Fife footballer who became a Japanese wrestling champion
JACK MORRISThe globally renowned sporting arenas of Cowdenbeath’s Central Park and the Tokyo Dome are separated by about 6,000 miles, but for Jack Morris, the two are linked by contrasting childhood dreams.
An injury suffered days before the Blue Brazil kicked off their Scottish Championship campaign a decade ago effectively halted his promising football career.
However, it reignited a life-long obsession with professional wrestling.
He has since become a double champion in the Japanese promotion Pro Wrestling-NOAH and the first Scottish man to compete at the legendary venue in the country's capital.
It is a feat made all the more remarkable given the 30-year-old only stepped into the ring for the first time in 2017 having become disillusioned with the end of his football career.
But the signs that his future lay in knee pads rather than shin pads were always there.
“Most strikers want to look like Henrik Larsson, I wanted to look like Triple H,” he told BBC Scotland News from his home in Saitama.
“Wrestling was always there. I had wanted to be a footballer as a career, but I had been watching wrestling since I was a kid.
“Getting injured kind of forced me to go and explore it and it changed my life."
COWDENBEATH FCA boyhood Dunfermline Athletic fan, Morris bounced around the Fife clubs as a youth player, taking in spells at the Pars and Raith Rovers before landing at Cowdenbeath.
He found opportunities difficult to come by in a team featuring the attacking talents of Kane Hemmings and Greg Stewart, both of whom went on to play in Scotland’s top flight.
His breakthrough at the start of the 2013/14 campaign was hampered by a broken foot and then a broken heel before Christmas meant he missed the remainder of the season.
By that time however, his love of the game had begun to dwindle.
“I broke my foot in the final game of pre-season, just when I was getting in the fringes of the first team,” he said.
“I got the second injury and I knew my contract wasn’t going to be renewed at the end of the season.
“I did my rehab, but I wasn’t the same. I didn’t feel like the same player. I was never going to be [Lionel] Messi, but I just knew myself that my heart wasn’t in it anymore.”
Morris spent a brief period at East Stirlingshire, but said he felt a "void" had been left since his injury.
JACK MORRISEnter wrestling. Morris had been a fan since he was five years old, growing up idolising the WWE’s Kane character, he decided to begin training at a wrestling school in West Lothian.
His background in football, combined with 11 years as part of the Carnegie Spartans gymnastics display team, gave him the “ideal background” to pursue it as a career.
“Coming from football, I was always in good shape,” he said.
“Slamming yourself down on a wooden board is not something you do every day and running the ropes, I was going about with rope burns on my side.
“But it wasn’t a deterrent, I felt quite comfortable being in the ring and throwing myself around was exciting.”
He began emailing promotions across Scotland, competing for Glasgow-based Insane Championship Wrestling, but also targeted those further afield.
NOAH, Japan’s second-biggest men’s promoters behind New Japan Pro Wrestling, were among those to respond, inviting him to compete in their annual N-1 tournament in 2022.
Morris has since become a fixture in the company, winning the Global Honoured Crown (GHC) tag team champion alongside American Anthony Greene in September, before adding the GHC National Championship a month later.
He also earned a place on the card for the retirement show of Japanese legend Keiji Mutoh, better known as The Great Muta at the Dome.
JACK MORRISThe arena is perhaps most famous for being the location of one of boxing's biggest upsets when Buster Douglas handed Mike Tyson his first professional defeat in 1990.
However it has been hosting sell-out wrestling events for 45 years.
About 30,000 fans turned out for Mutoh's retirement show – a shade more than the 446 who were there to witness Morris' 13-minute cameo in Cowden’s 3-0 Challenge Cup win over East Fife in August 2012.
“I’ve gone from Central Park to the Tokyo Dome, it is a world away, I haven’t seen a stock car since I got here,” he said.
“When I first got into wrestling, WWE was the target, but this is different, the crowds are really passionate.
“My biggest fear was always the language barrier, but I think what I have done in the ring has translated anyway.”
On Sunday, the eyes of the wrestling world will be on Philadelphia’s Lincoln Field where WWE will host WrestleMania – the industry’s biggest annual showcase.
The promoter also announced its Clash at the Castle live event will come to Glasgow for the first time in June.
NOAH will also promote a show in Edinburgh on 6 September as part of a UK-wide tour.
For Morris, it could be a glorious homecoming, providing he and Greene can hold on to their tag team titles when they defend them this weekend.
“Competing in Scotland with NOAH would be a dream come true,” he said.
“It feels like every month, it is getting bigger and bigger. There are more people, more eyes on it.
“It is incredible to be a double champion through that. It barely ever happens, so it is a huge honour.”