| My name is Antonio Saldate, and I was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. My loving hard-working parents are Yevette and Tony Saldate, and they are the reason I am where I am today. My wrestling journey started when I was around 7 years old. My parents had me in three different sports before wrestling. I participated in Karate, Football, and Baseball. My parents dreamed of me being a MLB player with my natural skills in the sport. However, I hated baseball and wanted to be a future NFL star, but my size told me otherwise. This led my parents into putting me in the great sport of wrestling. |
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| To say that when I started wrestling I was talented, would be a complete lie. Wrestling was not an easy sport for me, but my parents pushing me is what has allowed me to grow. They would take me to as many practices and camps as they could. Little by little, I would build my foundation for the sport. Most of my skills in wrestling were built with Jake Rollans. He is a very motivated coach that helped build a lot of great wrestlers in southern Nevada. He helped show us the basics on wrestling, and how to simply just work hard. Me and my past teammates like Steele Dias, Desmond Bowers and many others, knew that we had to put in all the work to get the results. We were constantly pushing ourselves in the wrestling room. |
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I did not win many tournaments as a kid, at least not the ones I saw as important. The biggest tournaments I won were not until 8th grade. I won the Beehive Brawl and Battle for the Belt. Winning Beehive Brawl was like winning the Nationals for me. I remember when I first began wrestling we set goals, and my biggest goal was to win that tournament. I believe winning this tournament gave me lots of drive going into high school. |
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| Throughout my high school career, I achieved a few accomplishments. For one I became a Three-Time Nevada State Champion, which was huge considering I never won a State Title in Elementary or Middle school. Additionally, I became a Fargo Greco All-American and a 2x Iowa National All-American. Iowa actually became the place where I was recruited by California Baptist University, my current college now. |
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