Mike Rotella outdid his classmates last Thursday with a surprise ending to a PowerPoint presentation. After the sophomore told his Intro to Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises class about his project, he played a YouTube clip of a cocky British wrestler calling out World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Hall of Famer, Tony Atlas, on the streets of Syracuse.

‘A lot of people do a funny picture of him,’ Rotella said. ‘I wanted to be the best one.’

The Brit featured in the promo, Zaquary Springate III, was sitting to Rotella’s right at the time, deciding his grade.

Dereck Potocki, who plays Springate III in the wrestling ring, is an adjunct professor in the School of Management and displaying the funniest photo of him in the ring (or in this case, YouTube clip) has become somewhat of a competition for the students in his class. Instead of just teaching about starting a business, Potocki is carrying out his own research in the wrestling ring with his company Squared Circle Wrestling (2CW). Less than a year old, 2CW will have its seventh show Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Pastime Athletic Club in Syracuse.

Potocki, like many EEE professors, took a winding road to Syracuse University: he was the lead singer of a band that toured nationally; he worked as an engineer at Lockheed Martin; he wrestled for the National Wrestling Alliance, WWE and World Championship Wrestling-the top wrestling federations in the country; and now he teaches.

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Potocki lectures a class of 37 about marketing strategies and branding. On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings he coaches amateur wrestlers.

Potocki, 30, has run the Institute of Professional Wrestling for six years and from that grew 2CW, which now stretches outside the Syracuse area for shows. Potocki and two friends whom he trained grew tired of a sub-par WWE product and decided to take the focus off sex and Hollywood and put it back on wrestling.

‘It’s like babies having babies,’ Potocki said of WWE, which has two cable television programs each week as well as monthly Pay-per-view shows. ‘The guys on TV today don’t know how to work a match so they don’t know how to teach new talent. They’re going to get hurt.’

Potocki, who trained at Killer Kowalski’s Professional Wrestling School in suburban Boston, believes only wrestling, character development and hard work should earn a wrestler success in the business.

‘You need to learn your skill in armories and civic centers,’ Potocki said.

After Potocki graduated from Cicero-North Syracuse High School, he toured as an opening act for Poison and Bon Jovi, but negotiating contracts and living away from home grew old. So in the early 1990s, he began working toward his lifelong goal of becoming a professional wrestler.

For a year and a half, he commuted to Boston on weekends to train with professional wrestlers such as Triple H, Chyna and the legendary Killer Kowalski at his school. Soon enough, the 6-foot-3 Potocki was touring Canada and the United States as well as doing wrestling shows in Mexico and Japan. But again, life on the road got to him, and he came home to Syracuse to start his school.

Now, in a run-down, stone Army Recruiting Center in North Syracuse, Potocki teaches a class of about 10. Since 2000, he’s trained several wrestlers for the Independent Circuit in the Northeast, including about 80 percent of the talent in 2CW, he said.

When Michael Morris, the executive director in the Entrepreneurship Program, heard about Potocki, he immediately was interested in him as an adjunct.

‘We spent some time together and I had a sense that he was an interesting guy with a creative mindset,’ Morris said. ‘He seems to be doing a good job. The first time you teach is always a hard thing to do, but he brings a lot of enthusiasm.’

Potocki teaches a section of the program’s introduction class at 8 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He spices up the monotony with jokes and stories about his experiences. Since grabbing the microphone at a World Wrestling All-Stars event, stage presence has never been a problem for Potocki.

‘He’s definitely unorthodox,’ said Charles Muscarella, a junior EEE major. ‘The guy’s got a ponytail, earrings, he’s tall and he’s my professor. I don’t mind getting up at 7 a.m. for that.’

Potocki’s gimmick, Springate III, drapes a British flag over his shoulders and calls out crowd favorites in a thick accent at shows. The character is based in some truth: Potocki’s mother was born in England and his family’s name in England is Springate. Zaquary is his godson’s name and the ‘III’ was added ‘to be snotty.’

After 12 years in the ring, Potocki has never sustained a serious injury other than a broken ankle (he wrestled through it). On Saturday he’ll face Gordy Wallace, whom Potocki trained, in a strap match. Every spectator in the front row will be given a leather strap signed by the superstars and whenever the wrestlers leave the ring, fans can whip them at will.

As always, Potocki is looking for a new idea to help his company.

‘We’ve never done anything like this with the fans,’ Potocki said. ‘Because we’re so interactive, I thought it was a real good idea.’

Published on November 14, 2006 at 12:00 pm