For our “Meet Your Driver” series, Rev asked several Lyft drivers to write about their lives, in their words. These are their stories.

When people hear I’m a wrestler, I’m sure they automatically think of The Rock, John Cena, or Nacho Libre the movie. And I’m basically a mix of all that. I’ve been a lucha libre wrestler for 23 years.

I have a crazy outfit, head to toe. I kind of resemble a Power Ranger. When I first started, people actually used to call me a Power Ranger. But my wrestling name is The Prophet. I picked the name for two reasons. I grew up in the Mormon church, and they talk about the Prophet Joseph Smith, from the Book of Mormon. My other inspiration came from rap music. Around the time I was getting into wrestling, my favorite group had a record label called Prophet Entertainment. So the name “The Prophet” was right there in my face.

I learned about pro wrestling when I was in high school. My friends and I would play a wrestling video game. One of the characters was based on a real wrestler named Rey Mysterio. In the game, he was doing all these crazy maneuvers, like cross-bodies, backflips, head scissors. I thought, Those are cool moves, but it’s just a game. Then I actually saw Rey Mysterio on TV doing all these crazy moves. So that was inspiring. I started trying to see if I could do the same things. I was running on grass, trying to do front flips and backflips. The first trick I mastered was a roundoff back handspring.

Shortly after that, my friends and I started training at a local wrestler’s house. He had a ring in his backyard. I did a backflip off the ropes on my first try. Nobody showed me how to place my feet or taught me how to do anything. It was all natural to me. So getting into wrestling actually showed me how athletic I was. 

I started performing as an independent wrestler when I was 16 or 17. A few of the matches were in Nogales, Mexico. That’s how I was introduced to lucha libre. There’s a company in Mexico called AAA (Asistencia Asesoría y Administración). They recognized my first year of wrestling there with a “debut of the year” certificate.

After I had about ten years of wrestling experience, I decided to start my own company. I had enough respect and contacts in the industry that I was able to start organizing tournaments. I booked seven other wrestlers. I rented a ring. I found a venue that was willing to work with me. In that first tournament, I wrestled three times. We had a pretty good turnout that night. After that, we started doing a show every month or every other month. Eventually, that led to us booking one of the best venues in Tucson. We’ve been holding shows there for ten years. 

I still organize most of the shows by myself. It’s stressful. The events are bigger now — I always book at least 16 wrestlers — and I write storylines for everyone in addition to doing things like selling tickets. I also make my own outfits, and I sew things for other wrestlers, like masks or pants or gauntlets. When it comes to my own outfits, I don’t mind if I make mistakes. But if I’m doing a job for another wrestler, I want to make it as great as possible. So sometimes I’ll turn down jobs just because I’m not confident enough that I can make it how it should be. 

I try to be in my shows less these days. I just want to run things and enjoy watching it all. Wrestling still feels natural to me. It’s just not easy on my body. When I finally stop, I’m sure I’m going to miss it.