Zion Clark To Inspire is here. Some of our best stuff yet. Zion was born with a rare condition that hindered the development of his legs. His birth mother put him up for adoption and he moved around in the foster care system and from school to school until 17. Detailing unfortunate abuse and bullying during his early years. Despite numerous challenges wrestling was his escape. He lost hundreds of matches before his first win. He turned the impossible into his goal! He kept working an became an all state wrestler and viral sensation going to college at Kent State to wrestle collegiately and having a Netflix movie made on his life. He’s a multi Guinness world record holder, Prolific track and field wheelchair racer, motivational speaker and now mostly recently and undefeated MMA fighter under the mentorship of Mike Tyson & Anderson Silva. He remains the 1st and only disabled athlete to beat an able bodied opponent in MMA.
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SportsTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:03 Most people aren't decent human beings.
00:05 A lot of people, when they see an opportunity
00:11 to take advantage of somebody,
00:12 just because it's gonna lift them up
00:16 or they think that it's gonna be fun, they'll do it.
00:19 I was that easy target until I wasn't.
00:22 I just partially dislocated my shoulder,
00:27 they pushed it back in.
00:29 I was having a hard time moving.
00:30 I'm looking at my coach,
00:31 he's like, "You really want me to go back out there?"
00:33 You know, my coach picked me up, smacked me,
00:36 told me, "No excuses.
00:37 "You're about to win.
00:38 "Now go out there and win."
00:39 Now that my coach put that in my head, I was waiting for it.
00:41 I saw it coming, caught dude's legs midair
00:45 and got to take down in overtime
00:47 and got my hand raised and won.
00:49 Then I went and won the next one
00:50 and then the next one and then the next one.
00:52 Ended up placing at this tournament.
00:54 I go out there, I'm wrestling in a skin-tight thing,
00:57 you're gonna see no excuses right across my back.
01:00 You're gonna see that and you're gonna be inspired.
01:02 (upbeat music)
01:09 Coming up in the foster care system,
01:16 I'm not gonna get into it,
01:17 it's not my favorite subject to talk about,
01:19 but growing up in that system,
01:22 it's hard for a kid, especially like me,
01:26 to find somebody that can see the way I do
01:29 and understand things the way I do.
01:32 And as a kid, your voice isn't being heard.
01:35 So when I'm coming up,
01:38 I didn't have a lot of people in my corner
01:40 to help me and help me move forward.
01:42 I had to figure out a lot of things on my own,
01:44 from just trying to figure out my own food situation
01:47 to figure out if I'm gonna be at that house that night
01:50 or if I'm gonna be at a group home
01:52 or I'm gonna be out on the street, I don't know.
01:54 And on top of that, I had to figure out how to
01:57 do my own cooking, I had to figure out how to cook,
01:59 I had to figure out, I didn't have somebody
02:01 to show me how to do things.
02:02 I taught myself how to ride a bike.
02:05 There's a lot of things that you would think
02:06 you would have somebody there to teach you, but I didn't.
02:10 So my type of mindset that I got from that was,
02:15 when I was 15, I was actually 21.
02:18 I used to be a wild cannon, man.
02:20 I'm telling you right now, I used to,
02:22 if you made me mad or looked at me funny,
02:24 I was throwing hands, man, instantly.
02:27 And that's just how I used to be,
02:28 'cause I couldn't trust nobody.
02:29 I had grown so cold to everybody around me.
02:32 My mom has had, she had a hard life herself
02:35 growing up with our family.
02:37 She was one of those few people that,
02:39 when I was just saying that,
02:41 when there was nobody that understood how I see
02:43 or could understand why I do the things I do,
02:46 she understood.
02:47 So she helped me figure out how to control my own urges
02:51 and my own emotions.
02:53 I never had support like that.
02:56 Growing up through wrestling and all the things that I did,
02:58 I never had a single person for 12 years straight
03:01 ever show up to a wrestling match.
03:03 My mom showed up and I showed out
03:05 in one of the first 13 matches of my senior year
03:08 as a wrestler, consecutively, before I lost one.
03:10 And that first loss was against
03:12 one of the best guys in the state.
03:14 (upbeat music)
03:24 I actually ended up dropping out of college,
03:26 if I'm gonna be honest about that,
03:27 'cause I couldn't stand going to school.
03:29 You know, school is not a place for me
03:31 where I could open my mind's eye,
03:34 broaden my scope of what I could do.
03:35 As that door was closing, another one opened
03:39 and I found myself in California
03:41 with like 30 bucks in my pocket,
03:44 talking to one of the best Bellator teams on the planet.
03:47 And that's how I met all my teammates,
03:48 who I call my brothers.
03:51 (upbeat music)
03:53 I'd find out what works, what didn't work.
03:54 I'd try a hundred different things
03:56 and if one thing out of those hundred things worked,
03:59 I'm gonna drill a thousand times.
04:01 And so I got to the point where I found out
04:03 my two, three, four things that worked
04:06 and I started doing it consistently over and over again.
04:08 I'm considered a headlock specialist.
04:13 Nobody stops my headlock,
04:14 'cause I found out what I'm good at.
04:16 My coach, his name is Antonio McKee.
04:19 He's probably one of the most decorated
04:20 MMA coaches on the planet.
04:22 Over the years, I've got to learn lessons from people,
04:27 like just learn wisdom from Mike Tyson,
04:29 learn like striking from Mike Perry,
04:32 learn skill from Anderson Silva.
04:35 Taking away little bits and pieces
04:39 from all these all-time greats
04:41 and converting it and turning it into my own thing,
04:44 which leads me all the way up to December
04:46 after five years of training.
04:47 I remember last year, I was at practice
04:49 and my coach for five years told me no.
04:52 I was like, "Coach, when can I fight?"
04:53 No.
04:54 "When can I fight?"
04:55 No.
04:56 Wouldn't even tell me why,
04:57 but when can I fight?
04:58 No.
04:59 And then last year he came up and was like,
05:01 "You wanna fight?"
05:02 I wanted a unanimous decision.
05:12 I'm about to gun as hard as I can to be a world champion
05:16 and if anybody gets in my way,
05:18 I'm gonna knock your ass out.
05:19 I'm gonna stand over you and I'm gonna smile
05:21 and I'm gonna point to God and I'm gonna point to my mom
05:23 and I'm gonna keep it going.
05:24 You know, there's a saying,
05:33 once you wrestle with everything else,
05:34 then life becomes easy.
05:36 I think I proved that point when I won all these titles
05:38 in track and field.
05:39 Train every single day, seven days a week
05:42 for two months straight, never knowing the sport,
05:44 came away a two-time state champion
05:46 and a four-time placer.
05:48 I won the 100 meter state championship.
05:49 I won the 400 meter state championship.
05:51 I got third place in the 800 meter.
05:54 I got second place in the shot put.
05:55 Track season is dependent on Paralympics.
06:01 So like now we got Paris 2024 coming up.
06:04 So he's probably gonna start training sometime in summer
06:08 and preparing for track.
06:09 So the goal is to try to line up a fight before that,
06:12 you know, get another fight under his belt.
06:14 When the world or an individual challenges him,
06:20 like, "Hey, you can't do this," you know,
06:21 or your disability defines you and why you can't do this,
06:24 he's gonna come out and show the world otherwise.
06:28 It stems from like his belief in himself
06:30 because the world tried to break him down
06:32 and without that self-belief,
06:33 he wouldn't be where he is today.
06:34 So I think his competitive nature mentality is special.
06:38 You see it with the greats of the world
06:40 and any respect to feel anyone you consider a GOAT.
06:43 So I put him up there and, you know, as a legend,
06:46 the persona of who he is.
06:48 The world's gonna keep moving
06:52 whether you get up or you don't get up.
06:54 So it's up to you to make that decision, to stand up.
06:58 And if you fall down, stand up again.
07:00 If you fall down, stand up again.
07:02 I can't tell you what you can do to better yourself.
07:10 Only you know that.
07:11 But I can tell you,
07:13 I can talk to you about the type of mindset
07:15 you need to have, which is an ironclad mindset.
07:17 And I can talk to you about what it means to fall down
07:21 and how to fall correctly.
07:23 So when you do fall, it doesn't hurt as much
07:26 to when you try to get back up.
07:27 When you fail at something, don't look at it as discouraging,
07:31 look at it as a learning moment.
07:33 And then take whatever you can from that
07:35 and then go try again.
07:37 Rediscourage about anything in life.
07:38 Take from the things that discourage you
07:40 and look at yourself and be like,
07:42 what can I do that's gonna benefit me from all this?
07:45 No matter who you are, what walk of life you come from,
07:49 you don't need legs to leave a footprint on earth, man.
07:51 You don't need anybody's approval
07:53 to leave a footprint on earth.
07:55 Sometimes you just have to go out
07:57 and do what makes you happy.
07:58 And that could lead to something glorious.
08:00 (upbeat music)
08:03 (upbeat music)
08:05 (upbeat music)
08:08 (upbeat music)
08:11 (upbeat music)
08:13 (upbeat music)