He was soaked, shivering, borderline frozen in a nondescript clearing. His body temperature plummeted. He faded in and out of consciousness. A rescue helicopter appeared around 7 a. Gardner was airlifted to a hospital, and treated for severe frostbite. One toe looked like a small, brown, lifeless slug. It would eventually be amputated. The rest of his body survived — barely. His feet lost feeling.
He spent time in a wheelchair. The mere sight of his wrestling shoes would summon pain. Rational observers assumed his career was over. I can do anything. I can overcome anything. Sincerity creeps into his voice.
As a child, one bite of bread became an entire loaf; one potato chip became an entire bag. I seriously do. I feel it. One of our conversations about his weight occurred in the parking lot at Chuck-A-Rama, an all-you-can-eat buffet.
An hour later, he had devoured a half-dozen plates of food. We returned the following day, and he binged again. To beat the addiction. To hold himself accountable.
His sisters, at times, have tried to support one another in weight-loss endeavors. To hold one another accountable. But Rulon and the brothers have each attacked the problem on their own. A hundred percent. Wrestling, for years, was his savior. It kept him in shape.
It presented tangible goals. It offered a direct line between input and output, between effort and accomplishment. Results solidified his worldview: Toughness is a choice. Success is a choice. Survival is a choice. Each man for himself. Belief and work ethic can beat them. Until, that is, the believer stands off to the side, three feet back from a wrestling mat, helpless.
Last January, a spotlight hung from the ceiling. Gardner, the head wrestling coach at Herriman High School, remained just outside it. He waddled forward, and leaned in, shouting instructions to his wrestlers.
But parents, and siblings, and high school girls were shouting too. The din swallowed it up. Wrestling success, in his coaching role, was no longer something over which he had chief control.
He took the job at Herriman in They took fourth at state in Year 1. But then the school split in two. Numbers dwindled. Heading into a Wednesday meet, Gardner privately forecasted a beatdown. So Sam ran. Back and forth, his feet pounding on hardwood, the loudest noises in the gym. He took an occasional detour up the bleachers. He dropped to the ground and pumped out pushups, situps, burpees. He tugged the hood of a gray Adidas sweatshirt tight around his face.
He had two shirts underneath, and shorts under his pants. He kept running. He keeled over a trash can. His insides lurched. Later, he turned to me. Sam eventually made weight. A couple hours later, Gardner patted him on the back as he headed to the mat. He got pinned in 90 seconds. The team lost. Twenty-four hours later, on senior night, they lost again. He ripped into them. I asked him. Super, super, super. And his success, therefore, sometimes felt out of his control.
The insurance world, too, has presented a steep learning curve. He hustles, calling clients and dictating text messages while driving, but progress takes time. His to-do list is long. He sometimes seems stressed. That direct line between input and output, between effort and success, has all but disappeared. I wanna be successful. And you push yourself hard every day, but you never really seem to get anywhere.
Yet he has gone somewhere. Almost everywhere. There are two answers. The other answer, though, cuts to the heart of his life. He uses the word frequently. Sitting behind the wheel of his Durango, he searched aloud for a definition. He mentioned his rental home. He mentioned business. He mentioned money. I'm not gonna push myself today. Yet his entire life has been about pushing. His voice got hushed as he pondered this. And I felt like I was gonna be stuck there.
Because I had so many gifts given to me — across the board, from self-esteem, to worth, to people respecting me, people trusting me. Hardship re-appeared. Sunlight beamed through a clearing in the clouds, and filtered in through his windshield. What are you gonna do? Last spring, though, they reconnected. They began talking. Then dating. She visited him in Utah. He visited her in California.
COVID shutdowns carved out endless quality time to themselves. Love her so much. But still, a few months in, parts of him felt stuck. So he and Meredith left it behind. Rogers was kinda-sorta the first champion in the company.
It's complicated -- ask Killer Kowalski and Bruno Sammartino. One of the best on the mic, Miz has been holding down the Intercontinental Championship more than any other Superstar of the past few years.
Oh, and look up Flair's ridiculous NWA runs too. Master of the Brogue Kick, Rocksteady in the "Ninja Turtles" movies -- which is the greater accomplishment? Backlund couldn't "Make Darren Young Great Again" -- or even keep the guy employed -- but the master of the cross-face chicken wing had a pretty incredible career of his own. Boss of The Authority and former DX member has two words for the other guys on this list.
We can't reprint them. Pro-wrestling championship belts change hands like grapplers change ring gear these days, though it wasn't always that way. I agree with TheWrap's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and provide my consent to receive marketing communications from them. It was the combination of all three, Gardner said. Rank: 31 tie Wrestler: Sgt. Rank: 31 tie Wrestler: Eddie Guerrero of Reigns: 1 Generally considered one of the best ever to have done it held the big-boy belt for days.
Yes, yes we do. Rank: 31 tie Wrestler: Rey Mysterio of Reigns: 1 We're not going to talk about how ridiculous the setup to his finishing move, "The ," became. Rank: 31 tie Wrestler: Buddy Rogers of Reigns: 1 Rogers was kinda-sorta the first champion in the company. Hundreds of wrestlers are running around, stretching or sparring to warm up. Gardner is standing along the center line between the rows of mats with an eye on his four guys, who are split into pairs to get loose.
One of his lightweights catches an elbow in the wrong spot and blood pours from his nose, seeping into his warm-up shirt and splattering on the crowded mat. Nobody bats an eye as the wrestler shoves gauze up his nostril and his practice partner sprays the mat down with disinfectant. Officially, Rulon is coaching four kids at States. Practically speaking, he is coaching more than that. Rulon even gave him his phone number so they could text each other.
In some ways, Gardner blends in amid the hundreds of wrestlers and dozens of coaches. Everyone is focused, with the pressure of lifelong individual dreams, team titles and possibly college scholarships on the line. In other ways, Rulon has a presence. They clear the floor and the jumbotron hanging from the ceiling lists which bouts will begin on which mats. On-deck wrestlers stay on the floor in the warmup area as those with a longer wait time retreat to the bleachers.
Each mat is set up the same. Most coaches sit in the chairs, but Rulon stands behind his. He says he liked when his coaches would stand, and he thinks it helps him be more animated.
Jack gets out to an early lead, but is pinned despite being ahead in points. Jack has his head down, arms grabbing the trusses along the side of the metal bleachers. He leans against the metal barricade, right next to the folded-up wall of lower level seats that can extend to cover the floor. He stands alone, essentially in the corner of the gym farthest away from any crowd. Just an Olympic champion, quietly watching the high-schoolers competing in front of him, chatting only when somebody new sidles up next to him and starts a conversation.
He deserves all the accolades that he has. He remembers coming home to the Wyoming state tournament shortly after he won Olympic gold, when his mere presence was too much of a disruption. He had to leave and go to a nearby mall to accommodate all the people who wanted to talk to him and get autographs. You want me to do a clinic for free? Can I talk to the parents about insurance afterward? You want me to come give a speech? Do you pay other people? He jokes that it took him too long to figure one con that was pulled on him repeatedly: Organizations would make up some award to give him, largely as an excuse to get him to show up for free for an event to which they could sell tickets.
Now he knows better. But despite being the most recognizable face in the gym, one of the most eventful parts of his day is when a tournament official informs him that he has to wear his credential.
But policy is policy. He clips his ID to a carpenter loop on his pants. His two lightweights are both eliminated on Day 1 but the two heavier weights, Talmage Carman and Traycee Norman, win two matches apiece. Both will advance to Day 2, starting with the semifinals in the morning, two wins away from the top spot on the podium.
Rulon is new to the neighborhood, though really his home is more farm community than neighborhood, with horses running through penned-in yards along his drive to the office. Cows roam beyond a fence in his backyard, visible from a driveway that runs alongside his house to a fleet of cars in the back—a Ford Excursion, Ford F, Dodge Durango and the beloved VW Beetle. He says one day he took a trash can up to the curb, nobody ever came to pick it up, and two days later a neighbor dragged it back in.
Olympian of the year; and other accolades. But Rulon has lived 49 years now, and not all have been as kind as that brief stretch after he became famous overnight, going from total unknown to Leno and Conan guest in a span of 10 days. He holds up his thumb and index finger a couple inches apart.
One of his fellow contestants even remarked in a solo confessional to the camera how strange it was not to get a more detailed explanation. That season featured partners competing in tandem.
There were parents with their kids, spouses and siblings. Rulon signed up with his friend Justin Pope, a fellow wrestler who beat Rulon in junior high and long-time friend. At the time, Rulon and his then wife were operating a gym in Logan, Utah, and Justin was an investor. After a first interview in Salt Lake City and a second-round tryout in California, they were all set. Rulon tipped the scale at pounds at the onset of the show, up more than from the pound division in which he competed at the Olympics.
He and Justin were the heaviest team on the ranch. He was a success, in the way success is measured on the show. He outlasted 15 contestants and shed pounds, looking notably trimmer and more fit at in his last official weight check. But behind the scenes, he says it was miserable. Rulon feels he was treated unfairly. Rulon says it went beyond that—and that behind the scenes it was worse, that the people involved in making the show were manipulative, and gossip among contestants was rampant.
There was an incident in New Zealand, when contestants had just returned to the show after a holiday break, and he needed a chiropractor.
Someday those details may come out. I got my health back, I got my fitness and I got my life back. And that was the real reason that I was coming to The Biggest Loser. He played the part. She says she has only positive things to say about her experience being on the show in general and working with Rulon in particular. As a pro boxer, she identified with his wrestler mentality. Castranuova says she thought Rulon would win the whole competition and was shocked when he left.
Bob Harper, a trainer on the show since Season 1, and the face of the program when it relaunched earlier in , is among those whom Rulon thought he was getting close to. He says Bob wanted to stay in touch and keep helping him live healthier. He says Harper told him, I waited my whole career for you.
Gardner was also irritated by some of the sniping from fellow contestants. In , after trimming down on the show, Gardner mounted a comeback attempt for the London Olympics, eight years after medaling in Athens.
He says that after his comeback bid fell short—the result of the year-old not being able to make weight on the day of the U. That one stung. I learned how to count calories. The show has faced plenty of controversy over the years including criticisms of the weight-loss methods and their lasting effects, famed trainer Jillian Michaels giving her team caffeine pills and allegations of contestants taking weight-loss pills and Rulon says former contestants are divided into two camps.
He says some, many of whom gain back considerable weight after they leave the show, feel the experience ruined their lives. The night before the tournament, he stopped at a buffet restaurant for dinner. How much does he weigh now? He was willing to answer questions about anything—frostbite, bankruptcy, divorce—but not that. Despite spending four months in a high-school wrestling environment where weight is an obsession and scales are plentiful, he says he avoided stepping on one the whole season.
But he estimates his weight is about where he started on Loser. That was just a small dumbbell shy of This is another touchy subject for Rulon, though one he discusses openly.
He laments how people saw his name and the word bankruptcy in headlines and assumed the worst. Rulon says he was a victim, and the paper trail backs him up. The short version, Rulon says, is that he was presented an opportunity to invest in a real estate venture in A friend introduced Rulon to their niece, who just needed a small loan to get more financing. She presented a business plan that looked solid. She showed him real estate purchase agreements, contracts and more.
The problem: She had been fabricating documents, according to the FBI, including the ones she showed Rulon. Rulon was partially on the hook. After an FBI investigation, she pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering and was sentenced to 34 months in prison. Even as he gets his feet under himself and recovers financially, he feels betrayed. He thinks about headlines in the Star Valley Independent, back in his hometown in Wyoming that was so happy to claim him when things were going well.
Few knew the ironic twist, the only reason he even had a chance to earn back his medal. He has two lawyer friends in particular whom he talks to about business decisions. Just quit. Not on the TV show. Not during the night on the mountain waiting for a rescue helicopter to spot him, or the grueling recovery from frostbite and hypothermia.
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