Richard Young Biography

Richard "Rich" Young (born May 12, 1975) is an American professional wrestler and former professional football player best known for his time with World Wrestling Entertainment performing under the ring name Ricky Ortiz.

Young spent time in the XFL, the Canadian Football League (CFL), the Arena Football League (AFL), and the National Football League (NFL).

Football career

College

Young attended the University of Tulsa as a transfer student after two years at Glendale Community College and was a two-year letter winner. He played 22 career games and was credited with 177 tackles as a linebacker.

Professional football

After college, Young spent training camp of the 1998 season with the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, and was on the team's practice squad during the season. After the year, he went to the Canadian Football League (CFL) and played for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He spent the 2000 and 2001 seasons in the Arena Football League with the Milwaukee Mustangs. In the AFL, Young played both fullback and linebacker. Following the AFL, Young joined the short-lived XFL with the Orlando Rage. After the league folded, Young attempted to make the Jacksonville Jaguars roster, but was waived during training camp. He rejoined the AFL, this time with the Indiana Firebirds, in 2002. He would spend the next two years in Indiana before joining the Colorado Crush in 2004. In 2003, he led all AFL middle linebackers with 4.0 sacks.

Professional wrestling career

World Wrestling Entertainment

Developmental territories (2006-2008)

Young made his professional wrestling debut with Ohio Valley Wrestling in late 2006 as "Atlas DaBone". DaBone was billed as one of the most charismatic superstars in OVW. DaBone was expected to be called up to the main roster soon after with Ashley Massaro as his valet. On January 12, 2008, DaBone became the number one contender to the OVW title after beating Mike Kruel in a best of 3 series. On March 3, 2008 it was reported that DaBone suffered a torn ligament in his knee, but returned to action in Florida Championship Wrestling on April 17.

ECW (2008-2009)

On July 1, 2008, Young made his WWE debut as a face under the name "Atlas Ortiz" on the ECW brand, winning his first match against Armando Estrada. The next week on ECW, Tazz and Mike Adamle referred to him as "Ricky Ortiz". He acknowledged the name change in an interview segment on the same show; Lena Yada called him Atlas and he responded by saying, "My friends call me Ricky". On the July 15 edition of ECW, he used the nickname, "The Latin Assassin". Ortiz defeated Chavo Guerrero by disqualification on the July 29 edition of ECW. The next week he beat Guerrero and Bam Neely in a tag team match with Evan Bourne.

Although enjoying a streak of 5-0, on October 7, Ortiz would team with Kofi Kingston, CM Punk, and Evan Bourne against John Morrison, The Miz, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase in an 8 man tag match losing effort. After a distraction from Manu, Morrison would then perform a Moonlight Drive on Punk and pin him for the victory. This would be Young's first televised loss since debuting on ECW, although he was still undefeated in singles competition. On the December 2 episode of ECW, he suffered his first pinfall loss at the hands of Jack Swagger, who was also undefeated at the time.

SmackDown (2009)

On April 15, 2009, Ortiz was drafted to the SmackDown brand as part of the 2009 Supplemental Draft. On the May 15 episode of SmackDown, Ortiz made his debut for the brand as a heel, losing to Jeff Hardy. His last match for WWE was the August 7 episode of SmackDown when he was squashed by The Great Khali. He was released from his WWE contract on August 8, 2009.

Independent circuit

A week after his WWE release, on August 15, 2009, Young appeared at a World Wrestling Council show, using the name 'Ricky Ortiz' and challenging Shane Sewell for the WWC Puerto Rico Heavyweight Championship. He failed to win, and attacked Sewell after the match. In early 2010, Ortiz appeared for the Combat Championship Wrestling promotion, wrestling against Shawn Spears and Sinn Bodhi. He then began competing for Florida-based promotions, including I Believe in Wrestling and WWA. On January 14, 2011 Young appeared at Vintage Pro Wrestling with Scott Hall using the Wolfpac theme at WrestleBrawl 2 took on Kennedy Kendrick despite winning the match Young would lose due to refusing to release a hold.

In 2011, it was revealed that Ortiz would take part in a new hiphop/pro wrestling collaboration, the Urban Wrestling Federation, with taping of the first event "First Blood" taking place on June 3.

Other media

Young appeared on the November 25, 2008 episode of Cha$e as a hunter. Young also appeared on Scott Hall's web show "Last Call with Scott Hall". Young trains at Team 3D Academy of Professional Wrestling.

In wrestling

• Finishing moves
  • Big O (Running jumping splash, with theatrics)

• Signature moves
  • Dropkick
  • Sitout side powerslam

• Nicknames
  • "The Latin Assassin"
  • "Ricky O"
  • "Meat"

Championships and accomplishments

• IWA Florida
  • IWA Florida Tag Team Championship (1 time, current) - with Rico Suave