Cooley made his professional wrestling debut in 1981. On August 31, 1985, while wrestling for Bill Watt's Mid-South Wrestling, Cooley teamed with
Al Perez and defeated the team of
"Dr. Death" Steve Williams and Bruiser
Bob Sweetan for the Mid-South Tag Team Championship. Sweetan was substituting for
Ted DiBiase while DiBiase was touring Japan. On February 2, 1986, Cooley won his first singles title in Memphis, Tennessee defeating
Dutch Mantel for the
AWA International Heavyweight Championship. Cooley won a tournament defeating
Jerry Stubbs for the vacated
NWA Alabama Heavyweight Championship. He would win the title two more times feuding with
Tony Anthony. Cooley was also a member of the
Stud Stable in Alabama from 1986 to 1988. On December 28, 1987, Cooley won a Mink Coat Tournament defeating Dutch Mantel in the finals in Birmingham, Alabama for Continental Championship Wrestling. After both
Continental Wrestling Association and
Continental Championship Wrestling in 1989, Cooley worked for
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) based in Atlanta in 1990 as a
jobber to the stars. In 1991, he formed a tag team with
Frankie Lancaster as the Heartbreakers in Puerto Rico with Cooley as Apollo and Lancaster as Adonis. They won the
WWC World Tag Team Championship defeating El Bronco and Invader #1. The Heartbreakers won the title two more times feuding with
Rex King and
Ricky Santana. In 1992, they made an appearance in the
World Wrestling Federation losing to The
Bushwhackers. The following year, Lancaster joined
Austin Idol's short-lived USA Wrestling promotion based in
Dothan, Alabama. He and
Steve Armstrong, teaming as "The Young Bucks", defeated
Simply Devine (Rex King & Steve Doll) on April 3, 1993, in a tournament final to become the inaugural USA Tag Team Champions. They held the belts until the promotion closed a few months later. After Frankie Lancaster left WCW in 2000, The Heartbreakers reunited in the
independent circuit and continued teaming up occasionally. Cooley worked for NWA Wrestle Birmingham. He won the Texas Heavyweight Title defeating
Tom Prichard on November 22, 2014, at GCW Southern Legends Fanfest in Pell City, Alabama. He retired from wrestling in 2019. ==Personal life==