A chance meeting with the Harris brothers, twins Don and Ron, steered a pro rodeo athlete toward a career in pro wrestling, and Monty Sopp became one of the most successful tag team wrestlers in history.

Sopp, 45, better known as WWE's Billy Gunn and TNA's Kip James, has quite a history in 20 years of pro wrestling.

In singles, he is a former WWE Intercontinental champ, a two-time WWE Hardcore champ and a WWE King of the Ring, but his greatest accomplishments are in the tag team ranks, being a 10-time WWE tag team champ with three different partners (Bart Gunn, Road Dogg Jesse James and Chuck Palumbo).

Sopp also teamed with Stone Cold Steve Austin against Kane and Undertaker. In TNA, he reunited with Road Dogg and later added a new wrinkle to the Beautiful People. He is currently under character development, working toward a new angle.

He's come a long way from his earlier days.

• Sopp grew up small-town country in Oviedo in Central Florida, near Orlando in Seminole County. A multi-sport athlete in high school, he loved the rodeo.

``I went to Oviedo High School back when it was about as big as a shed,'' Sopp mused. ``It's not what it is now. It's huge now.''

Sopp attended college in Florida and Texas on a rodeo scholarship.

``I had like 20 football scholarships and one rodeo scholarship,'' Sopp said. ``I grew up training horses and working cows which sounds weird in Florida, but they actually did that back then. People don't realize Florida is a the second biggest cattle producing state, besides Texas.''

Historically, Florida's economy was based on agriculture and cattle farming.

``So that's what I'd always done,'' he said. ``I only played football because when I was in high school, I was one of the biggest kids there. The coaches constantly would go, `When you coming out kid? When you coming out?' I finally said, `OK. All right. I'll play.'''

Sopp stands 6-5, 280.

``When I do something, I do it full out,'' he said. ``I don't do it half mass. I do it to the best of my ability. I've been in wrestling so long because you really never, ever learn everything there is to know about this business. There's something to learn every single day.

``In wrestling, you have your ups, your downs, your ups, your downs. You're constantly trying to fight to stay on top. So that's what gives you the drive to keep learning and wrestling. It is a passion.''

Unlike so many in the business, Sopp did not grow up watching wrestling, dreaming to some day be a Dusty Rhodes, a Terry Funk or a Ric Flair.

He said: ``Most people that get into this business, they've watched since they were little kids, and they really want to do it. So they follow their dreams. Some make it, and some don't.

``That was never my intentions, mind you. I always wanted to be a cowboy. That was it.''

After attending college for a couple of years, Sopp opted for California and the pro rodeo circuit.

``Back then, California has the most pro rodeos you can drive to and not kill yourself,'' said Sopp, who was physically bigger than the pro rodeo norm. ``You're really trying to go to as many as you can on weekends. Just like wrestling, you go Friday, Saturday and Sunday for house shows. You try to go to as many as you can because you want to win as much money as you can, and that's the only way you're going to survive.''

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