When Air Force Tech. Sgt. Gregory Gauntt isn’t conducting operations with his unit, he’s conducting body slams inside the ring.
Gauntt, 33, is currently stationed in South Korea with the 8th Logistics Readiness Squadron, where he serves as a non-commissioned officer in charge of fuels knowledge operations. However, Gauntt has another persona: the heavyweight champion of the Pro Wrestling Society in South Korea.
“I’ve always wanted to wrestle since I was a kid,” Gauntt said in a post on Kunsan Air Base’s website.
When he was a teenager, 17-year-old Gauntt told his parents his dream of attending professional wrestling school. But after his parents told him he wasn’t allowed to live with them if he pursued a career in professional wrestling, Gauntt quipped that he decided to join the Air Force.
Gauntt found his opportunity to enter the wrestling scene 11 years later while working as a military training instructor at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, and has since kept up with his wrestling career wherever he has been stationed.
In the seven years since Gauntt began his professional wrestling career, he has discovered parallels between the brotherhood of the military and professional wrestling. “One of the things my trainer told me is, ‘There’s a very military-esque vibe to wrestling.’ "
Continuing to wrestle while on deployment, his wrestling persona “Ryan Oshun,”who is also known as “The Jersey Devil,” has grown popular in the Korean wrestling scene.
“Believe it or not, it wasn’t difficult to get into wrestling in Korea,” Gauntt said in the post. “Overseas, especially in Asia, it’s hard for them to find American wrestlers, particularly bigger ones. I had worked with the promoter here beforehand so it was as simple as messaging him, slowly coming to shows, and building myself up here."
Gauntt then went on to say that he was heavyweight champion of Korea before he knew it.
Wrestling has served as an outlet and has given Gauntt the ability to “amplify my personality" while in the ring.
“I get to do and say things I would never be able to outside of wrestling ... because it’s part of the show. I think that’s the coolest part about what I do," Gauntt said.
