MVP
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Nine-and-a-half years in prison can change a lot for a man.

For 33-year old Antonio Banks, it put him on a path to the pinnacle of professional wrestling. Once an incarcerated gang member, he now works for WWE and performs at huge venues in front of as many as 80,000 fans - a far cry from the streets of Miami.

Banks, who wrestles as Montel Vontavious Porter, or MVP, performed this weekend at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center as part of two WWE events, a 3 p.m. matinee and a 7:30 p.m. show. The shows feature the superstars of SmackDown! and Extreme Championship Wrestling.

"To make a long story short," MVP said in a phone interview with the Poughkeepsie Journal from Houston, "I grew up in Miami with a single mom. My father was around, but I didn't have as much interaction in my life as I needed. I used to run the streets with gangs and guns and robberies. I made a lot of bad decisions. And one of those decisions got me 9 1/2 years in prison."

According to a report in the Miami Herald, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for armed robbery and kidnapping. He served a little over half that sentence at DeSoto County Correctional Institution, Glades Correctional Institution and South Florida Retention Center.

An opportunity arrives: It was during work release in prison that he made a connection that changed his life.

One of his corrections officers was a man named Darryl Davis, who moonlighted as a local independent wrestler named Primetime Darryl D. Banks and Davis would talk about the wrestling business and Davis would bring tapes to show Banks. Davis told Banks that he was athletic and had a good physique and offered to train him as a pro wrestler if Banks got out of prison.

When he was released, Banks and Davis began training. Banks worked as a bouncer at nightclubs and strip clubs, had very little money and found it hard to resist the temptation to return to the easy money way of life that ended with him in prison.

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