Nasty Nic Nolan is known for his underhanded antics in the squared circle while facing off against former and current champions, literally making children in the crowd weep in the process as their heroes fall victim to his cheap shots.
“I beat their favorite wrestler and they [the kids] start getting upset. And then when I see they’re upset, then I nag them, then I egg them on,” Nolan said, recalling one instance. “‘What are you gonna do about it? What, are you gonna beat me up? I’ll beat you up just like I beat him up, your man,’ I say. They want to hit me, and then that’s when they get overwhelmed and start crying.”
But Nolan is not your ordinary “heel” — a bad guy in wrestling. The New York native and longtime wrestling fan is traveling the country plying his grappling vocation while hoping to one day make it big in WWE.
Nolan grew up in Brooklyn, but he has not stayed there. He yearned to fight across the country, and he has trained under some of the industry’s giants in an ongoing effort to make it to the pinnacle of the craft: Wrestlemania.
Nolan admits he did not always love wrestling; as a young child, he said he was even afraid of the likes of the Undertaker. But he was bitten by the wrestling bug when he attended a WWE Smackdown event in Madison Square Garden with his father two decades ago.
Nolan said it was here, inside one of the country’s most iconic sporting arenas, at the end of the show when the crowd roared in reaction to legendary grappler Hulk Hogan.
“I remember looking over to my right and just seeing everybody on their feet, but the building, Madison Square Garden, was shaking. And right then and there, I looked over to my dad, and then I looked back to my right,” Nolan remembered. “I don’t know how many people fit in there, 18,000 or whatever it was. And right then and there, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
From that moment on, the future Nasty Nic became a diehard fan. He would race to WWE shows, with Edge — now known as Adam Copeland — and Triple H being among those he particularly idolized.
In one incident of fandom, while he was still a teen, he happened to encounter then-WWE Owner (and CEO) Vince McMahon and asked him to sign his ticket to a show when he spotted Triple H.
“I give him [McMahon] my pen and my ticket, and as he’s about to start writing. I see Triple H, I snatch it out of Vince’s hands, and I give it to Triple H,” Nolan remembered with an embarrassed smile. “Looking back, I am like, damn, I can’t believe I did that.”
In the years since being that wide-eyed young fan, Nolan, with the help of his father, embarked on training to take his love of wrestling from the stands to the ring by attending a slew of wrestling schools and in the process not only studied under the likes of Tommy Dreamer, Lance Storm, Brian Kendrick, and even Seth Rollins he also battled them in the ring.
“Brian Kendrick is the smartest person I’ve met when it comes to the psychology of wrestling, but he’s also the most passionate person I’ve met in this business,” Nolan said of the former WWE tag team and light heavyweight champion. “He loves wrestling so much, and he wants to help you, but if you don’t want to help yourself, he’s not going to force you.”
Crediting the likes of Kendrick and Rollins for their training, Nolan himself has been able to climb to great heights in the industry, including capturing MCW World Heavyweight Championship and even battling for the legendary NWA championship.
Despite all of his accomplishments on the independent circuit, Nolan says he yearns to eventually make it to his first love — WWE.
Home to all of his childhood favorites and the spark that inspired him to don the boots all those years ago in Madison Square Garden, Nolan said his ultimate dream is to one day perform at Wrestlemania.
