Wrestlers You Never Knew Were School Teachers

When one thinks about professions that would translate well into the world of professional wrestling, you'd think about actors, bodybuilders, and even former athletes like football players when their time in the NFL has come to an end. One job title that some of the biggest wrestlers across history have held, however, comes in the education field. From George "The Animal" Steele to TNA Champion and "WWE NXT" star Trick Williams, many talents have actually been teachers before, and even during, their time in the wrestling ring.

One of the most recognizable former teachers in the professional wrestling world today is AEW World Champion "Hangman" Adam Page. The former Mr. Woltz taught journalism, graphic design, and communication courses at a Virginia high school after graduating with a bachelor's degree in communications from Virginia Tech. Page started wrestling at shows in his hometown of Halifax County, Virginia, while he was still in high school, the place where he ultimately ended up teaching students barely older than himself for a few years to pay the bills while his wrestling career was still taking off. 

Page told ESPN back in March 2018, while he was still wrestling for NJPW, that he would go out and wrestle on Friday nights and weekends after the school week was over. He called the schedule "brutal," "hectic," and "wild." The AEW champion would continue to teach while wrestling, even while he was facing the likes of legends such as Matt Hardy inside the historic Hammerstein Ballroom in Ring of Honor. 

It wasn't until Page rose within the ranks of NJPW's Bullet Club that he was finally able to quit teaching. He left the profession behind in May 2016. Like Page, there are many other wrestling stars who got their start in the classroom before finding success in professional wrestling.

Another famous former teacher in recent wrestling history was Matt Striker, a former social studies teacher at Cardozo High School in Queens, New York, who started his career in WWE with a teacher gimmick after leaving the profession. Striker trained with Johnny Rodz and got his start on the independent scene, all while he also got his start in the classroom to fund his actual dream. He started teaching full-time at the school in 2004, after initially working as a substitute, but would take vacation days and sick time to wrestle.

Striker was steadily becoming more successful in the world of professional wrestling with tours in Japan and even an appearance on "WWE SmackDown" in a match against Kurt Angle in the Olympian's open invitational in February 2005. The New York Department of Education caught wind of Striker's star rising and the fact that he was playing hooky from school/work to get in the ring. Striker was suspended, and rather than being fired, he resigned from teaching.

News of the teacher-turned-wrestler who was taking time off from educating New York's youth to beat up other men in the ring reached mainstream media, something WWE loved and welcomed. Striker wrestled another match against Angle in July, with Angle mentioning his time in the classroom, and Striker began working in WWE as a villainous teacher character shortly after his resignation.

Striker started in the company with the "Matt Striker's Classroom" segment on "WWE Raw," but was moved to WWE's revived ECW brand in August 2006. Striker never went back to teaching but has had a successful career as a commentator and host in various companies, including Lucha Underground and Impact Wrestling. He currently hosts a show on The MLB Network and is a commentator for MLW.

Before she entered the 2004 Diva Search that kicked off her legendary career, WWE Hall of Famer Michelle McCool was a teacher. She worked as a middle school educator in Palatka, Florida. Her parents also worked in the field, her mother as a science teacher and her father as a former principal and superintendent. In an interview with WWE.com following her retirement from the ring in 2011, McCool talked about her former career.

McCool said that because of her parents, she said she'd never get into the education field. She said that after she graduated from Florida State University, she substituted one day in a middle school classroom and enjoyed it. McCool said after that, it became a permanent job, and she went back to school for her master's degree. McCool taught science in her hometown for four years. She told WWE.com that she loved being around children both in and out of the classroom. McCool said she liked it because sometimes, she was the only person some of the kids had.

She revealed that she kept her teaching certificate active while still working in WWE and said it wouldn't be something that she'd mind going back to in the future. While she may never have gone back to school following her Hall of Fame career, McCool would go on to have children of her own with her husband, The Undertaker. She also began coaching future WWE talent, which could be compared to her former teaching career, when she joined the A&E series "WWE LFG: Legends & Future Greats" as a coach in March 2025.

George "The Animal" Steele got into the wrestling industry to help supplement his income while he was teaching in the Detroit area. Steele was a football player at Michigan State University until he suffered knee problems and had to leave the team. While at the school, he got his bachelor's degree and then received his master's at Central Michigan University. He started teaching and coaching wrestling at Madison High School in the Detroit area before he started moonlighting in professional wrestling.

Steele told "Busted Open Radio" in 2013 that he was basically living a double life. He said when he was wrestling in the northeast, his students and his fellow teachers in Michigan had no clue. Steele said that since he initially was wearing a mask in the ring, students didn't know what was going on, unless they were from the northeast and moved to his school. He talked about getting recognized and said he'd simply ask students, "Do you really think that I'm ugly?" when they'd ask if he was George Steele.

He would teach and coach at Madison Heights for over 20 years. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1995, the same year he was honored with an induction into the Michigan High School Coaches Hall of Fame. Steele was a force in both the wrestling world and his own community until he died of kidney failure at the age of 79 in February 2017.

Maven Huffman, better known as just Maven, the winner of the first-ever "Tough Enough," was a sixth-grade teacher before he lived his dream in WWE and moved on to become a successful YouTuber. The three-time Hardcore Champion attended Eastern Mennonite University and moved to Portland, Oregon, where he played baseball for the Aloha Knights. He told former "American Gladiator" star Lori "Ice" Fetrick on her podcast "Chillin' With Ice" that his baseball career is what led him to his teaching job.

He was also a high school coach and taught at Twality Middle School in Tigard, Oregon, for two years. Maven told Fetrick that he loved the job, but said it was "one of the biggest tragedies in America" that teachers don't make enough money doing the job. He said he only made $29K a year, which had him questioning how he was going to buy a home or one day have a family on the salary. It was during his second year of teaching that he was watching "WWE Raw" and learned about the upcoming "Tough Enough" competition.

Maven explained that after he heard the announcer ask, "Have you ever wanted to be a wrestler?" he knew he had to try. He said he took a gamble and flew out to New York, thinking nothing would come of it, then in just a week, he quit his teaching job, sold his car, cancelled his apartment lease, and was all in. He never went back to teaching following his time in WWE, which ended in his release in July 2005. In addition to his successful YouTube channel, he now works in finance on Wall Street.

WWE Hall of Famer Rick Steiner is another former star who entered the education world after his wrestling career wound down. "The Dog-Faced Gremlin" was a multiple-time tag team champion in both WWE and WCW alongside his brother, Scott. Steiner's last match in the business came in September 2019, well after he had wrapped up his full-time career, in Tokyo Championship Wrestling. Outside of his Hall of Fame induction, his last appearance in WWE came alongside his son, Bron Breakker, in "WWE NXT."

The education world had always played a big part in his life. Steiner was a standout at the University of Michigan when it came to collegiate wrestling, and he even set the fastest pin record for the Wolverines at 15 seconds. Steiner earned his bachelor's degree in education at the school and was actually introduced to the professional wrestling world by fellow educator George "The Animal" Steele. Instead of becoming a teacher right after college, he went the wrestling route. Steele set Steiner up at Vergne Gagne's school in Minnesota. 

After he left the ring, Steiner became a school board member for the Cherokee County School District. He was initially disqualified from the Republican primary in 2006 due to using the Steiner name rather than his legal name. He ran unopposed that November, however, and won his seat. He remains on the board as of January 2025, and his current term ends in 2026. Steiner told WWE.com in 2013 that he's proud of his work on the board, as it lets him be involved in the educational process and give back to his community.

Tito Santana actually went back to the classroom after the height of his wrestling career came to an end. He retired from the scene full-time in the late 1990s after success in companies like the then-WWF, AWA, Georgia Championship Wrestling, and more. While he wouldn't fully retire from wrestling for years and would continue to get in the ring for various companies here and there, Santana focused on becoming a teacher after all of his major professional wrestling successes. 

Santana became a middle-school Spanish teacher in Roxbury, New Jersey, later in life. He retired in June 2023 after 27 years in the classroom. He told ESPN back in 2017, when he was in his 21st year of teaching, that he graduated from college with a physical education major and a Spanish minor. He told the outlet that he always hoped to be a coach later in life and help kids out the way his eighth-grade gym teacher helped him get involved in sports.

He told ESPN he started substitute teaching after retiring from the WWF in 1993, since he didn't have "anything else to do in the middle of the week." He did that for two years before being offered a gym class position. He said he would come home "exhausted" from being a gym teacher, so he switched to teaching Spanish. Santana said that his students at the time didn't know his wrestling past, personally, but their parents did. He said he couldn't count how many times kids would tell him their mother "used to be in love with him" when they were little.

"The Franchise" Shane Douglas held multiple championships throughout his time in ECW, WCW, and WWF, including the ECW World Heavyweight Championship four times, but some of his greatest successes came outside of the ring, working with children who needed some extra help in the classroom. Before he got into the wrestling world, Douglas graduated from Bethany College in West Virginia with a bachelor's degree in political science and history.

Douglas started his wrestling career in 1980 and has yet to officially hang up his boots completely, but he started his career in education in the early 1990s after leaving the WWF the first time. Douglas spoke about his career on "Wrestling Shoot Interviews" in February 2022 and said he picked up teaching mid-year in Beaver, Pennsylvania, after departing Vince McMahon's company.

He explained he worked with kids needing emotional support, a subsection of special education in many school districts, whom teachers with special education degrees didn't want to teach due to their aggressive natures. He said since he was a professional wrestler, teaching them wasn't much of a problem, and the students grew to respect him.

Douglas explained that, in addition to being a certified social studies teacher, he was granted an emergency certification for special education, as he had taken some courses already. Douglas explained he worked in special education for two years before he went back to teaching social studies classes, but said he preferred working with the students whom other teachers initially called "the bad kids."

AEW's Deonna Purrazzo is a big advocate for education, and prior to her getting into the professional wrestling world, she was an educator herself. Purrazzo was a pre-kindergarten teacher for three years in New Jersey from February 2015 to July 2018, when she signed with WWE and pivoted to wrestling full-time.

"The Virtuosa" is a big supporter of the "Clear the List" initiative, where she helps teachers with purchasing classroom supplies. "#ClearTheLists" is a social media movement where teachers share their Amazon wish lists full of things they want and need for their classrooms. As former teacher herself, Purrazzo recognizes that many teachers often purchase their own classroom supplies, and the total can add up, so she retweets lists, asking fans to help out, and makes purchases for various teachers every year herself.

Purrazzo has her bachelor's degree in history from Southern New Hampshire University and her master's in political science from Liberty University. She's big into history, as she often shares on her own social media, where she quizzes husband Steve Maclin on history facts. Just recently, Purrazzo gushed about AEW and how the company supports its talents in going back to school with tuition reimbursement opportunities.

There are some wrestlers who have taken to working as substitute teachers to pay the bills while making names for themselves on the independent scene. One of those stars is "WWE Raw's" Grayson Waller. He worked as a full-time substitute teacher, who specialized in history, at De La Salle Catholic College Revesby Heights, a secondary school for boys, in New South Wales. Waller worked as a sub while competing on the independent circuit in his home country on weekends. He left the job after signing with WWE and heading to the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, in 2021.

He once appeared on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet" and talked about his brief teaching career. He said, despite being a history teacher, he "taught pretty much anything" and said he was "the fun teacher" who enjoyed his work. He told Van Vliet he tried to make history fun for the kids, and said teaching a classroom of high school kids got him ready for crowds.

Waller's fellow "WWE NXT" star Trick Williams, who has had an interesting career between wrestling and his time in the NFL, is another talent who worked as a substitute teacher. In an appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show," Williams said he was teaching middle and high school kids, mostly in physical education classes, after his stint with the Philadelphia Eagles, all while coaching high school football. He said it was hard work in a tough situation and said teachers need to be paid more for what they do.