BORN TO WRESTLE
AJ Kirsch

Kirsch dispatches another foe with a well-placed dropkick.

Growing up in Northern California's chic Marin County, A.J. Kirsch had a wild and crazy dream. At the age of 12, he decided to someday be a professional wrestler.

Now, when I was 12, I decided to be the next Sandy Koufax. My best friend decided to be the next Picasso. Chances are, your fantasies at that age were equally far-fetched. But Kirsch never wavered, and now, at 27, he's says: "I'm right on the edge of something that could be a helluva ride, and nothing can stop me except me."

Viewers can join him on that ride on Mondays, at 8 p.m., into early June. The USA Network, in association with World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., is running a 10-episode series featuring 14 hopefuls looking to become pro wrestling stars. The grand-prize winner earns a contract with the WWE.

That one of those 14 is Kirsch means he has already defied prohibitive odds by beating out thousands of applicants. When he heard about the show, he sent in an audition video and … "they liked it. I was on Cloud 9."

Marin County is an upscale region not usually associated with such rough-and-tumble pursuits. Kirsch's mother is a grant writer and his father is the president of a Marin-based nonprofit whose mission is "to serve humankind through sport and physical education." Wrestling wouldn't necessarily have been his parents' first choice for him, but Kirsch says his family has never been anything less than "completely supportive."

His journey started in earnest when he was a junior at Mill Valley's Tamalpais High School. He heard grappler Mick Foley, one of his idols, say in an interview that any kid with an interest in the sport should join his high school wrestling team. "So I went out, even though I was lazy and doughy," said Kirsch. "I was 5 foot 11, 182 pounds. In my senior year, I weighed 154 pounds.

"I got in shape by running every day and lifting in the evening. I've never taken steroids in my life, and don't plan to."

After high school, Kirsch went to college in Chico. "I got my B.A. in communication studies in three years so I could get started in pro wrestling. My body has an expiration date."

Kirsch tried to start a wrestling team in Chico, with little success. Then fate intervened in the form of a guy in a Mexican wrestling mask handing out fliers for a professional training school in Yuba City, about an hour away. Kirsch immediately applied and was accepted: "You had to be 18 and have $2,000," he said.

Sessions at the school were three times a week, for a total of about 10 hours. He trained from 2003 to 2005, although he was hampered for a time with a bum ankle. It was clear he was cut out for the trade, so in 2004, despite his injury, he scored his first gig — as a referee!

He continued as a ref while the ankle fully healed. His debut as a wrestler was in late 2005. The story line developed for him was that he was a shady official whose methods so infuriated the wrestlers on the circuit that they dared him to face them in the ring.

And that's how a career was born.

"Chasing a dream is the easy part," Kirsch says today. "It's when you catch up to it …"