HOW HE BEAT BULLYING AND BECAME A WRESTLING AND MMA CHAMPION

What role has bullying played in your life?

In third grade, I moved into a new school, and I was different. I was chubby and had pimples all over my face. At school, I would oftentimes sit alone at the lunch table and get pelted in the back of the head with chocolate milk, spit wads, food — or fists, as some of the notorious bullies would do. And I didn’t know how to protect myself, how to stand up for myself. That made me timid and even more of a target. They knew they could keep doing it.

In third grade, I got in my first fight. There were a couple of kids on the playground. One kid jumped on my back and started choking me and hitting me in the back of the head. All I did was bend over, and he fell off. That’s when they split us up. I was suspended for two weeks — and I didn’t even hit him. They punished everybody who was involved. From that, I learned that I couldn’t even defend myself.

How did things go after that?

I’ll tell you two quick stories. In seventh grade, I was really excited to ask a girl I had a crush on to go to the homecoming game with me. In Texas, we have a tradition that most of the country doesn’t know about. We get these homecoming mums — they literally have bells and whistles on them so you can blow the whistles during the game and ring the bells.

Anyway, I made one that said “Justin and Jessica” — spent all my allowance on it. Halftime came, and the notorious middle-school bully walked up and put his arm out and then Jessica put her arm around his. He said, “You didn’t think she’d really come to the game with you, did you?”

He grabbed the streamer that said “Justin and Jessica” and said, “Thanks for buying this for her.” His name was also Justin. Then he walked off with her. Kids were laughing, calling me things like “stupid” and “not good enough.” I ran out of there and hid behind the bathrooms