Brad Stryker

Brad Stryker is an American actor and former boxer, kick-boxer and Military Veteran. He was awarded the AT&T Veterans Media Fellowship on the December 27th edition of NFL RedZone (2009). Born on January 21, 1990 in Fort Riley, Kansas, he is of mixed-race heritage. His father, is a retired American Soldier and his mother is a Panamanian immigrant. Shortly after receiving her permanent resident card and the birth of his sister, his mother would divorce his father, illegally taking him and his sister to Panama, leaving them there with her family until his father would win custody of them and bring them home. As a teenager, he would be a troublesome student as his home situation had become unstable again due to his father remarrying to a corrections officer who would mentally and emotionally abuse him through isolation and food deprivation. Upon turning 18 he was kicked out of his home, but fortunately taken in by his best friend's family in order to finish high school. During this time he began training in martial arts. He began training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Dave Durnil at Combative Sports Center in Manhattan, KS, who would mentor him in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as well as keep him on track towards graduation. Upon graduating high school, Dave would take a job as Head Combatives Coach at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. Feeling lost, he joined the U.S. Army Reserves as a Military Police Officer. After completing his training at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, he returned home and enrolled at Kansas State University and join the ROTC program. Upon failing class, it would take another year to become a cadet, so instead he become a Military Trainer for the U.S. Air Force in October 2011, dropping out of school and canceling his Army Reserve contract. This would open the possibility of a combat career. He was deployed to the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, where he lived off-base and not subject to military law. He arranged to have his sixty-hour work week front-loaded so that he would have a three-day weekend, every weekend, and would use his weekends and vacations to fly all over the world and train with the best kick-boxers and Muay Thai fighters in the world. After training at multiple Dutch and Thai gyms, he officially became part of the Golden Glory Kickboxing team under Horia Radulescu in March 2012. In October 2013, he herniated two discs on the left side of his neck that went undiagnosed for nearly four years, as he had also suffered a labral tear in his left shoulder, and a partially torn left triceps that received all the doctors attention. The series of injuries had left him with peripheral neuropathy on the left side of his upper body. In March 2014, after months of physical therapy in Washington, D.C., he was medically cleared to compete. During his time off from fighting, he had reconnected with his mother who had made a family connection for him to begin training with Benny and Oscar Checa, the final coaches of Roberto Durán. Upon entering their gym in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he fell in love with boxing and began his transition. This ultimately led to a falling-out with his kickboxing manager on how to split his time between the two sports, choosing to walk away from kickboxing with a record of 32-3, 27 KOs in August 2014. He spent the remainder of his time with the Checa Brothers perfecting his transition to boxing. Upon the expiration of his U.K. visa, he would move to back Washington, D.C., for what was meant to be a short stint. He was very active earning an invitation to an Olympic Trials Qualifying Tournament, but failed to make weight for the semi-finals and was disqualified due to eight pounds. At this point, he had met his future wife and they would set out to meet her parents in Beijing. When attempting to return to the U.S., she was unable to obtain a new visa as well as a visa to the U.K., leaving him to choose love or boxing. He chose to stay in China with her and during their time in China he would focus on his weight, losing 17 pounds, drastically changing his body composition. He would stay active in boxing by flying out to Panama and fighting under Francisco "Tolete" Arroyo, as well as in Singapore under Evolve MMA. Newly energized, he would receive two more Olympic Trials Qualifying tournament invitations to be held in Argentina and Azerbaijan, but happened to be on the wrong hemisphere both times. After over a year of waiting for her visa issues to resolve, his then-fiancée would be issued a new visa and they would move back to the Washington, D.C. area. Upon returning, they would marry in September 2016. He would continue boxing, but the inability to reconnect with the Checa brothers in Belfast and being labeled a U.K. boxer while in D.C. made it difficult to build a team he could trust and hindered his ability to progress. In January 2017, he entered a training camp to begin his journey to earn a spot on the 2017 Worlds Games through the Golden Gloves series. He was not given the opportunity to spar in order to prepare until the week of the Golden Gloves, March 2017. Having only one sparring session during an eight-week training camp, he felt ill-prepared to compete and canceled his appearance. Believing his only chance to become a World Champion was through Benny and Oscar Checa, and due to his wife's ongoing status at gaining permanent residency, as well as having a child on the way, he made the choice to hang up his gloves in July 2017, with a record of 36-1, 23 KOs. After a period of adjustment to life without fighting, as well as his new status as husband and father, he and his wife rented out their house in May 2018, traveled the world with their new son, and officially moved to Los Angeles in January 2019 in order for him to pursue acting. In 2020, he first appeared in the short film Secret Santa Meet-up Group, followed by the cancelation of his next 2 short films amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Once Los Angeles began re-opening, he appeared in another short film and was a background actor on several episodes of Netflix's On the Verge (2021). Realizing he needed to be more hands on with so few productions to choose from, he opened the production company Stryker & Friends Productions LLC and took writing classes. As an actor, he transitioned into voice over, taking a step back from on-camera auditions to focus more on the development of his first three projects. All of his efforts during a tumultuous 2020 were capped off with being awarded the AT&T Veterans Media Fellowship on the December 27th edition of NFL RedZone (2009).