University Hospitals Chaplain Joanna Sowards finds healing in wrestling, honoring late father, “Quake” John Tenta

A chaplain at a university hospital finds healing, faith, and connection by entering her late father's world of professional wrestling.

CLEVELAND — In places where lives can change with one diagnosis, relief can mean everything.

At University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, Chaplain Joanna Sowards spends her days walking alongside patients, families and staff through moments of fear, grief and hope.

Along with her dog May, they bring light into the dark corners that cancer can cast.

“I get to bear witness to so many stories. The love, the resilience, the hope…all of it.”

This invitation is very personal for Swords.

“I was 15 when my father was diagnosed with bladder cancer and we moved from central Florida to Houston, Texas, so he could get treatment. It was boring for a while.”

To her, Jun Tenta was her first and forever father, a gentle giant who loved to laugh and loved being a father.

“Oh my God, he loved to laugh, so he would often joke. He was really sweet and kind. He loved being a dad; he could help us with our homework. He loved giving us advice.”

“He loved to hold us when I was younger. I loved to have a lot of pictures of me and like on my dad's back and you know, I loved that he was tall, he was 6'7. Um, so I felt like I was on top of the world.”

But outside of his home, John Tenta lived another life – one known to wrestling fans around the world.

“I couldn't understand, like I wasn't getting it because when I was growing up, my dad was my dad, and he was intentional that way when he was home. It was always about us, it was always about the family, so I had no idea who his star was.”

As “Earthquake”, Tenta was one of the most memorable villains in professional wrestling. He was also part of the “Natural Disaster” tag team alongside “Typhoon” ring partner – Fred Ottman.

“My father had a number of gimmicks as a professional wrestler, but the character he was most known for was Earthquake. In wrestling parlance, he was a really big 'heel', a bad guy, so he had some really great matches with people like Hulk Hogan and Jake the Snake and people hated him, which meant he was doing his job well.”

Cancer eventually ended his wrestling career. In his final months, Tenta focused on what mattered most to him: his family.

“And when he was admitted to the nursing home, we knew that it was clear that he was not going to (recover). This was not going to happen. And so in one of our last conversations, he asked me to keep the faith. I promised him that I would. I was with him when he took his last breath.”

Sowards was 17 years old when her father died. She struggled to keep her word.

“Indirectly, I kept the faith, but for a while I was very angry with God and I really had to do some digging and exploring what faith meant to me.”

This search led her to seminary, where training in worship helped her find her calling.

“I wasn't really sure what it was. I had heard that it would be helpful for a pastor's self-awareness, no matter what field of ministry I went into. What I found was that I loved the work. I felt those conversations with my father and that moment when I saw him take his last breath. I feel called to enter these spaces that can be scary and uncertain.”

That connection led her to Cleveland — and eventually back to something she thought she'd lost forever: wrestling.

“I had this dream of becoming a professional wrestler. Once my dad passed, like the grief of anything wrestling related and knowing that was a big part of his life, I honestly thought I closed the door on wrestling forever.”

Until last year, when she was 35, she decided to bring wrestling back into her life. But this time, not as a spectator.

“She said, 'Well, my dad's a wrestler. I'd really like to honor him by trying to wrestle,'” Dominic Garini, a coach at Absolute Intense Wrestling Academy, said of his first meeting with Joanna.

“I was like, 'Okay, who's your dad?' “John Tenta,” she says. “And I say: Earthquake is your father?” Garini said with a shocked face when he first heard the news.

The same goes for John Thorne, the founder of AIW and a professional wrestler himself.

“She grew up a fan of her father… She watched her father almost destroy Hulk Hogan at Hulkamania… I was completely bummed that she wanted to train – and that she lives in Cleveland, Ohio.”

Thorne, Garini, and the other coaches quickly realized it wasn't about shortcuts or legacies — because Joanna wanted to earn it all on her own.

“She doesn't expect any special treatment, she shows up like any other student, and she wants to do it the same way her father did it,” Thorne said.

The training is exhausting, and the doubts are real. But each new skill reminds Joanna of the power within her. Sometimes, in the ring, she feels her father's presence.

“Sometimes I do that… when I get in the ring… I run the ropes… sometimes there's a flash of that… I'm trying to learn some of my dad's moves.”

“It's so crazy how far she's come. She came here so shy, so afraid and now she's being invited to the intermediate class,” Garini said.

Sowards doesn't chase fame. Wrestling became another means of healing.

“I feel like ever since I started training, it's devastated me. I feel like I'm processing parts of that 17-year-old after my father died.”

The contrast between her two worlds – hospital chaplain and wrestler – is not lost on her.

“Joanna is still the same. When I'm in the hospital, my whole role is to take care of others, so there's a level of sensitivity, care and attention that I have to provide. Here, I'm kind of free here. I get to be myself.”

Earlier this year, Joanna and her family traveled to Las Vegas, where John Tenta was posthumously inducted into the 2025 class of the WWE Hall of Fame.

His long-time tag team partner, “Typhoon” Fred Ottman, was also recruited. Together the duo were known as “The Natural Disasters.”

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