Source: Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald

Wrestling professionally since 1993, Doug Williams is one of Britain’s gifts to the sport. The current TNA Wrestling X Division champ is a ring technician, gaining the respect of his peers worldwide.

Williams continues to work well in the ring in TNA, honing his craft. A gifted athlete, he watched, listened and learned, even as a youngster growing up in Reading (Berkshire) England.

“I was a fan when I was younger, and I used to go and watch live shows in England, when I was 6 or 7-years-old,” Williams said. “I kind of lost touch with it in my early teens, but at 14, 15-years-old, I started watching again and really became fascinated with the whole performance art.”

So who influenced him?

“Mainly the English guys who were around at the time, like Dave [Fit] Finlay, Rollerball Mark Rocco [Black Tiger], guys like that and the more lightweight technical guys.

“When I was very young, 6 or 7-years-old, it tended to be the big, monstrous guys who had the most effect on me.”

Like TNA color commentator Taz, Williams first studied judo.

“I started judo when I was 11,” he said. “There are a lot of things in wrestling that came from martial arts. Learning how to fall correctly, timing, certain throws and general grappling that judo teaches you will help when it transitions to professional wrestling. There’s a few things that don’t help, that work against you as well.”

Williams had a promising judo career.

“Luckily, I happen to be pretty good at judo,” Williams said, “and there was a time when I potentially could have gone to the Olympics, but circumstances arose, and I couldn’t do that. I stopped.

“It was shortly after I was a British judo champion at my weight category that I started training to be a pro wrestler, anyway. That was my main passion, so it was always going to take over, regardless.”

Judo is not known for being financially rewarding. Was that a factor?

“When I was younger, no,” Williams said. “I was always ambitious, of course, when it came to pro wrestling, but I never really fully expected to be making a full-time living out of it. You just take it stage by stage, in hopes of building your career up as such, so you can.”

How difficult is it in the UK to find a place to train, a reputable place?

“It wasn’t particularly difficult,” Williams said. “When I started, it wasn’t so much there were places to train specifically. There were gyms, but the way you learned was that you went and helped the promoter or you helped set up the ring. Then you get in beforehand with a few of the guys, and they showed you how to do some things, or they stretched you or whatever. So out of the course of the week of working for the promoter as a ring boy or whatever, you learned how to wrestle.

“It was a case of asking the promoter, `Can I help you out? Can I do this or that?’ That’s how I learned.

“Now it’s different. Now there are hundreds of schools over there.”

What was it like?

“When I was rolling around with the guys in the ring, I probably surprised a few of them because they didn’t know about my judo background,” he said. “From that point of view, it was easy; the hard part obviously was getting the showmanship aspects down, the theatrical aspects and all the things that encompass wrestling that isn’t involved in any other kind of sport — running the ropes, falling out of the ring. They weren’t difficult, but they took time to develop properly.”

Read the rest of the interview here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/07/1517085/ring-technician-earns-x-division.html