Growing up in Silsbee in East Texas, neither strongman contests nor
pro wrestling seemed to be in Henry's future. Taking to the gym was just a way
to be more competitive on the football field. "Every team that was a winner had
a powerlifting program, so we started one," said Henry. Silsbee High School's
coaches were faced with a freshman stronger than most college athletes. He
became the superheavyweight backbone of their new powerlifting team, a
three-time high school state champ and a Texas High School Powerlifting
Association hall of famer.
In 1990 he came to the attention of Jan and Terry Todd of the
University of Texas at Austin's Department of Kinesiology and Health Education.
"We were at the state high school powerlifting championship, and more than one
person said, you have to see this superheavyweight," explained Terry Todd. "Over
the years, I've heard that a lot, but we went over to see Mark and realized that
he was something special." They saw him do a 732-pound squat, 385-pound bench
press, and a 705-pound dead lift ("My dead lift was pretty shabby back then,"
said Henry, who set a world record in 1996 of 935 pounds). "It was obvious that
he had this almost unlimited potential," said Terry. They moved Henry to Austin
to train him to fulfill the ambition he talked about the first time they met.
"He told us that day that his dream was to be the strongest man in the world,"
explains Terry.
Henry wasn't the average competitive strongman. He was a late starter
for formal training. He wasn't part of an NCAA program. He had the explosive
strength of an amateur powerlifter rather than the control of an Olympic
weightlifter. But he had an extraordinary physique. Two hundred twenty pounds at
10 years old, 412 pounds when he was 21, but faster and more limber than most
men in his weight class. With his natural size combined with the determination
Terry Todd recognized, he soon became world and two-time national weightlifting
champion, a two-time Olympian, and in 1995 he set the current unequipped squat
world record of 948 pounds. "The fact that he's such a nice young man is such a
bonus," said Terry.
Just as Terry Todd helped Henry move from powerlifting to
weightlifting, he was pivotal in moving him to pro wrestling, as well. Henry had
first talked to WWE (then World Wrestling Federation) President Vince McMahon in
1994. "He understood that Mark was media-friendly and larger than life," said
Terry. But there was one last big weightlifting challenge. In 1996, he competed
in the clean and jerk at the Atlanta Olympics with a ripped intercostal muscle
to ensure the U.S. team got points, which Henry called "one of my proudest
Olympic moments."
Like success in weightlifting, success in the ring took time. "This
is my 12th year in the WWE, and I'm just now becoming champion," said Henry. In
wrestling parlance, he's a monster, a physically dominating force.
Sometimes he's booked against smaller, more agile wrestlers in David
and Goliath-style fights; other times, it's against other giants in a battle of
behemoths. "None of it's easy, because any time you're out there, your life is
in somebody's hands, and their life is in yours," said Henry. "If I pick up
anybody, whether it's one of the biggest or smallest guys, they're going to go
down and hit the ground. It's 100 percent attention whenever you put your hands
on anybody."
Most importantly, and almost miraculously for someone in both
weightlifting and wresting, he did it clean. No steroids, no
performance-enhancing drugs, no human growth hormone. Calling Henry a true
prodigy, "I could barely get him to take a dietary supplement," said Terry. "He
was asked, 'Don't you ever think, when you're looking at the Eastern Europeans
and the big Russians, what you could lift if you took steroids?' He said, 'No,
but I have wondered what those other men could lift if they didn't take
steroids.'"
Even though he's at the top of the wrestling industry, it's no
celebrity life for Henry. "We don't have an off-season. We do 250 shows a year,
52 televised shows per brand. That's a lot of television and a lot of
traveling," said Henry. But he sees the championship as a responsibility and an
opportunity. "It's a lot to hold, but my shoulders are pretty
wide."
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