No limits to a mother’s love, a wrestler’s determination

Judy Robles was washing dishes in the kitchen of her California home and keeping an eye on her young son, who was playing in the park that backed up to the house.

She looked down for a second, maybe two, and when she looked up, there was her son, Anthony, sitting on a piece of playground equipment that looked like a bowl perched atop a long pole.

Judy Robles ran outside, wondering how her little boy without a right leg — but who would eventually become an NCAA wrestling champion at Arizona State University — managed to climb up the pole and worried that he would hurt himself trying to get down.

“I got to him and I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’” Judy said. “And he’s just laughing. He thinks it’s funny.

“That was the moment. That’s when I knew I couldn’t put limitations on Anthony. He was going to figure things out.”

Just as his teenage mother had to.

“Unstoppable,” the new Amazon Prime movie about Anthony Robles’ life, will have a private screening at ASU’s MIX Center in downtown Mesa on Nov. 21, followed by a limited theatrical release on Dec. 6. It will be released on Amazon Prime Video on Jan. 16. (Find the trailer at the end of this story.)

The MIX Center screening will be a homecoming for Anthony Robles, who wrestled four years at ASU, was a three-time Pac-12 champion and, in 2011, won the NCAA championship in the 125-pound weight class despite competing with just one leg. Also in 2011, he earned a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary studies from what is now known as the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts.

“Just to be able to go back home and have my family, friends and coaches see it, that’s going to be special,” said Anthony, who was actor Jharrel Jerome’s stunt double in the wrestling scenes. “Going to ASU, that was a sense of pride for me. So, to have this film where it all started, I’m really looking forward to that. Man, I can’t wait. It’s a blessing.”

The movie, which was produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s production company, Artists Equity, and stars Jennifer Lopez as Judy Robles, not only chronicles Anthony Robles’ improbable journey — it’s a tribute to the relationship between Judy and Anthony, to the woman Anthony calls “his hero.”

Judy Robles, an associate athletic director for student-athlete experience and family programs in Sun Devil Athletics, was 16 when she found out she was pregnant with Anthony.

She immediately became, in her words, a “statistic.”

“I was your 16-year-old pregnant Latina,” Judy said. “That’s what (people) made it feel like, like that was the end for me.”

Anthony was born on July 20, 1988. Judy didn’t know he had been born without one leg — prenatal tests had not revealed the condition — until he was placed into her arms and her father told her.

“I’m kind of like, ‘OK, I have a baby. I’m 16. What does this mean?’” Judy said. “But then I waited until everyone was gone. I had a moment with my son. And he was just this little golden brown … sweetest little boy. It was a challenge. But I was going to love Anthony. If that’s all I could give him, that’s what I was going to do.”

Those first few months were hard. Anthony had colic. Judy started sneaking out of her parents’ house to hang out with friends.

“I made a mess of things,” Judy said.   

When Anthony was 8 months old, Judy’s parents told her she needed to grow up. They also offered to raise Anthony as her little brother.

At that moment, Judy decided to become a mother rather than a statistic.

Judy wasn’t sure what Anthony could do with just one leg. But she knew one thing: There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t let him try. Whether it was riding a bike, playing football or driving a car, Judy told Anthony to see his challenges as a puzzle.

“It was never like, ‘I don’t think you should do that because I don’t know if you can,’” Anthony said. “It was, ‘OK, how can we do this? Let’s figure it out.’

“That’s how I approached my life. It always just came back to the mentality of never letting your challenge become the excuse. I think the world focused on the excuse, on what I didn’t have. But my mom chose not to see it that way. She chose to raise me to not have that mentality.”

Judy said, “I took that step back and gave him an opportunity to fail.”

Judy wasn’t just Anthony’s advocate. She was his protector and defender. She remembers taking Anthony to kindergarten — a mom with tattoos, no formal education and four younger kids in tow — and how other parents and even teachers looked at Anthony as if he were a broken person from a horrible home.

“That was really hard to deal with,” Judy said. “I was like, ‘Don’t treat him like he’s disabled. How dare you. Back off. This is my son.’”

Even when Anthony was older and could advocate for himself, Judy was there to defend him if needed. During one of Anthony’s first wrestling meets at Mesa Junior High, a man in the audience started laughing at him. Judy got up, walked over to where the man was sitting and told him to knock it off.

“I never thought not having a leg was a big issue, but whenever I stepped out the door, whether I was going to school or the grocery store, people would treat me differently,” Anthony said. “They would put these limitations on me without even letting me try. And I didn’t understand it for the longest time. I felt like I was just always fighting to prove people wrong. It was draining.

“But my mom — and my family — was the one who would recharge me. I would not be here without her just believing in me, pushing me and teaching me to believe in myself. And with this film now, the world is going to see that.”

Something else happened that day at junior high: Judy began to understand how much wrestling mattered to her son.

“He was just so tiny, and he lost a whole lot. He was terrible,” Judy said. “But I’ve never seen anyone so happy. I had spent my whole life trying to protect him from people looking at him and thinking a certain way about him. And then he decides he loves wrestling, where there’s no blending in. He’s on the mat by himself.

“And when I saw him, I was really proud of him, hopping to the center, hopping off. I was like, ‘OK, this little boy has that strength in him.’”

It wasn’t easy for Judy to see her life played out in the film. It details what she calls her “mistakes,” including a fraught relationship with her ex-husband. She still beats herself up over some of the choices she made, even though she is the first person in her family to get a college degree — she earned a bachelor’s degree in communication with a minor in English literature from ASU, as well as a master’s degree in higher and postsecondary education and a doctorate in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University — and all five of her children are college graduates.

“I’m struggling to give myself that bit of grace,” she said.

But the film turned out to be therapeutic for Judy and Anthony. She broke down on the set when she watched the filming of Anthony’s national championship match, thinking about the struggles that got her and Anthony to that point.

Judy and her five kids also sat down and discussed their family dynamic.

“We talked through the hard times within our home,” Judy said. “Anthony been nothing but grateful to me and gives me so much credit that I don’t think I deserve.”

The son knows better.

“She absolutely does not give herself enough credit, and I think that was something I really wanted to be captured in this film,” Anthony said. “I think the film does a great job of showing my mom was dealing with her own challenges.”

Judy was humbled when she was told Jennifer Lopez wanted to play her in the movie. And a bit worried, as well. Would Lopez, a big star, be concerned about an authentic portrayal of Judy?

As it turned out, the worries were unfounded. After an initial conversation, the two women spoke on Zoom for three hours. Lopez even wore one of Judy’s coats in the movie as well a pink beanie Judy owns that has the word “wrestling” stitched on the front. During one of their conversations, Judy said, “Oh, that’s just Anthony,” and Lopez added the line to the movie.

When the movie was screened at the Toronto Film Festival in September, Lopez and Judy sat next to each other and cried.

“She genuinely cared about getting my mom and playing her authentically,” Anthony said. “It was really neat to see.”

Anthony — who now is a motivational speaker and the wrestling coach at Chandler Hamilton High School — said the film is “more than he could have hoped for.” For Judy, it has been a catharsis.

“I’m learning not to look at the mistakes that I’ve made,” she said. “Because, to me, if I want to help other women who have been through what I’ve been through, other single parents who are raising kids, I need to learn to get past the thinking that it was my fault, and I don’t deserve this.

“I was chosen to be Anthony’s mom for a reason. I didn’t know that when I had him. And like I said, Anthony deserved a better parent than me. But it’s so wonderful when Anthony says he loves me and says he wouldn’t be where he is without me.

“I cannot not cry when he talks about me like that.”