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During the WWE Hall of Fame it was revealed that Molly Holly quietly paid the tuition for Beth Phoenix to attend Ohio Valley Wrestling's training school.
In that tradition, The Academy, the Minnesota wrestling school run by Shawn Daivari and Ken Anderson, which features Molly Holly as one of their lead trainers, announced the following:
Congratulations to Tyler Johnson of Plymouth, MN for being awarded a full-ride at The Academy: School of Professional Wrestling by earning himself “The Ariya Daivari Scholarship” in honor of our first graduate signing with the WWE recently.
Four months ago Tyler and his family relocated to Minnesota from Chicago, IL. Tyler did not have a father figure in his home during his formative years, and was like a father figure to his younger brother who has been diagnosed with Autism. In his early teenage years, Tyler grew and developed very quickly to over 6’3” tall and well over 220lbs. In his North Chicago neighborhood, this made Tyler stand out to Northern gang personnel who prey on at risk teens and manipulate them in a way to fulfill something that may be missing in the teens home, in exchange for their loyalty to the gang and the gangs activities.
Today, Tyler’s mother is married, but her husband did not want to have a step-father role in Tyler’s life. Instead, he chose to legally adopt Tyler as his own son. Fairly recently Tyler’s mother was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and other issues in Chicago put The Johnson’s in a situation where relocation was the best opportunity for everyone to start over as a family.
“As far back as I can remember, the only thing I ever wanted to be was a superhero. I wanted to be in the X-Men or be a Power Ranger. As I got older, I knew Batman and Superman weren’t real, but Hulk Hogan was. I was going to drop out of high school my sophomore year and train to become a professional wrestler. Minnesota historically breeds more pro-wrestling champions because it’s the home of Eddie Sharkey & Terry Fox. Neither Eddie nor Terry graduated high school. I came to them with tuition money in hand, and I wasn’t even like some clay that had the potential to be molded into prowrestler. I was like a lump of coal, that maybe could possibly have a small diamond inside, but the chances of that were less than winning the lottery. They had this kid, who they didn’t even know, and they could have taken his money and never looked back. But instead, they decided they’d only train me under the condition that I finished high school and that if my grades fell below a “B” average, I wasn’t allowed to come to training. I don’t know that if they didn’t do that for me, that I would have been so happy to jump onboard when the discussion of a scholarship program came up at The Academy.” - Shawn Daivari; former WWE, TNA, ROH, Lucha Underground Pro-Wrestler. Co-owner & Head Coach at The Academy: School of Professional Wrestling.
In November, The Johnson family moved to Plymouth where Tyler is now a junior at Wayzata High School. Extra-curricular and after school activates were of the utmost importance to Tyler’s mother. Because of Tyler’s fanatical love of WWE, joining the Wayzata Wrestling team made the most sense. In 2017, as the heavyweight anchor of the Wayzata Wrestling Varsity Team, Tyler competed against 10 other schools in The Brooklyn Center Tournament and came in 1st place; and against 20 other schools in the state, he came in 2nd in his conference. Academically, Tyler is also on the honor-roll in his high school.
For those interested in pursuing a career in pro-wrestling please visit theacademyprowrestling.com to learn how you can train with our next class while spots are still available.
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