Jason Lynch caught everyone on the hop when his name appeared on the register to run in the General Election just as nominations closed.
From Portlaoise, Lynch is a paramedic by trade, but, aside from that being listed as his profession under his application, little else was known about him this time last week.
Jason joined us in the LaoisToday Office on Monday where, on our 10 Minutes With series, he explained how he decided to run in the election.
And in the course of the chat, Jason also revealed that he was once very involved in the wrestling scene.
He said: “Many years ago I would have played the usual, GAA, basketball, soccer and all that, but as the years went on I kind of had different interests and stuff.
“So I’d be big into professional wrestling, and WWE, so that’d be one of my main interests.
“I ventured into that into my teenage years as well, so I actually participated and travelled around the country with Small Irish Wrestling, an Irish company.
“Thankfully I got to meet some good people there too, and some people might know the WWE superstar Sheamus, he was actually my trainer when I first started back in the day before he became rich and famous.
“I’m not involved within an organisation, now again, it is something I have considered getting back involved in.
“When I went into the ambulance service that takes up a lot of your life.”
Jason also revealed that an injury forced him to step back from the physical side of wrestling.
He said: “As I got a little bit older now due to injury I actually stepped away from the physical aspect of it, and I was more involved say as a referee and MC and so on.”
And where would Jason have performed?
He said: “It would have been hotels, GAA centres, theatres, likes of Dunamase Theatre, those type of theatres throughout the country.
“I went to one recently which is an Irish based organisation back in Dublin and they actually sold out the National Stadium, so they had 2,200 people which was actually adult based.
“So it was a complete sell out. It’s a big industry.”
You can listen to the full chat with Jason below:
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