Meet Thunder's 'Rough and Ready' Frey and Marco

Thunder Arena Wrestling is the go-to website for old fashioned, wrestling fun. It celebrates the sport - its competitiveness, its strategies, its necessary roughness without the phony theatricals of the arena sport events or the ridiculous buffoonery found in adult male scenarios. Thunder brings you the real thing - bringing back the thrill of what made wrestling so appealing back in high school and college.

Thunder also boasts a stellar line-up of talent that actually know the sport and bring an authenticity to their matches. The moves are regulation, the trash talk comes right out of the locker room and the rivalries are real. These guys wrestle to win, not for show.

Take Thunder's new stars Frey and Marco, who are as evenly matched as the Seahawks and the Patriots. At 5'9" Frey may be an inch taller; but at 180 pounds, Marco has the weight advantage. Whether Frey can withstand the barrage of trash talk from Marco - a master of the art of this psychological ploy - may be the deciding factor in this ultimate battle of brawn and wits, currently available on the Thunder site. (Check out:Rough and Ready on the Thunder site.)

When EDGE spoke to the pair they had just met for the first time and were sizing each other up as they spoke from Thunder's Orlando home base, where they were joined by Mr. Mike. the company's founder and director.

EDGE: How did you each get into wrestling?

Frey: I was wrestling for a little while and this buddy of mine knew I was moving to Orlando and he introduced me to the company and that's where it took off from. I wrestled before in high school.

Marco: Pretty much the same thing. I came down from Pennsylvania that's where I started wrestling in high school. Once I moved down here I heard about Thunder.

EDGE: What do you like it so much?

Marco: I think it is physical aspect of it. When you get a one-on-one with someone else your match and can be pretty exciting.

EDGE: You guys look very evenly matched? Are you wrestling today?

Frey: We are going to wrestle today. We're both about 5'9", 180. We never met before. Today is our first day.

EDGE: How do you size each other up when you first meet?

Frey: I'm usually pretty relaxed. You never really can tell how skilled your opponent is, so I stay relaxed. And depending on how the person acts towards me, I can be a a little more aggressive that day.

Marco: I size them up a little bit. I'll psych them out and it helps you out if you can scare them a bit. Play some mental games to where you can get some fear into them so they won't perform as well.

EDGE: Marco, you're known for your trash talk? Could you explain where that comes from?

Marco: That is all from good high-school wrestling joking. It came about from joking in the locker room. Just joking around. There's a lot of ragging between teammates and I picked up on it.

EDGE: Are you comfortable with the camera?

Marco: Me? I wasn't camera shy at all with my very first match.

Frey: Me, as well. I'm pretty comfortable around stuff. For me looking back at high school, there were people around watching. Actually, wrestling around more people is more nerve wracking than having the camera there.

EDGE: Are you wresting to just play around or to win?

Frey: Oh, to win. There's a lot of competitiveness there. You want to win. You want that spotlight.

EDGE: So what's your strategy. How much is physical and how much is psychological?

Frey: I would say probably about 50/50, really. You have to intimidate, but at the same time you've got to know your stuff to get that win.

EDGE: Given the often theatrical way wrestling is presented on television and on the internet, why did you choose to wrestle with Thunder?

Frey: It came off to me as just being very professional. And very fun. I was very eager to do it.

Marco: Yes, there's the body contact, of course; that's a natural part of it. That's wrestling. We're just respectful of each other. Body contact is just part of the sport.

EDGE: Where would you like to go with Thunder and with wrestling?

Frey: For me, I would just like to stay in the spotlight - hold the spotlight down as long as I can. I'm in college right now so I have different goals. But as long as I'm in this, I want to be in the spotlight.

EDGE: Trey, what do your college friends think of your wrestling persona?

Frey: They mess around with me. They ride me for my wrestling name. But if I tell them they're going too far, they shut up.

EDGE: Have you thought about going professional?

Frey: This is professional to me. But as going to television with WWE, I've considered it. I've thought about it, but wrestling does take a toll on your body over time, so for me, I'm trying to do something else. I'm going to medical school.

EDGE: Do you have a fan-base?

Frey: Yeah. I've been doing it for three or four years, so I have a fan base. I have people contacting me sometimes asking for special requests for matches or meeting up or what not. There is definitely a fan base. Recently a fan sent me some money for their appreciation, - $500, man, and that was greatly appreciated on my end. I like to give the fans what they want.

EDGE:This is for Mike, have you thought of a Thunder Tour this year?

Mr. Mike:Yes. It is something we are contemplating coming up. We are definitely going out to some pride events to get the fans to meet the guys. We are looking forward to doing that coming up. In the past we've been invited to be guests artists in different clubs around the country. We just never had the opportunity to take advantage of that at the time when we were starting out. But we want to this year - have the guys meet the fans, give out autographs and stuff like that. We are trying to expand the brand - get people to know who we are. To that end, we are trying to get out there in the public more and more. Face-to-face, to let the fans know who we are.

EDGE: What about a Thunder reality series on a cable network or a web series?

Mr. Mike: Well, we're kind-of a reality series right now. It's what we do. We do interviews with the guys and do behind the scenes stuff. So it's like that already and kind-of cool. But reality television, I don't think I want that because I don't want a camera crew in my house for weeks and weeks and weeks. Too much business going on to have cameras in our face all the time.

EDGE: Ever get any unusual requests?

Mr. Mike: Always. We have unusual ones all the time. The most unusual one was we had a fan specifically pay for the guys to wear wet suits and wrestle each other in the pool and practically drown each other in the pool. The fan wanted that really badly.