? and will be competing in a televised event on MTV2 the next three months. His first appearance is set for this Saturday (June 25). The event will take place at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida.
"There's eight of us in the tournament,? said Schindler from his home-base of Houston. ?I'll have three fights to win the tournament.?
Win or lose, Schindler will also appear on MTV2 in July and August. He doesn't plan, though, on losing. The winner of the tournament gets a first place prize of $100,000 and a shot at reigning Bellator featherweight champ Joe Warren.
? "He (Warren) is the man in Bellator featherweight right now,? said Schindler who was a part of Strikeforce before joining Bellator. ?It (Bellator) is the second biggest leading (promoter) in the country, right behind UFC. Bellator, Strikeforce and UFC are the big three.?
While Schindler, who stands 5-8 and weighs 155 pounds, is getting set to live out a dream by fighting in an event that will be televised both nationally and around the world, he isn't in awe of what's about to take place. ?I always thought that I would make it to this level,? he said. ?It's nice to see it come to reality. I didn't get into this sport just to do it part-time. When I did it, I wanted to put everything into it.?
Schindler has sacrificed plenty to get to this level. ?I quit my job and I started training full-time,? he said. ?Whenever I got out of the military I got a job for the government. A lot of my military (Air Force) buddies were like, 'Dude, what are you doing. You are not really going to be an ultimate fighter.' I didn't make hardly any money starting off. I struggled financially. Luckily, I have a lot of support around me. I knew it was going to be hard.
?But I knew that I had put everything into it to get to this level. Now that I'm here, it makes everything worth it.?
Schindler, who just turned 28 and labeled with the nickname ?The List,? says it all ?feels kind of surreal? as he makes his way onto the big stage of the sport. His record professionally stands at 9-1. His nine wins include six submissions and three decisions. He has an abundance of victories at the amateur level.
He's lived in Houston for the past year. ?I trained in San Antonio before. I like Houston as far as the training environment goes. There's a lot of great training here. There's a lot of really, really, great talent here. We've got top-level guys here. It's top-level training.?
Schindler says he spends six-to-eight hours a day in the gym. ?I really don't have a whole lot of time for anything else,? he said.
Which is just fine with Schindler as he pursues his life-long dream. ?It's funny because whenever I was a kid I would always think about what I wanted to do when I got older. I never said I wanted to do anything other than some kind of athletics,? he said. ?Even when I was in the military, I thought, 'Man, I've got to figure out what I'm going to do when I grow up.'?
Growing up in Ravenswood, Schindler played all the sports. Wrestling was the one he truly excelled in and that has led to success in his current sport. ?I remember watching UCF before I started training, I thought, 'Man, these guys are just wrestling to win.' I thought, 'I can do that.' My wrestling's what carried me along. I've had to learn other things. I box a lot and I do a lot of jujitsu.
?(As a youngster) I would always tell my friends, 'Man, I really wish there's something that I could do to where I could use my wrestling to make money.'?
The chance to make money has arrived, not to mention the opportunity to become a world champion. Which would make Adam Schindler the answer to yet another Jackson County sports trivia question.
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