Murray Wood: Appropriately incorrect
Kids don't always talk well, but rather than fret about it, Murray says enjoy it for it's undeniable charm.
The lights go dark.
A low rumble rolls through the speakers.
A hard-rock version of ‘The Thunder Rolls’ begins to shake the room as fans turn toward the entrance, waiting for the next entrance.
AJ Ouellette steps through the curtain.
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AJ Ouellette’s walk up song is a cover of ‘The Thunder Rolls’ by rock band STATE of MINE. (Steve Vincent Photography)
Not as the Saskatchewan Roughriders running back. Not as the guy who carried the ball through a Grey Cup season last year.
For the next few minutes, he isn’t playing a position; he’s playing a character.
“The whole Thor thing, people love,” the long-haired wrestler said with a laugh.
Listen to the story on Behind the Headlines:
The entrance gets the cheers, but it also brings the butterflies.
“I’m more nervous for a simple wrestling match than I am last year playing in the Grey Cup,” he said.
Ouellette said when it comes to football, he can block out the noise from the crowd. Wrestling forces him to lean in, listen and engage. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
The difference isn’t the pressure. Ouellette is no stranger to that. It’s the spotlight.
“In football, I can block it out. I don’t really notice fans,” he explained. “But there, you have to feed off of it, so you have to hear what the fans are saying. You have to like chirp back to them and all that.”
Football asks him to execute, but wrestling asks him to perform. It’s a challenge, and that’s exactly why he keeps stepping into the ring.
He’s been in the ring a number of times, but has yet to choose a name for his wrestling character. “They just said my name. It was just ‘AJ Ouellette,'” he said. “I haven’t come up with anything cool yet.” (Steve Vincent Photography)
Finding the alter ego
Ouellette’s wrestling journey started with a phone call from a friend in Ohio.
“He reached out and was like, ‘Hey, I have an event in Toronto. Do you want to come watch?'”
Backstage, he watched wrestlers stretching and preparing for the night ahead. The atmosphere felt strangely familiar.
“I was getting kind of fired up,” he recalled. “Like before a game, when you’re in the tunnel. I was like, ‘Is there any way that I could do something?'”
They devised a plan to have Ouellette step into the ring, wearing a football helmet, to deliver a football tackle and end a match.
The crowd went wild.
That moment was all it took. Ouellette was hooked.
Watch Ouellette’s wrestling debut:
“The next offseason, it was a tag-team match, where it was like a 10-minute match, and it was just tag teams back and forth. And then this past offseason, I did my first solo match. It’s incredible. It’s fun.”
The word he keeps coming back to is surprisingly simple. Fun.
For someone whose career is built around pressure, punishment and expectations, stepping into the ring provides something football rarely does: a chance to become someone else.
“One thing that I’ve talked to mentors about is finding that alter ego, that person you can switch into,” Ouellette said. “Wrestling’s that person. You have to fully be in that person for the whole show.”
Football doesn’t work that way. There are conversations on the sidelines. Adjustments. Coaching. Waiting. Then the whistle blows.
Wrestling is different.
“You’re that different creature,” Ouellette explained.
Once the music hits, there is no stepping out of character. It’s all or nothing.
When asked if pro wrestling is real, Ouellette gave a very diplomatic answer. “It’s a real skill,” he said. “The performers out there are giving it their all, no matter if it’s scripted or not.” (Steve Vincent Photography)
Knowing when to say ‘no’
That doesn’t mean Ouellette forgets where his priorities are.
Before matches, fellow wrestlers will sometimes pitch something spectacular.
“When you’re warming up, they’re like, ‘Hey, how about this move? You want to hit this move tonight?'”
Sometimes the answer comes quickly.
“‘No, no, we’re not going to hit that move today because I’m not jumping off the top rope trying to do a back flip into someone.'”
Everyone understands.
“They know football’s where I make a living and what’s getting the family fed,” he said.
That respect goes both ways. Spend five minutes listening to Ouellette talk about professional wrestling and it quickly becomes clear that he sees and respects the hard work behind the spectacle.
“It’s a real skill,” he said. “The performers out there are giving it their all. No matter if it’s scripted or not, they are putting it out there for the fans.”
He laughed as he reflected on a barbed-wire cage match.
“I still think they’re psychotic for doing this,” he said.
He said his family texted afterward asking if the barbed wire had been fake. It wasn’t.
“I cut a piece off, and I took it home. It was real barbed wire, and these guys are bleeding from head to toe,” he said.
But Oullette’s admiration isn’t about the violence. It’s about the commitment. The willingness to throw yourself completely into something simply because you love it.
Ouellette said football is his top priority. He said he takes steps to avoid injuries while he’s in the ring, and all of the performers respect his boundaries. (Steve Vincent Photography)
Still chasing the feeling
For now, football remains top of mind for Ouellette.
“Football is never gonna end, that’s what we think,” he said with a laugh, acknowledging the strange confidence every athlete carries that tells them there will always be another season.
“So I’ll keep enjoying the fun, just hop in there and perform. We’ll see what happens when no team calls one year.”
Most people spend their lives chasing one dream. If they’re lucky, they catch it.
That’s what AJ Ouellette did.
He plays professional football for a living. He carries the ball in front of thousands of fans. He gets to do what countless kids imagine when they’re tossing around a ball in the backyard.
But every offseason, when the lights go dark and the music hits, he gets to feel something different.
The nerves. The adrenaline. The moment before stepping through the curtain.
Football gave him the dream he always wanted, but wrestling gives him another reason to keep dreaming.
Saskatchewan Roughriders running back AJ Ouellette is a champion on the football field. But in the offseason, he trades his cleats for wrestling boots, pursuing his passion for professional wrestling. (Steve Vincent Photography)
