Updated at 10.19
EVEN BY WRESTLERS’ standards, standing at over six feet tall and weighing an estimated 270 lbs, Tiny Iron — real name: Andrew Harrison — is one of a kind.
The wrestler, who is set to appear next week at an Over the Top Wrestling event in Dublin’s Tivoli theatre, is unique too in terms of his personality.
I’m pretty sure no one else I’ve interviewed has ever referred to me as “brother” throughout a discussion, and he’s definitely the only athlete The42 has come across who, in a thick London accent, says things like “I’m half-man, half-amazing,” and “I call myself Tiny — I always say it’s a great invitation for a conversation”.
Yet for all his macho bravado and despite his gargantuan physique, even he can be a sensitive soul at times, it seems.
Rihanna — who was just one of the many high-profile celebrities Harrison once worked for as a bodyguard — describes him as a “sweet guy”.
Harrison admits that strangers are often intimidated when they initially come across him, owing to his extraordinary stature, but says they invariably warm to him eventually.
“The first impression is always: ‘Oh gosh!’ When they see me taking pictures and smiling with the little kids and high-fiving them, they realise I’m a cool dude.
“And I call myself ‘Tiny’. For me to call myself that, I’d have to have a sense of humour… You don’t really get anywhere being mean. No one wants to work with you. No one wants to help you. No one wants to give you the things you need to progress in life.”
A Londoner of African descent, he was the youngest member of a large family and grew up on a notorious council estate in Tottenham. He admits to being “scared” and peering out from his bedroom window, when the London riots began “right beside my home”.
He describes his “tough” upbringing in which he sought escapism watching WCW, and idolising wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior, as well as action heroes and the Greek god Zeus.
“It was just a question of how am I going to change my environment, what opportunities can I get,” he recalls. “I can’t help where I grew up, but I can always change where I end up. So I like to think that I’ve accomplished goals and I’ve become someone. [Tottenham] was somewhere where there was basically no hope.
“There were all these kids, always trying to bully you, take money from your pockets, so you had to have your own self-defence. That was part of how I got myself to this condition. I started very young. I’m 33 now, but when I started training, I was only 13 or 14 years old. That’s also when I started to work on my character — Tiny Iron… I thought, ‘I’m going to make this happen, and turn the dream into reality.’”
Harrison describes himself as a “showman” and says wrestling was “always something I wanted to do”. Following a period in his 20s living at home with his parents with no income and no job, he decided a menial job in the entertainment industry was the best route to success.
The 33-year-old athlete’s gigantic frame rendered him the perfect fit for the security business, and before long, he was looking after a series of high-profile clients, including Jay Z, Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna (with whom he was also linked romantically) and the Black Eyed Peas (“the most dangerous thing was when the girls got excited,” he once told flavourmag). He describes 50 Cent and Akon as his two favourite clients (“50 Cent was bling — I still speak to him now”), but says he ultimately was forced to quit the business.
“It came to a time where I couldn’t do the job anymore, because people started following me. The celebrities started getting upset because I was getting all the attention. They weren’t happy, so I had to leave that game. I don’t regret stopping, because I knew that it was time to step forward and have people following me now. I had to be the leader, I had to be the one up front.”
His big break came from a somewhat unlikely source — ex-Wimbledon footballer Vinny Jones invited him to audition for a role in his film, after the pair met in the early 00s at a West End nightclub.
“I was looking after one of my clients and there was a little trouble, and he saw the way I dealt with it, and he was like: ‘By the way, we’re making a movie and we need a big lump.’”
He has made a number of film and TV appearances since then, with his credits including Jeffrey Archer: The Truth and the 50 Cent-starring Dead Man Running, in addition to being shortlisted for the role of Mr T in the A-Team movie.
Moreover, Harrison still divides his time between acting and wrestling, and sees no reason why he shouldn’t continue to do so.
“I’m just living life, travelling the world. I’m wrestling, I’m doing a film, I’m trying to make my own movies, there’s a lot of stuff I want to do. There are a lot of things in the pipeline. I have my own brand — Tiny Iron. So it’s basically just a question of me putting things together and putting it out there for people.”
He is looking forward in particular to his appearance at Over the Top Wrestling in Dublin next week, in which he promises to be “bigger and better than ever”.
“The crowd love me, you know? Even though I look like a bad guy, the crowd always love me.
“Whoever they put in the ring with me is in trouble. It’s an over-18s crowd, they’re not kids anymore, so I’m not holding back — they better bring the paramedics and all the precautions.”
And while Harrison has been wrestling all over the world in places as disparate as Lebanon and the Middle East since making his debut in the business in 2007, he has yet to receive an offer from WWE — the kind of chance most wrestlers dream of. But does he still hope he might end up working for Vince McMahon and co some day?
“I’m happy travelling the world and being free,” he explains. “Money isn’t an issue. Money’s always been in my pockets.
“I’ve promoted myself so well that people know of me. The WWE knows of me. TNA knows me. So if they want me, they know where I am. They can give me my invitation, but they haven’t, so I’m not going to beg anyone, I’m going to live my life.
“I’m not a major on TV every week, but I’m still a superstar. I still can’t walk down the road without 100 people following me, so what more do I need in life?”
A passionate believer in the importance of hard work, Harrison says it’s not easy to maintain his incredible image.
“I eat three whole chickens a day every single day. I train all day every day in the gym. It’s very difficult, but that’s what I’m committed to. Training is my religion and the gym is like my church. It’s what I have to go through every day.”
In addition to the intensive training it generally requires, wrestling has long had a problematic relationship with steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, and WWE has often sought to promote smaller stars in an ostensible bid to alleviate speculation that their top athletes are doping.
Harrison acknowledges that people are skeptical about how he cultivated his enormous physical size (his 24-inch biceps are said to be the biggest in Britain), but he insists he has never taken PEDs.
“I’ve been doing this since I was 13 years of age,” he says. “For me, I’d be ashamed to look how I look if I was taking performance-enhancing drugs. Everybody knows what they have to do to get to where they’re going. If you do this since you’re a kid, by the time you’re an adult, you’re going to look a certain way. If you play football since you’re six years old, by the time you’re old, you’ll be playing Premier League football.
“The work you put in is what you get out of it. Usain Bolt runs 100m in 9.5 seconds. But he’s been running since he was eight years old. In this day and age, certain people can’t believe you’re a certain size because these people are new [to training]. They read a magazine and think: ‘Wow, I want to do bodybuilding.’ They just started two or three years ago and wonder: ‘How did he get where he is?’
“You have a lot of new people coming in because there are loads of gyms opening up now. Before, it wasn’t a fashion. In my day, gyms were old and weights were cold. The heating or the showers didn’t work. They were not pretty places.
“So when new people come to the gym and see people like me, they can only assume one thing. It’s because of all the talk of steroids, the internet is there now, drugs are more visible now, so it’d be a normal thing for them to assume. They think: ‘He might be doing this because I saw it on TV,’ or ‘I went on YouTube and watched a video.’ There are a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon. That’s all it is.”
All images provided courtesy of Leonard Hanna.
You can catch Tiny Iron and others at the latest Over the Top Wrestling event in the Tivoli Theatre on Saturday, 21 February. More info here.
Cork are so bad, Lord
Clare to win the all ireland
Is it tidy towns you are on about.
Wolf , donal og cusack was not wrong when he showed the Graf on the Sunday game last year of where cork hurling is at the moment , that was atrocious from a county that has been so resoundingly competitive for years , as we always said in tipp a good year was the hay saved and cork bet , not the case anymore unfortunately from a tipp this sad to see as it is not good for the sport in general
7 points down with 10 mins to go and they’re STILL using a sweeper what are the management thinking!?
Terrible decision to use a sweeper for all the game
The tactic seems to have been to concentrate on keeping the Tipp margin of victory as low as possible..
That way the Cork public might not turn against the County Board.
It’s all about self preservation.
As a Galway man I’m worried how that cork team beat us in the relegation decider.
Not looking good when it looks like Kerry can outplay Cork in both codes.
That was the worst Cork team, led by the worst Cork management in living memory. Not help by having the worst County Board in Ireland.
It’s grand. Frank Murphy et al will have their legacy with the new stadium and that’s what really matters.
Absolutely sickening stuff….
Probably call it ‘Murphy Park!
Cork were terrible, Couldn’t even pass the ball to each other and hit numerous aimless balls down the park.Tipp won the majority of 50/50s and dominated all the scuffles on the park. There’s a long road ahead for Cork hurling as this group of players are not be up to the standard required.
Worst cork performance in my living memory nit one player would get on the the team of 10 years ago
How did we get so bad?
When you depend on decent guys from junior and intermediate clubs your in big trouble the senior clubs in Cork are of such poor standard it’s amazing we can even limit Tipp to 9 points. The upside is we will have a New state of the art stadium for other Munster counties to play in come championship time and we will have plenty stewards . In serious grief at seeing this latest capitulation and no sign of any light for the road ahead
Ye are on a par with Wexford I’m afraid.
On way down in train, Cork have become the “kerry” of Munster hurling
From a Tipp fan – it was a poor match overall. Both teams will have not learned much from today. Limerick will be a different story! !
When you set up your side for damage limitation that is all you will achieve, the sweeper system has hurling destroyed.The 2013 championship was one of the best in living memory but it seems like a lifetime ago now! I can only hope that Limerick will go 15 on 15 in the semi-final and play their natural gung ho shit or bust style because if they don’t another woeful game will drift by.
The sweeper can still be played in a positive and entertaining way but it requires far more tactically than simply pulling a man back. When you play a sweeper you also play against a sweeper, teams need to execute both defensive and offensive sides of the formation. Look at Clare for example, defensively they press hard when not in possession and crowd midfield forcing teams to play long balls up to where they have an extra man who now has more time to get into position to cover. Then in attack they utilise rapid short passing to work the ball past midfield so they can play long forward passes that bypass the sweeper. It can be done well and still be entertaining but the likes of Cork and Limerick are now trying it without any idea of how to play the system and producing dour matches
Is Frank there for life? Is it like being pope?
Frank does what he wants and NO ONE dares question him.
Patrick Horgan with yet another game of no scores from play!
Shocking.. what were they thinking with the sweeper system ??? A draw ???? Short summer ahead..
Cork should enter the Christy ring
Hello Cork, hello Cork, where are ye.?????
Cork were abysmal today it is sad to see how far they have gone back the game needs a competitive cork side
These players have worked as hard as previous teams and the management have worked as hard as previous managers.We are at the low end of the cycle.The wheel will turn in time but let’s not be personally offensive to players or managers and selectors
Your right… I don’t blame the players, management or selectors…
I blame the county board and more importantly the man who has been running it for over 40 years…
William my comment may have came across wrong. I didn’t mean to have a go at Egan or anyone in particular. I just found d whole game v frustrating. Cork are better than that.
I see the blaming of poor auld frank has started as usual…only one thing for it then I suppose another strike
Why on earth would cork change their tactics to one they have never used and try it in their championship opener against Tipp of all teams aswell
Roll on kilkenny to sort them out
It’s all well and good using a sweeper if they know what they doin. Egan was standing there with not a clue what he was supposed to b at. He may as well been up in d stand.
Hope they don’t become as bad as the Kilkenny footballers
On the ball William…We are in a transition with plenty of challenges ahead. This is the right back room crew to get things turned around.
I love your optimism
I took the m
Jesus, are there any hurlers left in Cork?
Can’t believe how much cork hurling has declined this year. Yesterday showed that they’ve no leadership on the pitch and no plans other than using a sweeping system no matter what. JBM was restricted during his time in charge by the power that be (frank murphy) Also the last players strike certainly accomplished nothing but contribute to the demise of cork hurling. It’s a shame, there’s some great young hurlers all over cork county.