Paul Lee doesn’t make professional wrestling sound like an exceptionally safe, much less glorious, undertaking.
The story of his 33-year career in the “squared circle” – almost 20 of them under the pseudonym “Natureboy” Paul Lee – is written all over his heavily muscled body in a script of scars.
“One lady, back in 1992, she got so much into it that she put a six-inch knife into me. It went all the way in,” said Lee, pulling up his shirt and pointing to a pale mark on the left side of his torso.
“I didn’t even press charges,” he added, laughing. “The lady was mentally challenged. She was shaking and went into a seizure right afterward. But I felt good in a way about my job, because my job was to get you to believe.”
Lee inherited his bad-boy Natureboy persona from World Wrestling Entertainment hall of famer Ric Flair, who inspired Lee’s shock of blond hair, peacock-strutting attitude and signature howl of “Wooooooo.”