Clark Connors tells a story showing just how much of a man Alex Coughlin is.
Clark Connors and Alex Coughlin started their journeys in New Japan Pro-Wrestling together. During an appearance on the Talk is Jericho podcast in July 2022, Connors shared the story of how Coughlin ended up doing 3,000 squats simply because Katsuyori Shibata, the trainer at the dojo, forgot to tell him to stop.
"I'll tell you a quick little story about some squat stuff. is Alex Coughlin, if you see him wrestle, he's the strongest dude you've ever seen," began Connors. "One of the days we weren't really given any instruction of what to do after camp or whatever it was. Alex, he was friends with some of the guys that camp so he went to the beach afterward. We are in LA, whatever. I remember Shibata-san was just like, 'Yesterday, why, you no come back to your room?' or whatever it was, and he was [back] at a normal time, but he went out afterward. So we do our squats, the 500 squats as a group with the whole camp, and then Shibata-san points at Alex like, 'You keep squat.' He goes, 'Yes, sir,' and keeps squatting.
"We start doing rolls or whatever it was and you can just hear it from the corner of the room. You hear, '1,021, Hi!' because you have to scream after every rep," he continued. "It's to the point where you forget, it was just noise. I forgot he was even doing it. Every once in a while, I will look over there and be like, 'Oh my God, he's at 1000 right now.' We're doing the next drill. We're getting water. [He's] still squatting. Then, Shibata-san goes, 'Okay, lunchtime,' and we all go to lunch and you just hear, '2,241!'.
Asked by Jericho why Alex never stopped, Connors replied it was because Shibata never told him to. Little did he know, Katsuyori Shibata just forgot he was still squatting.
"No shit. We go out to lunch and Shibata-san comes out. I remember he looks at me and he goes, 'Oh, Alex still squat?' I go, 'Yeah!' He goes, 'Oh, how many?' I go sneak peek my head inside and [Alex] was like '2,941!' I was like, 'Maybe 2,941. He starts to laugh and he goes, 'Okay, maybe 3,000, he stop.' So he did 3,000 squats. It's insane," Connors recalled.
It didn't end there. The next day Coughlin was made to do a wall squat for 17 minutes with his arms outstretched like Frankenstein and balancing two water bottle caps filled with water, all while making sure he didn't spill the water.
"The next day, we do our squats again. He's a bad motherfucker, dude. He did another 500. We started rolling, and Shibata goes, 'Alex, wall squat.' and he makes him just go to the wall and wall squat," said Connors. "I mean at this point, he just did 3,000 squats the day before, now you've got him holding a wall squat. At this point. I kept looking at the clock and everything. He makes Alex put his arms up like Frankenstein when he's doing it. Shibata walks over and grabs a bottle of water, takes two caps, and puts it on the top of his hands. pours the water in the caps and he says, 'No spill'. Alex goes, 'Yes sir!' Boom. He did it. I think it was like a 17-minute wall squat and [Shibata] goes, 'Okay, you finish.' Alex, being the badass that he is, Frankenstein walks his hands with his hands up all the way across the room to the sink, pours out the water, just gets in line, and starts to the next drill."
Alex Coughlin is a true badass whose passion for the sport saw him give everything he had when he was in the ring.
Unfortunately, that also seems to have led to an early retirement as Coughlin stayed out of action since a Steel Cage Match in February 2024, confirming on social media that he had to hang up his boots. Learn more here.
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