Ring of Honor's Kelly Klein takes no prisoners in the ring, but mentors troubled youth out of it

There is nothing heroic about Kelly Klein inside the realm of professional wrestling.

She is arrogant and is not afraid to use an underhanded tactic or two to pick up a victory, and she has plenty of those since joining Ring of Honor's women's division, Women of Honor, in 2015.

Klein has gone more than 500 days without being pinned in Ring of Honor and she doesn't just beat her opponents. She humiliates them. Instead of simply pinning them when she has them beat, she will pick them up off the mat so she can dish out more punishment.

Then she beats them.

Although there is no women's championship in Ring of Honor, Klein has been positioned as the woman to beat. Klein will look to continue her run of dominance when she appears at the 2300 Arena in South Philadelphia Sunday night for the final stop of Ring of Honor's War of the Worlds Tour.

However, behind the villainous persona Klein portrays in the ring lies a selfless hero to troubled youth in need of guidance as a mentor in her hometown of Cincinnati.

Klein may not be looking to lend a helping hand to her opponents, but she routinely does as a member of the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative.

According to the CYC's web site, Klein is one of 1,500 volunteers that help children in the city of Cincinnati from second grade all the way through college with "mentoring, college readiness and success, and career preparation."

"I think interacting and making those connections can be very powerful," Klein said during an interview with philly.com. "That's something that's very important to me, to be able to help others really help themselves and find their path and help give guidance that sometimes in my life I was very fortunate to have and at other times I didn't have."

"I kind of know what it's like when you have it and when you don't so it's very important to be able to provide that to people who may not have it," she added.

Although children are likely to believe what they see in wrestling to be a 100 percent real, Klein said that it is usually to easy to relay to the child that she is not the mean person she plays in the ring.

"I've had some of my girls before they met me look me up and they're kind of intimidated, but they get to know me and that's all there is to it," she said. "It's a really easy explanation where you're there to compete, you compete to be the best of your ability and a big part of my platform as a wrestler and as a person has always been that you aren't defined by one thing."

"Being tough in the ring doesn't have anything to do with how I interact with people outside of there and knowing when to use your competitive side and when not to and when to use you nurturing side and I think I'm a very good example of someone who's multifaceted and is not pigeon-holed," she added.

After breaking through that initial barrier, one of the most important aspects to Klein's job is simply being there for the child.

Klein mentors a lot of children that are being raised by single parents that have to work odd shifts or multiple jobs to make ends meet, making it difficult to be there for their child's every need.

A lot of times, Klein simply fills that void. When Klein is able to get through to a child, the experience can be very gratifying.

Unfortunately, there are children that do not respond to Klein's guidance and continue down a troubled path. Although that is simply part of being a mentor, not being able to get through to a child deeply affects Klein, as she wants to see every child succeed.

"That's something I struggle with really taking to heart and holding on to it really weighs on me a lot, but I think that's what goes with it" Klein said. "If that didn't weigh on me and I wasn't emotionally invested, I don't know that I would be emotionally invested on the flip side the way that I am."

"It's daunting and it's something you really have not only have to be prepared for, but find ways to handle it so that it doesn't weigh you down because if that happens then you get to the point where you are no longer going to be able to help them," she added.

Klein is where she is in life because she had mentors of her own that got through to her. When it comes to being a life mentor, Klein credits her mother for having such a positive influence on her.

"I have so many memories of just different times, experiences during my life when I was really young that were very impactful as far as her guidance and things that she taught me," Klein said.

When it comes to professional, legendary trainer Les Thatcher served as Klein's mentor. Over the years, Thatcher has become more than just the man that taught her how to wrestle. He has also become a dear friend.

"He's somebody that has a lot of background, experience and insight in different things and is a really strong influence in my life, too," Klein said.

"I'm always in touch with him and if I don't get to see him on a regular basis in person, we're emailing or getting on the phone and talking and I regularly will bounce things off him and see what his take is on something," she added.

"He calls me one of his kids. Those of us who trained with him very seriously, he considers his kids and being claimed by him is a really big honor to me."

Having Thatcher's stamp of approval could take Klein a long way in the world of professional wrestling, but Klein does not plan on ending her mentoring career anytime soon.

If anything, she hopes that a bigger platform in wrestling could help her reach more children, and teach them the difference between right and wrong, and inspire them to chase their dream — whatever that dream may be.

Even if that dream is to beat people up in a wrestling ring.

"The whole point of moving ahead and moving forward in wrestling to me was to have a bigger platform, to be able to help more people," she said. "That's always been a huge part of my goal."

"I think that is a really important lesson to a lot of young people that not only can you be anything you want to be but you can be everything you want to be and you can do it at the same time."

Vaughn Johnson has a podcast with Nick Piccone called the Straight Shooters on WildfireRadio.com. Check it out here HERE.