Richard Young

Football career

College Young spent two years at Glendale Community College in Glendale, Arizona. He then transferred to the University of Tulsa and played for the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. He was a two-year letter winner. He played 22 career games and was credited with 177 tackles as a linebacker.

Professional football After college, Young attended minicamp with the Kansas City Chiefs on a tryout basis. In 1999, he went to the Canadian Football League (CFL) and played for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

On July 1, 2008, Young made his WWE debut under the name Atlas Ortiz on the ECW brand, winning his first match against Armando Estrada. The next week on ECW, Tazz and Mike Adamle referred to him as "Ricky Ortiz". The next week he beat Guerrero and Bam Neely in a tag team match with Evan Bourne.

Although enjoying a streak of 5–0, on October 7, Ortiz would team with Kofi Kingston, CM Punk, and Evan Bourne against John Morrison, The Miz, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase in an 8-man tag match losing effort. After a distraction from Manu, Morrison would then perform a Moonlight Drive on Punk and pin him for the victory. This would be Young's first televised loss since debuting on ECW, although he was still undefeated in singles competition. On the December 2 episode of ECW, he suffered his first pinfall loss at the hands of Jack Swagger, who was also undefeated at the time.

On April 15, 2009, Ortiz was drafted to the SmackDown brand as part of the 2009 Supplemental Draft. On the May 15 episode of SmackDown, Ortiz made his debut for the brand, losing to Jeff Hardy. His last match for WWE was on the August 7 episode of SmackDown, where he was squashed by The Great Khali. He was released from his WWE contract on August 8, 2009.

On December 28, 2013, Ortiz debuted in Extreme Rising, defeating Homicide. Subsequently, Ortiz would retire from professional wrestling, so that he could concentrate more on his personal life with fellow wrestler, Layla El.

Even though he is retired, Ortiz works as a producer for various independent promotions.

Other media Young appeared on the November 25, 2008 episode of Cha$e as a hunter. Young also appeared on Scott Hall's web show Last Call with Scott Hall.

Personal life In July 2015, Young got engaged to English professional wrestler Layla El, and the two were married on November 27. Young and Layla got divorced in 2025.

Championships and accomplishments Independent Wrestling Association Florida IWA Florida Tag Team Championship (1 time, inaugural) – with Rico Suave Ohio Valley Wrestling Elimination Tournament (2007)