At the end of the other week, countless schoolchildren from Round Rock, Texas came head to head with the World’s Strongest Guy.
Texas native Mark Henry, a previous Olympic weightlifter, record-breaking powerlifter and Proficient Wrestling World Champion, was joined by a group of ex-NFL stars as well as his WWE colleague, Mark Callaway, AKA The Undertaker.
The occasion was made to promote the importance of education, health and exercise in time for the new school term. Henry flew in from New York so as to visit the kids and inspire them to greater things for coming school months. As part of the day’s celebrations, Henry pulled a Semi Truck for a substantial distance before a bunch 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 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 a number of areas and is credited with the largest 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 publicly performed copious feats of strength, as well as pushing a tank.
Mark Henry’s claim to being the ‘World’s Strongest Man’ is fairly disputed and never thought sanctioned by most organizations, but later set lifting records right through his life and winning no less than one strongman contest, his claim is respected by most (and the visual evidence is tough to deny).
Henry has too had a 17-year career in Professional Wrestling, competing in the WWE (formerly WWF) ever since corporation owner Vince McMahon learned that Henry was a wrestling aficionado. His ensuing profession has seen him win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship twice, as well as a ECW Championship and also the WWE European Championship.
In spite of his no-nonsense on-screen persona (a character who regularly welcomes his enemies to the ‘Hall of Pain’) Henry is very active within the ‘Make a Wish’ Foundation, (a charity group that grants wishes to children with life-threatening or incurable conditions) as well as numerous anti-drug and anti-bullying campaigns.
When interviewed on the day, Henry said: “I would like the kids to have what I didn’t have. I did not have a lot growing up. I wish more people did it for me, so I aim to 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
World’s Strongest Man Lifts Spirits, Promotes Health and Fitness
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