As hometown performances go, Flint native and professional wrestler Jack Price couldn’t have asked for a better environment than the one he experienced as part of Pure Pro Wrestling (PPW)’s RetroSlam on April 25: Dort Financial Center was packed, including with his family and friends; he was facing Rohit Raju, a native of Saginaw, Flint’s natural regional rival in all things athletic; oh, and perhaps most notably, he was rapped out to the ring for his match by the legendary Dayton Family, who performed a live version of ‘Flint Town’ as Price absorbed love from the crowd.
“Man, like in any sport, you will always want to perform in front of your hometown,” Price said. “That is a dream come true. It’s a blessing that I’m still doing it. I’m 40 and I feel good. I feel like I’m 24.”
Price was born in Flint and lived here through fifth grade. His family moved around a lot, but he stayed primarily on the northside, including in the Civic Park area, and he attended Doyle-Ryder, Gundry, Cook, and Dort elementary schools before moving to Grand Rapids. He moved back to Flint his senior year of high school and completed his education at Genesee Job Corps, where he completed a 2-year program in accounting in just six months.
“I like math, and I got the second highest score in the group that I was in,” said Price, who stayed working with Job Corps as a tutor after completing the program. “We had a little assembly and they were awarding people. And people were shocked because I’m a quiet person.”
That quiet nature isn’t predictive of one of Price’s main passions, though. Professional wrestling is known for showmanship and over-the-top characters and personalities. In it, he’s found the perfect outlet to become a different persona in the ring.
“My shoot name (shoot means ‘real’ in wrestling speak) is Antoine, and Antoine is very quiet,” Price said, noting that he has social anxiety in his private life but performing provides an escape from that. “I’m very to myself, a leave me alone type. But as Jack Price, I want all the attention, you know? When I’m performing, that’s my niche. I can block everybody out, so I don’t see the people looking at me. I’m just doing my craft in the ring.”
His love for the art form started within his family. His grandfather was a wrestling fan, and one of the first matches Price remembers watching was Hulk Hogan vs. the Ultimate Warrior at Wrestlemania VI in 1990. Price played basketball when he was younger, which always coincided with school wrestling season, so he never was exposed to amateur wrestling techniques or holds, but his grandfather helped fill that gap for him.
“I liked wrestling, but basketball was my passion,” Price said. “I couldn’t do the wrestling thing because it was the same season. But my granddad, who introduced me to wrestling, used to always wrestle me when I was younger. So that’s where I got some mat wrestling skills from, all that interaction with him.”
As he got older, he began watching major pro wrestling companies like WWE, WCW, and ECW in the 1990s and early 2000s. There were major differences in styles and presentations between those three major companies at the time, so those were his first opportunities to learn how different performers approach the craft and build reactions from live crowds.
“Me and my best friends would stay up all night to watch,” Price said. “The atmosphere of the crowd, the attention the wrestlers were receiving, that drew me in. The theatrics, all of it. I was like, ‘Man, I gotta do this. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, but I gotta figure out how to do this.’”
That’s where his hometown helped get him started. When he was around 24 years old, he was out with friends at an old Flint bar (now closed) called Terri’s Lounge. On the night he happened to be there, a now-defunct promotion called Michigan Wrestling Organization was performing there.
“That was my first time really learning that there’s independent wrestling,” Price said. “I thought it was just WWE, WCW, and whatever, I never knew about the independents.”
He connected with the promoter, Jason Clouse, and began training. When he was asked what his name was, he’d already had a persona ready to go.
“I played video games and when I created a character, his name was Jack Price,” he said. “And I always said, ‘Man, if I ever become a wrestler, that’s gonna be my name.’ So I’ve been Jack Price since 2009.”
The name was the easier part. Professional wrestling has given more of a peak behind the scenes of how shows are produced to fans in recent years, but just because there are some predeterminations made in outcomes or storylines in the ring, that doesn’t mean that the sport is not extremely physically demanding for athletes. Price learned that quickly in his training.
“Watching it on TV and actually doing it are two different things,” Price said. “I was scared to bump. And my first bump, I hit my head. He (Clouse) was like, ‘You gotta tuck your chin!’ After that, I started tucking the chin, and it was easier sailing.”
As Price worked on his craft, he began to get opportunities. He’s worked with Michigan-based promotions like PPW, Metro Pro Wrestling, Xtreme Intense Championship Wrestling, and Horror Slam. He’s also had bookings across the Midwest, in Florida, and in other locations. He’s made appearances with TNA Impact Wrestling, a promotion broadcast nationally on AMC Network that also has a crossover partnership with WWE, and wrestled alongside big names in the industry like Chris Sabin. He was on the same card in Flint at RetroSlam as Carlito, who was a prominent star in WWE and is from the Colon family, a legendary wrestling family.
In addition to getting opportunities to be paid to wrestle, traveling to different areas also has challenged Price by forcing him to constantly find new ways to build relationships with audiences who aren’t familiar with him. Price said, more than using words or promos, he tries to convey his character through emotion and facial expressions and pulls some of his inspiration for that from watching WWE Hall of Fame wrestler Booker T. His character has also developed more throughout his career – he’s known as ‘The Black Diamond’ and built a strong following in several promotions and areas he’s worked in.
“It’s good for an independent wrestler to travel, because you can be popular in your home state, but go to another state and they don’t know who you are,” Price said. “I started getting love from all over the Midwest. I went down south to Florida, got love there. I love to get a connection with the crowd. So once I made it to TNA and we had a show in Florida, it was the same thing. It was like, ‘Dang, Jack, you wrestle here a lot?’ I’m like, ‘Nope.’ I don’t know how I get a quick connection with the crowd, they just connect with me somehow.”
Price takes bookings and shares information about shows he’s booked for on his Facebook, Instagram, and X pages. Price has a career outside of wrestling, and he’s a busy family man as a married father of three. He plans to continue chasing his dreams in wrestling, but also hopes to start his own production company someday to make music videos and independent films. Because wrestling as a genre encompasses so many elements of entertainment ranging from athleticism and physicality, to stage presence and crowd interaction and choreography, to understanding television production and camera work.
“You’d be surprised that a lot of regular stuff outside of wrestling is the same thing in wrestling,” Price said. “I think other (entertainment forms) get things from wrestling, you know? Wrestling has had a big impact on the world.”
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