Security, get in there!

So Saturday May 30 I finally came back to wrestling. I learned some things I really need to work on but also had a blast and even got to get in the ring in front of the crowd for a very very small part.
I got to the place in Flemington minutes after the ring truck must have shown up because they had just begun putting it up. I walked around and said my hellos to everyone there. A bunch of familiar faces, Kev, Shawn (or Sean?), Ref. Jimmy, Dapper, Karin (no idea how to spell this), Mikey, and one kid I never met named Chris. So I said my hellos and started helping with the ring. We finished the hard part seemingly fast considering it was only a handful of people working on it.
I started off in the ring to work out with Mikey while Kev and Shawn went to eat and Chris had to help Dapper with some other stuff. As far as I remember I never really worked out with Mikey so that was cool. He asked me what I remembered and I told him "I THINK pretty much everything." He gave me stuff to do and I did it all; bumps, rolls, armdrags, hip tosses, etc. After that he even said something along the lines of how its impressive I really do remember everything and pull it off pretty well. I was pretty psyched on myself.
Then Chris came in and Mikey went to sit and rest his injured knee. Chris and I went over some match opening spots. This is where I started to feel it. It was a simple arrangement; headlock, whip off the rops, shoulder block, run the ropes, hip toss if that makes any sense the way I typed it. But after doing it 4 or so times in a row I was winded. Took a second to get my breathe and went back to running through it. After a couple times it happened again. So after losing over 60 pounds it hit me that I need to be spending a lot more time on my conditioning. This time was real bad. I sat out for a little and even walked to the bathroom because I was real winded and have seen people throw up from such a thing. Luckily that didn't happen. I came back and did some of the small stuff again. But if I learned anything, I need to be doing a lot more intense cardio. Which I've already started since that point.
After everyone got out of the ring I talked to Kev for a while. He's the current NWS champion as Corey Havoc and the guy who helped me get into NWS so I'm always very thankful to him. He gave me some conditioning tips and he told me more about the business and places I could check out to train in general. I also sat around and third wheeled on a conversation between him and a guy named Corvis Fear, who always has some stand out matches on NWS cards.
When the show for the night actually started I worked security. Which basically means I make sure kids don't get too close to the ring, maybe help a guy who just lost back to the locker room, etc. Small things. Out of habit I tried counting how many people were at the show, I think I got to around 160, give or take. During one match Dapper called me over and gave me and Chris (who was also working security) some instructions.
A couple matches later was Corey Havoc vs former WWF star, The Patriot. After the match Havoc, Danny Demanto, and Bison all jumped The Patriot. This went on for a little while until Dapper got on the mic and yelled "Security, get in there!" At which point Chris ran in the ring and was quickly disposed of. After that I ran in the ring but had the same results as Chris as Bison quickly stopped me and threw me out of the ring. Like I said, it was a very very small part, I was in the ring for MAYBE 15 seconds. But it was a blast and got me so excited to know that sooner than later I will be in the ring for a better period of time and not just a security guard getting beat up and helped to the locker room.
After the show we took down the ring, said my goodbyes, and exhanged numbers with Chris. We talked for a little bit about possibly trying to do a tag team at some point since we have similar ideas on good tag wrestling and our body sizes/styles could work well together. Him being the small and fast guy while I'm the bigger power guy. We'll see how it goes, I'd really like to start off as a tag guy in general. Either way, I left Flemington sore, bruised (big ugly one too), and very excited that I've gotten back into the hang of things and didn't lose the little skill I had picked up before.

Yeah, I write a lot, sorry. This was longer because it was my first time, lots of excitement and things happened, you know? But thanks for reading.

It's me again

Long break in posting because honestly, I haven't done anything with wrestling. However, I have been working out and lost at least 60 pounds which will help A LOT when I get back to it. In other news, my knees been better for a while now, or at least as good as its going to get. And finally, college semester is over.
With that being said, May 29 I will begin training again. I probably have written it here before but honestly, words cannot explain how excited I am. Not many people end up following their childhood dreams, I mean, not many people grow up keeping the same dream from when they were a 4 year old either. Imagine how this feels. After you do just know that you're probably underestimating it by a lot.
I just hope that I remember enough of the stuff so that when I get back in there its not like starting all over again. Wrestling is one of the only things that I feel legitimately confident in so I really don't think that this will be a problem. But we'll see, could be a disaster. And hopefully starting so early in the summer and with the prior knowledge I do have I will be doing matches in no time. Gotta make up for breaking my knee last summer and being unable to wrestle in the battle royal I was booked for.
Expect more frequent updates as of May 29. Thanks for reading.

January...

So a couple weeks ago I stopped by a new wrestling school that just opened up in New Brunswick to check it out. After making Janise drive me around unable to find it for way too long while we were on the street we finally stumbled upon it. Went upstairs and ran into some friends from training before; Corey Havoc, Nicky Oceans, Joey Janella, and a couple others. I've lost at least 55 pounds since they last saw me and they all had nice compliments for me which made me proud of myself. I need that once in a while.

So I hung out for a while, watched them train this new kid. I think the kid was afraid to go upside down, but he'll get it if he hasn't by now. Had a Rocky Balboa shirt on, backed. After a while got some information on the school from Nicky, said my goodbyes, and left.

In January I will officially start there. I'm very excited about this besides for the obvious reasons (reasons made obvious by my previous posts) I am also very excited because the school is in New Brunswick. Most of my friends live within a half an hour or so of that area so when I start working there anyone who wants to see me will have no problem doing so! As long as they can find that building.

This is all very good news coming to me at a time that I really need it. I had a panic attack the other day, the first one I've ever had and it was awful. I'd rather not discuss what it was over, but there is a lot of stress building up. There is a lot going on for me that makes it harder to look at any positive aspects of life. Just so much, I feel so overwhelmed. I hate this. But if I start wrestling it will be a great source of stress relief, just like last time. Last time it really made me feel a lot better and I was going through even more at that time.

To end on a high note, not everything is negative. There is definitely good going on right now. Black Kites' LP should finally be coming out within the next couple weeks, hopefully. www.myspace.com/weareblackkites. Our shows are going real well and pretty much every show ends with me thinking it was our best yet. I'm also very psyched to do our little 4 day tour to all states I've never played in before, and with the exception of PA, never even been to. I see Marisa (the "bff" as she puts it) more often now and we didn't see each other for a while. She slept over the other day, it was a lot of fun. We watched the end of Freddy Got Fingered and she thought I was retarded for laughing so much, she didn't get mad at me and make me sit in Applebees for 2 hours like last time we hung out, ate Taco Bell though, and had good talks. Also, quite the relief that this is my finals week for school. So while right now it is stressful it will all be done Thursday morning. Finally.

PS.

The thing I'm watching right now that had Liger.Mysterio is "The Essential Starrcade" where they count down the top 25 matches of WCW's Starrcade. So far I'd say all good matches. Stunning Steve Austin (later Stone Cold) vs Dustin Rhodes (later Golddust), Road Warriors vs Blacnhard/Anderson, Hogan vs Piper, etc. The Rock N' Roll Express vs The Midnight Express in a scaffold match, etc.
However, number 16 is Ric Flair vs Lex Luger in 1988...Flair is one of the best of all time obviously. But LEX LUGER?!?!?! Him being in any "best of" compilation for wrestling is a joke. Dude is also definitely in my list of next wrestling star to die, right up there with Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Scott Hall. My money is on Jake being next, unfortunately.
I'm fast forwarding.

Oh, hello...

I haven't updated this in forever. The reason is simple, I want to keep it solely about wrestling and I haven't been doing that. I could write more personal, diary-esque stuff, but you don't want to read that. More times than not I really don't want to live it. I'm updating now just because I've got nothing better to do and I see friends Mike and Alan created blogs. And Jon started his up again. My knee surgery went fine. Then physical therapy was alright, but boring and I stopped before I should've so my knee still gets sore on occasion. I should go back.

I still haven't gone back to training. But I've changed my diet drastically and now I go to the gym 5 days a week. Because of this I have lost about 55 pounds...that brings me down to a slim trim 256...I've still got a ways to go, ha. I'm putting a lot of focus on my health and plan on getting back to wrestling training in January. I may even go to CZW's school in Philly, but I gotta take into account the gas and mileage that will hit me. We'll see how it goes. I'd like to train there though, or Chikara's school. Plus ACE school isn't far from where I go to college and Jay Lethal trains there, so that'd be cool to train with him.

My weekends are now either all working and than shows or I come home and watch old wrestling on WWE 24-7. Right now I'm watching Rey Mysterio Jr vs Jushin Liger at WCW's Starcade 96. Two guys who really know the art of wrestling through and through. It's insane to watch someone like Liger work, there aren't many like him. I can't imagine what Rey felt like to get to wrestle him. Liger was/is an idol to everyone who works the lucha/cruiserweight style, and I'm sure Rey is no different than the others. Which has me thinking, I'll never get to wrestle the guys I idolize and would love to work similar styles as. Here is why!
First, Bam Bam Bigelow is dead. But watching him work amazes me. 325 pounds, big dude and he can move better than most. If there is anybody I'd like to emulate completely in straight wrestling, it'd be him. I obviously can't move like him, but I can work at it and get as close as possible.
Mick Foley, his body is a wreck. And by the time I'm to the point where he might even know OF me I'm sure he'll be even worse off. Another big guy and he knew that he didn't have the body or agility that gets people so far in this business. So instead he put his body on the line and it paid off. I want to get into working death matches and like any other death match worker/someone who hopes to work those matches, Mick Foley is an idol. Obviously, that's not all he had and I don't mean to imply that. He could go and I will go on a limb and say that he is THE best to ever have a microphone in his hand. His promos give me chills, and I don't care how that makes me sound.

Of course there are current guys I look up to. Guys like Eddie Kingston (possibly best promos since Foley), Jun Kasai (even if I would probably end up dead), Drake Younger (amazing wrestler, amazing death match wrestler, pretty much what I'd like to be), and etc.

Ok, I wrote a lot. I'm going to stop now. Maybe I'll start another blog for other things in my life. If not I'll try to just update with things I think about regarding wrestling, as if anyone finds that interesting. By the way, Jushin Liger won.

The day before

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm expected to arrive at the hospital between 1pm and 1:30pm. I'm expected to be put under and have the surgery done at around 3pm. I've never had anything like surgery done. I've never even had wisdom teeth or any of that pulled. And if I may be honest, I'm very very nervous. I know realistically I have nothing to worry about but in my head I've got all the worst possible situations floating around. I know it is really stupid of me to think like that but that is how my mind works and I know my mind will not be at rest until I wake up and am on my way home from the hospital. One thing I am looking forward to is the possibility that they will let me keep the tendon they pull out of my knee. How cool would that be?!?

Last Saturday NWS ran a show in Dunellen, NJ. This is about a 20 minute drive from my house so I decided to stop by and see some friends from the company that I haven't seen or talked to in a while. It was honestly a comforting experience for me. I talked to the owner, Gino Moore about knee surgery since he's been there before. He didn't really tell me much that the surgeon didn't tell me but it was still comforting to hear about it from someone who's been there and knows what is more or less going through my head. Dapper who is also an owner was very good to hear from as well reassuring me that I'm young and have plenty of time in the wrestling business and to just do what they tell me for now and I'll come back fine. Once again, this has all been in my head but it really set me at ease to hear it from him. It was also nice to see Dave and Sam who I've been training with and would make the car rides with. They both got a couple matches in front of the crowd down by now. It partly bummed me out because I'd be in those matches as well had I not been out with the injury. But more so I'm just proud of those guys and very happy for them. I stuck around to watch a little bit of the training. And again, I'm proud of Dave and Sam for the progression they've made the past couple months I've been out, it really shows. I can't wait to be back to working with them and seeing that same progression in myself.

I had to leave during training due to other commitments so I said my goodbye's, got wishes of good luck, and some last minute comforting words and advice from a bunch of the guys. I'll be visiting them again just to hang out and watch the training before I'm recovered. It's a great atmosphere for me.

Also, starting at midnight tonight I am not allowed to eat or drink anything until after surgery. This is not going to be fun. Expect an update shortly after tomorrow, or whenever I'm not too drugged up on painkillers summarizing how much of a baby I was at the hospital!

Marking Out

"Marking out" is a term in wrestling meaning to act like a fanboy for a certain wrestler or move. Or to just give a huge reaction to a certain move or wrestler. A "mark" is someone who is just a fanboy to wrestling in general. I don't mark out much, I don't even get too excited to be around a larger scale celebrity. They're just people so a lot of times I don't get the big deal.

With that being said...I mark out for Ian Rotten...