Super Bowl 50 rosters include former wrestlers

By Mark Palmer
Senior Writer
Intermat
Super Bowl 50 is more than the NFL championship game between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers. It's one of the greatest shows on earth -- a spectacle that goes beyond football that draws in viewers who might not care much about the action on the gridiron as much as the halftime entertainment extravaganza and much-anticipated commercials custom-made to provide water-cooler chitchat material for days afterward. No wonder a number of past Super Bowls still rank among the most-watched events in TV history.

Here's a Super Bowl 50 fun fact to spring on your co-workers: some of the players taking the field at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 7 once wrestled for real.

Don't believe it? Last year at Super Bowl XLIX, at least three players -- Josh Kline of the New England Patriots, and R.J. Sweezy and Justin Britt of the Seattle Seahawks -- were state high school heavyweight wrestling champs before finding fame and fortune in the NFL. If that weren't impressive enough, at least two NCAA heavyweight champs -- Curley Culp, 1967 champ for Arizona State, and two-time title winner Stephen Neal, who was inducted as a Distinguished Member into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2012, for Cal State Bakersfield (1998, 1999) -- each had the honor of playing in past Super Bowls ... Culp for Kansas City, Neal for New England.

InterMat thought it would be fun to tell about some potential Super Bowl 50 stars who once competed in the oldest and greatest sport in high school. We were able to find three former wrestlers on the roster of the Denver Broncos.

(Sorry, we weren't able to find any ex-matmen for the Carolina Panthers. Did we miss someone? If so, send an email to Mark@InterMatWrestle.com with the name of the wrestler-turned-NFL player, his NFL team, and basic info about his amateur wrestling career.)

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