Former foster child finds his inspiration in the WWE
Professional wrestling, at its essence, is a morality play. Good versus Evil, banging fists and elbows and knees for world domination.
The righteous do not always prevail.
That fight has raged inside Luis Felipe Rodriguez for much of his life. As tragedies pulled him toward the dark side, Rodriguez simply could have bowed down in defeat, beaten by the forces of nature.
A dad who was murdered in jail. A sister arrested as a drug mule who died of a heroin overdose in prison. Another sister killed on the streets.
Rodriguez scurried from one foster home to another — 25 by his count — clinging to the one constant that would save him: Professional wrestling. Guys like the Ultimate Warrior and The Rock were his heroes, bloodied and battered, but always rising up again. A metaphor for his life.
As the big stage beckons all the stars of the show to
WrestleMania at Camping World Stadium in Orlando tonight, Rodriguez won’t just see men and women in a scripted morality play. He will see his own image in that ring, grateful he is still standing.
“Some people say wrestling is fake or whatever, but it’s the message that I take,” Rodriguez said last week. “It gave me motivation to keep moving. I just wanted to be someone in life.”
He defined it on his terms, as his convoluted journey began when he was 7 years old, growing up in Puerto Rico. His dad was murdered in jail, and he said his mother was in no shape to care for him or his siblings. Off to foster care he went.
The system became a tragic bounce house. Foster parents are not always perfect. Foster kids often rebel. Rodriguez never found his forever family, aging out of the system as a teenager.
But he refused to become a child of the streets. At 19, he reconnected with his mother and one of his siblings in Philadelphia, but they were still dealing with their own issues.
“It wasn’t what I expected,” he said. “I was used to working. I couldn’t settle. I wanted something better.”
He had $10 in his pocket. He remembered reading a book about one of his heroes, The Rock, who had reached the bottom of that pit as well. Cut after two months playing in the Canadian Football League, Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) was jobless, broke and embarrassed, with seven bucks to his name in 1995.
He picked himself up to become one of the biggest stars in wrestling history, as well as a movie star. He pays homage to his journey through the name of his multi-platform company: “7 Bucks Productions.”
So Rodriguez went to work, finding his path. His goal was to join the Army, but he couldn’t get past the hurdle of a basic skills test that included math and English. He failed. Then he failed again. And again.
So he sought tutoring, persevered and aced the test. He said Army officials were so surprised at the results, they made him take the test again to make sure he wasn’t cheating.
Now 27, Rodriguez has been in the Army four years and is stationed in Hawaii. He is a married man now, finding love in Orlando after the failed reconnection with his family in Philadelphia.
It is a loving blended family that includes wife Melissa, her daughter Joelis, 7, and the couple’s son, Luis Leriel, 18 months old.
Melissa has helped her husband nurture that love of wrestling. They have a room full of memorabilia in Hawaii.
“He has good memories of his [biological] dad,” Melissa said. “His dad had wrestling figures, and he started collecting, too. But he had to leave it all behind when he joined the Army. I told him you need to collect this stuff again. Collect your figures. I support you to collect.”
They saved for a trip to Orlando to see WrestleMania — the ultimate spectacle of the sport, staged yearly. They hopped on an Army plane to Mississippi, and then rented a car to drive to Central Florida.
But during the road trip, Luis Leriel developed a lymph node infection. His leg became swollen, and he had a high fever. Their first stop in Orlando was the emergency room at the Florida Hospital for Children late last Sunday.
Luis Leriel is on IV antibiotics to try to bring down the fever. For a while, they thought they would not be able to go to WrestleMania. But Luis Leriel, after a minor surgical procedure Friday, is doing well. The plan is for Melissa’s mom to babysit in the hospital for the night, so the rest of the family can go.
They did get a special sneak-peek Wednesday, when The Big Show, Bayley, Tyrus and other WWE stars made a surprise visit to a handful of children in the hospital. Joelis — who has become enamored with the sport as well — got a hug from Bayley. Luis chatted with The Big Show, who signed a replica championship belt that is part of Luis’ collection.
The crisis will pass. Luis Felipe Rodriguez and his family are resilient. Life is never easy.
“I had a lot of people telling me I was going to end up in jail or dead like my dad or I was going to end up doing drugs like the rest of my family, so I had to prove them wrong,” he said. “I finished high school. No one expected me to get out of middle school. I went to college, then I decided to join the Army. Now I have a beautiful family.”
The path is clear: You get beat up. You get back up.
Rodriguez doesn’t need that replica belt to prove he is a champ.