SouthernWorldwide.com – Cristiano Argento has been making waves in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), steadily climbing the ranks for opportunities at championship gold.
However, his journey to one of the most esteemed professional wrestling companies in the U.S. was a long and unconventional one, a path not many wrestlers have traversed.
He initially made his way to Canada to train under the tutelage of legendary pro wrestling figure Lance Storm. This move to Canada meant leaving behind most of his friends and family, and he had a very limited grasp of the English language at the time.
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“At the time, my English was horrible. I didn’t speak any English at all,” he recounted. “But I was with my friend, Stefano, he came with me and he translated everything for me. I probably missed 50% of the knowledge that Lance Storm was giving to us because I was unable to understand. I was only given a recap and everything I was able to see. I’m sure if I was doing it now with a proper knowledge of English, it would have been a different scenario.”
“Eventually, I moved back to Italy after the training and I said, OK, now, I want to go to the U.S. So, I studied English more properly, and eventually I got my first work visa that was in Texas. I was in Houston for a short period of time. I trained with Booker T at Reality of Wrestling. I got on his show, which was my debut in the U.S. That was awesome. I eventually got a new work visa in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I currently live since 2017. Since then, my wrestling career, thankfully, kept growing, growing, growing and growing until now wrestling for the NWA. One of the bigger promotions in the U.S.”
Argento shared that his family initially considered his pursuit of a pro wrestling dream to be “nuts.”
Their primary concern was for his well-being, given he was on the other side of the world without familiar faces to rely on should anything go wrong.
“They’re still proud of me. I think more like the fact that you’re gonna try that, that it’s hard than more like you’re gonna leave us. The fact like, oh, my son is gonna go on the opposite side of the world for a six-hour time difference and we’re gonna see him maybe, when, like, I don’t know. Not often. I think it was more that. And for me too, it was really hard. It was heartbreaking not being able to see my family every day or every month. Like once a year if I’m lucky. I think that was the biggest part for them because of concern or that I was here by myself and if I have any issue or any problem, I didn’t have nobody. So they were scared. Like, you get sick, if you have a problem, anything, and they’re not being able to be here next to me. But they were really supportive since day one.”
Argento is currently living his dream in the U.S. He believes that the reputation of the U.S. as the “land of opportunity” is not just a concept from movies and literature, but a tangible reality.
“But my big inspirations were big-time actors who moved to the country, who didn’t know English, with no money, no support system. I had one dream, I have to go right there to make it happen and I’m gonna go and do it and I’m gonna make it happen. So those people were always the biggest inspiration even if it wasn’t in wrestling, just how they handled their passion, how they pursued their dream without being scared of anything, how far you are, how alone by yourself … You don’t know the language, you’re like, let’s go, let’s do it.”
Beyond his commitments with the NWA, Argento has also competed for the International Wrestling Cartel, Enjoy Wrestling, and Exodus Pro Wrestling this year.
