Mark Henry: By The Time I Was 16, I Was The Strongest Teenager In The World

Mark Henry speaks on how he got into weight lifting.

Before Henry became a part of the WWE roster in the 90’s, he had made his name as a power lifter and is a two time Olympian, partaking in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics.

While speaking to Virgin Media in a new interview, Mark was asked about how he got into the sport of power lifting.

“Golly. I’m 14 years old. Really, 11 years old, all I wanted to do was lift heavy stuff. I saw the Olympics for the first time when I was real young, and then there was a guy named Vasily Alekseyev, who was the champion of all champions. I wanted to be him, and I knew very early that’s who I wanted to be and that’s what I strived to do. By the time I was 16, I was the strongest teenager in the world.”

When asked about the level of encouragement he received about pursuing power lifting, Henry spoke about his mother originally not wanting him to do it.

“100%. Like, my mother kind of didn’t want me to do it right away, and she kind of held me back until I was, like, 11 or 12. Then it was just like, I lifted everything I saw. I watched TV, and if I saw it, I tried to do it. I made my own weights. I used to dip things in concrete to make them heavier, and I would keep dipping them and keep lifting it. I was just a crazy kid, man, that kind of science. You see the shows on TV, ‘How To Make A Champion.’ I actually lived that experience.”

Henry recently commented on the death of Hulk Hogan. You can read more about that here.

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