It’s the Fourth of July, but for Mark Sterling, his holiday weekend won’t be filled with fireworks and grilling hamburgers, but instead with body slams and headlocks. Sterling is an independent pro wrestler, which means on most weekends he leaves the comfort of his Kansas City, Mo., home and travels to wrestle at whatever city has an event.

Sterling’s lifelong goal is to one day wrestle for World Wrestling Entertainment, but for now he knows he has to pay his dues. The process of chasing his dream has led Sterling to high school gymnasiums and armories all across the Midwest. The Fourth of July night brought Sterling to Memphis, where he would sacrifice his body in front of 60 fans.

The most money Sterling makes from his matches is $50, and with the cost it takes for gas and lodging, he usually loses money after everything is paid for. Last year, Sterling put more than 50,000 miles on his Ford Taurus and now just rents a car for his road trips.

Sterling said driving across the lonely roads of Middle America and performing in front of just dozens of fans can seem worlds away from the bright lights and packed arenas of the WWE, but he knew the long hours and hard work was what would allow him to achieve his dream.

“You pretty much have to live and breathe the business,” Sterling said, “When I am not at work, I pretty much immerse myself in wrestling 24/7.”

Sterling, whose real name is Mark Ptasnik and uses Sterling as his wrestling alias, pays off his long trips by working during the weekday as a cardiologist technician at a Kansas City hospital. At night, he is a personal trainer at a gym in the Brookside area of Kansas City.

At the hospital, Sterling said he doesn’t talk much to his patients or doctors about pro wrestling. He said he doesn’t want to give away the secrets of the business, but more important than that, he doesn’t want to be labeled.

“People write you off as being white trash, but they don’t realize that a lot of wrestlers are really intelligent and hardworking people,” Sterling said.

It was when Sterling attended the University that he decided he was going to follow his dream.

It was the summer of 1999; Sterling had finished up his sophomore year at the University and the Hardy Boys won the WWE Tag Championships. The WWE typically had promoted and marketed wrestlers with enormous size, but the Hardy Boys were one of the smaller tag teams in the company. The change in company direction gave Sterling, who weighed 185 pounds, all the confidence he needed that he could make it in the wrestling business.

Sterling, who graduated in 2001 with a degree in exercise science, quickly encountered his first obstacle – his parents. Sterling said they were horrified when he first tried to convince them that being a professional wrestler was his dream. Eventually they realized wrestling is what made his heart tick and they let him give it a shot, and for Sterling’s senior year during spring break, he signed up for wrestling school.

“I always told people while they were on spring break on cruises having fun, I was getting my ass kicked for a full couple of weeks,” Sterling said.

Sterling arrived back on campus with throbbing pain in his back, elbows and knees. His aching body wasn’t the worst part of his training. What bothered Sterling the most was that wrestling wasn’t coming to him as easy as he thought it would. Moves that he had seen countless times on television and in person were harder to execute than he imagined. He said learning to wrestle was one of the hardest things he ever had to do.

“I was frustrated because I love wrestling to death but I wasn’t doing well,” Sterling said. “I just basically kept watching tapes until it finally clicked.”

Eventually the moves became easier and Sterling started to improve as a wrestler. Four months later, Sterling was set to wrestle his first match in Lenexa. Before the event started, he found his friend and opponent for the night, Darrien Sanders.

“I told Darrien backstage, ‘this is what we have been dreaming about our whole lives, this is why we watched the WWF, WCW and ECW, lets go out there and become wrestlers,’” Sterling said.

The crowd loved the match and Sterling started to make a name for himself on the wrestling scene, winning titles and belts in different independent promotions.

Even with the early success, Sterling has still remained a student of the business, picking the brains of local wrestling legends Harley Race and Michael Strider, and constantly trying to add new moves to his matches.

Joseph McDonald, promoter of Central States Wrestling which operates in Lawrence, has noticed Sterling’s work ethic.

“The thing with Mark is he is his own worst critic,” McDonald said. “He never stops learning and he is always watching tape of wrestlers that are better than him.”

Sterling said one area he had improved in since he started was his ring persona. Sterling plays a heel, which is wrestling lingo for the bad guy. When entering the ring, Sterling will yell at fans, rip up their signs and even hit on their spouses. For Sterling, getting under the fans’ skin is a role he loves playing, and watching the fans react is one of the reasons he loves pro wrestling.

“A lot of people don’t realize you can do a lot of cool stuff, but if the crowd isn’t involved, it is pointless,” Sterling said, “So you really have to gauge your match on what the crowd wants to see.”

This fall the WWE will hold a camp and Sterling will be there, hoping he can overcome his biggest and final hurdle in achieving his dream to wrestle in the country’s largest wrestling promotion.

“I know I can do as good as those guys, I just haven’t gotten that one shot,” Sterling said.

— Edited by Mandy Earles