My Inner Child Lives On

Three Theatre Artists on Their Love of Pro Wrestling

Next Act Theatre’s production of THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY is a dream production many years in the making for director-actor-friend duo Michael Cotey and Dimonte Henning. Along with actor Adrian Feliciano, the three are a tag-team-trio of wrestling-fans-turned-theatre-artists. We sat down with them to learn where their love of wrestling started and how they translate it onto the stage.

How did you get into pro wrestling as a kid?

Adrian Feliciano: Watching wrestling goes back to some of my earliest and favorite memories as a kid. I can remember being in second grade and staying up late with my oldest brother, Brian, to watch Saturday Night’s Main Event. But that wasn’t enough wrestling, so I started renting classic WWF pay-per-view events on VHS from my local video store.

Dimonte Henning: I first got into wrestling accidentally (although I believe nothing is by chance), because according to my parents, my favorite activity as a baby was to wrestle. So I was about 4 or 5 years old, and I happened to be walking in the living room, and there it was! WWF Monday Night RAW was on. I remember seeing the “Big Boss Man” in the ring with the group D-Generation X and they were attacking someone in the corner of the ring. I remember thinking “this looks a little dangerous,” but I LOVED IT! I tuned in the following week and have been a fan since.

Michael Cotey: In the beginning… there was pro wrestling, and either I came into this world holding a Hulk Hogan action figure or definitely got one shortly thereafter. The superhuman personas of WWF went hand in hand with my other early childhood (and lifelong) obsession: Marvel Comics. But primarily it was a way my brother David and I were able to bond. I was never into sports – which probably sorely disappointed my older brother, who was and remains a diehard Brewers fan. Where we couldn’t bond over Robin Yount, we could bond over Macho Man and Jake the Snake.

So, when I think about growing up with my brother and all my memories with him, they are inextricably tied to pro wrestling – watching wrestling on Saturday mornings together, convincing our parents to order the Royal Rumble, ‘rasslin in the living room, and my brother putting me in the figure-four leglock Rick Flair made famous, before eventually (always) getting yelled at by our mom. Later, going to Monday Night Raw and Smackdown with my brother for my birthday. He made me feel like the coolest teen on the planet when he invited me to hang out with his college friends to eat pizza, drink Mountain Dew and watch the pay-per-view of the month.

What part has pro wrestling played in your life as you’ve grown up?

MC: Outside of my relationship with my brother, I became a complete wrestling nerd like most teen boys in the late 90s. I watched hundreds of hours of Monday night wrestling, switching between WWF’s Raw and Nitro on commercial breaks. I collected trading cards, got the magazines and called into the hotlines to hear juicy gossip (the World Wide Web was in its infancy, and we didn’t have dial-up). I spent a lifetime building myself in the Create-A-Wrestler Mode on WWF Warzone for the PlayStation. I even wrote a short story in eighth grade about a guy who follows his dreams to become a pro wrestler and gets paralyzed in the process – I was a weird kid.

Years later, as both my brother and my interest in wrestling has waned and we haven’t kept up with the current storylines, wrestling is still a rich source of nostalgia for David and me. Every once in a while, I’ll send him the same wrestling meme: it’s of Andre the Giant sitting on Macho Man Randy Savage in the corner of the ring. The text of the meme reads: “Some days you’re Andre… Some days you’re Macho Man.” It’s our way of checking in with each other.

A few years back David surprised me with a gift: the makeshift cardboard championship belt he and I wrestled for as kids. He was relinquishing the title (claiming I had never won it legitimately), and it now sits above my desk as one of my prized possessions.

DH: Pro wrestling has always given me the belief that I can do anything. Watching larger-than-life personas overcome challenges week in and week out, does something to a young man as he’s growing up and playing on the basketball court, biking with friends and cousins, or even talking to a cute girl. You build up this confidence, because you’ve watched your wrestling heroes deliver astonishing feats every week.

AF: My inner child lives on now more than ever after rekindling my love for wrestling these last several months. More importantly, it’s allowed me to bond with my daughter in a different way.

Who was your favorite wrestler as a kid? Is it different now?

DH: My favorite wrestler as a kid and now is… the most electrifying man in sports and entertainment… The Rock.

AF: Mr. Excellence of Execution, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, without a doubt!

MC: As a kid, I was a Hulkamaniac through and through. Then, of course, in the late 90s, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock became my main guys. But that WWF lineup at the time was killer: Undertaker, Kane, Mankind, the Hardy Boyz, Triple H – I was there for it all. I missed a lot of what was going on from the mid-2000s up until recently, so I’m playing a lot of catch-up. I think nostalgia will still win the day.

What does being part of THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY mean to you?

AF: It’s a dream job. I grew up dreaming of being a wrestler. Well, I ended up an actor, living vicariously through characters like [my character, Macedonio “Mace” Guerra]. So, in a way, I AM MACE.

This show hits home on so many levels. Grateful beyond words.

DH: Being a part of this show means so much to me. Michael Cotey and I have been talking since 2017 about wanting to do this production somewhere and now we get to share it with Milwaukee audiences. It means many theater-goers will be exposed to another form of storytelling, that sometimes involves zany characters, wild storylines and spectacle that would rival any Olympic Opening Ceremony, because in actuality, wrestling and theater are very similar. At the end of the day, what this play means to me is, if you have heart (much like Mace does), it can take you to unimaginable heights.

MC: This play had been on my bucket list for over a decade since I first read it, but I’ve joked with the team that it’s really been 38 years in the making (maybe you understand why after reading my previous answers). The first “plays” I ever directed were with the immortal Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage playing out epic stories in a toy wrestling ring on the carpet of my parent’s living when I was five years old. So, this play is taking me back. The ring is a lot bigger this time around, and the actors have many more points of articulation, but the story is no less epic. I still can’t believe Cody said yes when I pitched this to him, but the five-year-old in me is so grateful he did, and I’m trying to pour that little guy’s heart and soul into this bad boy and tell the kind of badass story he would enjoy.

Tickets are now on sale for THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY by Kristoffer Diaz. Call (414) 278-0765 or buy online now!