Pro wrestling fans in Okotoks now have a hometown face to support in the ring.
Isaac Holunga, a Foothills County resident and 2022 graduate of Holy Trinity Academy, is carving out a niche in the wrestling ring with the CanAm promotion after making his debut earlier this year.
“The spark that lit the fire was seeing it on TV and thinking it would be super cool if I could do that for myself,” Holunga said. “The first show I watched was WrestleMania and I wondered if there was anything like this around me that I could try out.”
At the age of 15, Holunga found just that in Workhorse Performance Centre, a pro wrestling school in Calgary, where he trained on weekends.
Following a year out of the ring to focus on high school football with the HTA Knights, where Holunga was the team’s lineman of the year during its 2021 season, he returned to wrestling.
“Isaac was a hard worker and a big dude that shouldn’t be able to move as well as he does,” said Matt Hassett, longtime head coach of the Knights football squad. “He was a quiet dude, but was pretty intense and loved to run around and hit people.
“He was offensive guard and defensive tackle and a lot of times he would play both ways. If we were getting pushed around on defence, we would throw him in and he was really good at what he did.”
Holunga said his athletic background has helped him tremendously adjust to wrestling, adding it’s a different beast in the ring.
“There’s no sport quite like pro wrestling, it’s the hardest sport I’ve ever done if you consider it a sport with the theatrics and everything,” he said. “Having the aggression, the conditioning, learning to work with people on a team, all those things help.”
At CanAm, Holunga trains with the experienced duo of Jude Dawkins and Travis Cole with an emphasis on weight-training, practising matches in the ring and character development.
“They help me lots with ideas for things I can say, my mannerisms in the ring, the way I walk, the way I talk, the way I perform moves, all those things are taken into consideration to help me advance,” he said.
Holunga grew up watching many of the modern-day wrestling superstars from Randy Orton and John Cena to Seth Rollins and Triple-H.
He looked much further back to conceive of his wrestling persona Scorpious.
“I came up with the character from watching Gladiator and movies like 300, I thought it would be very unique,” he said. “I like the theatrics of a character like that, and I came up with the name because I’m a Scorpio, born in November.
“His attributes, it depends on if he’s a good guy or bad guy, but in Okotoks he’s a good guy and he feeds off the crowd, he’s passionate, aggressive, wants to fight.”
When playing the role of the heel, which Holunga said is more enjoyable, Scorpious makes a point of detesting everyone and everything around him.
“It’s always more fun having people boo you,” he said with a laugh.
“It’s the storytelling, I love how you can create a story and make fans care about it, get them into it either cheering or booing. That’s our main goal as pro wrestlers to get a reaction from the crowd and once we’ve done that, we’re pretty happy.”
Now introduced as Okotoks’ own at CanAm shows at the Okotoks Elks Club, the symbiosis of getting to perform at home was something of a serendipitous happenstance.
Holunga’s first official match was of the royal rumble variety with the Real Canadian Wrestling promotion in January and shortly thereafter he had his first one-on-one match with CanAm in Calgary in early February.
“There’s a lot of nerves,” he said. “Going through character development, that was my hardest part and still is, trying to get over with the fans or get the fans to hate you. A lot goes through your mind in your first match.
“It’s a huge amount of relief (afterwards), you think the worst possible thing like the world is going to end if you have a bad match, but it’s just a learning experience and every match you have, you improve little by little.”
Highlights in the early stages of his career have included a match with CanAm heavyweight champion Bobby Sharp and a hometown performance versus stalwart Davey Dysaster.
“Every time I get in the ring there’s always something new and they’re giving me a lot of opportunities being able to wrestle people that I’ve watched,” he said.
“My short-term goals are to just to keep on the grind, keep on improving. In pro wrestling, there’s always opportunities and I just want to make sure I seize every opportunity I get, winning a belt would be pretty cool along with winning over the fans and creating a bigger fan base for myself.”
