Over a year since the last one of these? Must be a record.
Not one I’m proud of, mind you – just sayin’. At any rate, welcome back, guys,
and cheers for checking this out. Been a busy year, a nice bit going on, and a
few things to write about, so let’s get straight to it, shall we? (I’m being
rhetorical. This blog will commence forthwith.)
FESTIVAL? MORE LIKE WREST-IVAL…. (NO, SCRATCH THAT –
FESTIVAL WAS CORRECT)
Festival shows are a mixed bag. I’ve been doing them
intermittently since 2011, and no two are ever the same. They’re largely
dependent on the weather, the spot we’re given to set the ring up in, who else
is part of the (usually smaller) crew and how many people actually stick around
to check us out. Above all else, the format usually tends to make it a long
day; rather than the usual 2-3 hour start-to-finish evening/matinée show,
matches tend to take place one-at-a-time at the top of every hour, over the course
of about four or five hours, so there’s a lot of cooling down and re-warming up
between bouts. A fun festival show is a great high, but the poor ones are
incredibly depressing and even soul-destroying at the best of times.
A festival last year in Mullingar was a miserable experience
– a wet day in a muddy field, surrounded by a handful of disinterested indigenous
folk that were killing time until the Irish midlands’ answer to Crufts kicked
off. That was a bad one, and I’ve had a couple where I’ve gotten sunburn, too,
and that’s really not fun either; the burning, the liberal application of
aftersun/aloe vera, and the inevitable moulting one week later? Yeah. None of
that’s good.
On the other end of the scale, a festival last year in
Ardmore, Co. Waterford was a tremendously fun day, kicking off with a battle
royal between me, TJ Meehan, Cambo Cray and Tiger Watson (a sound trainee from
Northern Ireland, who was playing a golfer gimmick – a heel, but nowhere near
as obnoxious as Rory McIlroy.) I also faced TJ in a spirited singles match,
where the ring was surrounded (all the way to the apron) by animated and vocal
locals.
Another festival show as recently as last weekend (mid July
2017, as I write this) was an absolute blast. As part of the Arklow Seabreeze
Festival, we had the ring planted in the middle of the main street for an hour
and a half, and were able to perform a full show start-to-finish, rather than
the usual ‘one match every hour’ format most festivals seem to favour. Opening
in a lively triple threat with some great talent from Cork-based CCW – Butch
Armstrong, and the (thoroughly deserved) first CCW Women’s Champ Raven Creed-
the crowd were many in number and were with us from the start. Along with the
triple threat, I faced TJ Meehan in another singles – always enjoy working the
guy- and finished with a handicap tag match: TJ, Raven and another talented CCW
dude Matt Skylar against me and a masked Hispanic fellow called Green Inferno. (Through
my primary school Spanish, his English for Professionals and Businessmen, and a
lot of basic sign language and loud talking, we were able to cobble together a
strategy that won us the match in the end.) A really fun day with a great crew
(and I didn’t get burnt!)
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| At the Arklow Seabreeze Festival with Butch Armstrong & Raven Creed |
More festival shows to come over the summer, and hopefully
they’ll be more like Arklow and less like Mullingar.
ONLY THE (ARM)STRONG SURVIVE
Though doing ‘one-and-done’ shows is cool, the chance to
perform regularly for audiences that know you allows the opportunity for
character development and storyline progression, too, and that opens up doors
for a lot more interesting stuff. For me, personally, some of my most
creatively satisfying work in the last few years has been with Marion Armstrong
in CCW, in our year-plus long feud. Marion – an actor by profession- really
brought it in the promo stakes, and was a terrific foil for my character,
giving me so much material and so many avenues for my own promos.
Matches between the two of us book-ended CCW’s 2016 run. He
and I faced off for (at that time) my All-Star Championship on the first show
in late January and, after a year of massively escalating tensions, we faced
off at the end of November in a Last Man Standing match. Though the road to
November’s LMS had one or two bumps (excuse the pun) along the way – including
a very disappointing Street Fight, called short due to an unruly audience (read
my previous blog for specifics)- it was a great journey, and Marion was an
absolute pleasure to work with; a guy very much on my wavelength, and equally
driven.
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| Battling Marion at our ill-fated Street Fight in mid-2016 (c: Shea Wolf Media) |
Our LMS match – in addition to being suitably violent for a
blow-off grudge match – also marked the début of Butch Armstrong, a really
sound and hard-working CCW mainstay (despite pushing me off the top rope
through a table on the outside; something I remind him of every time I see
him.) That was my first time going through a table, and also my first Van
Terminator/ Coast-to-Coast, which I used to finish off Marion, as he was buried
in the debris from the match in a corner of the ring.
 |
| This rather gruesome tableaux was left as a message to future enemies (c: Shea Wolf Media) |
Though it was a shame to finish up our feud, I was very
pleased with it and felt we wrapped it up on a high.
TRI-TRI AGAIN
Any regular readers of these yokes know I always enjoy
wrestling in Aberdeen for Wrestlezone. The crowds are great and appreciative,
and WZ is a promotion very much on my wavelength in terms of emphasis on
storytelling and characters, rather than meaningless spots and sequences. Along
with that, I’ve wrestled for the promotion regularly enough since 2009, and
have always felt welcomed and at home with their crew.
In recent years, I would’ve ventured over maybe two or three
times a year to the Granite City for wrestling-related adventures. From October
of last year, though, I had cause to make a few more trips, partaking in a
tournament to crown the first Tri-Counties Champion.
I faced Alan Sterling in Inverurie in the first round, in
October. Though Alan and I had faced off many times before in tags, six-man
tags and a Fatal Four Way at the previous year’s Christmas Chaos Comes Early
show, this was our first singles, and it was a blast. The ten-minute time limit
on the match (and all matches in the tournament) was an added challenge, but it
was great working with Alan.
In February, I faced Alan’s Sterling Oil stablemate Damien
(flanked initially by the excellent Richard R. Russell, who’s always fun to
work with) in the Quarter Finals in Peterhead. I’d faced Damien before in 2010
(I think) in an enjoyable match, and this one surpassed it. We’d crossed paths
in a fun six-man tag in Westhill a few years since then, too, and I was hoping
for a singles with him again at some stage. I was pleased, so, to get the
opportunity in Peterhead. The time limit played a factor once more in this one.
Where I found us having to pad things out a bit with Alan to get to the various
beats in the match, I found with Damien that we were really pushed for time as
we approached the match’s conclusion. We cut a couple of bits out on the fly
and I barely managed to hit him with my G-17 finisher before the 10 min time
limit elapsed (pinning him at a legit 09:55!)
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| Celebrating a hard-fought victory over Damien in Peterhead |
One of the more pleasing aspects of this tournament for me
was getting to work with WZ’s own guys. In years gone by, I would’ve been
working great outside talent like Stevie Xavier, Andy Wild, BT Gunn and Kenny
Williams, so the tournament provided a chance to work with WZ’s homegrown
stars. I had fun matches with Alan & Damien in the first two rounds, and my
semi with Aspen Faith kept the run going. Capping off a terrific weekend (where
I took a guest seminar at WZ’s Academy and visited Aberdeen FC’s home
Pittodrie, as they beat Hearts), Aspen & I had a really good match in the
Northern Hotel, which went the distance to a ten-minute time-limit draw. His
interference in the other semi-final between Zach Dynamite and Bryan Tucker (at
that time deemed the Tournament Final, since neither Aspen nor I advanced)
caused a double-disqualification, and no winner announced.
Zach & Bryan faced off a month later in Westhill, in a
re-run of their semi-final match, wrestling to a time-limit draw this time,
themselves. They would then interfere in my rematch with Aspen causing a
double-DQ and a large schmoz with lots of pushing, arguing, and pointing at the
Championship belt (who, no doubt, was enjoying the attention of four handsome
men fighting over it.) To settle matters, a fatal four way ladder match was
announced for the Title to take place at Aberdeen Anarchy this year.
RUNG IMPRESSION
You know that old expression: you’re waiting ages for a Fatal
Four Way ladder match, and then two come along at once. Well… that mightn’t be
the exact expression, I guess, but it certainly was the case for me this year.
The last ladder match I worked was six years ago for SWE in
Dundee and, while enjoyable to perform, was a MASSIVE headache to plan and
structure. Massive. With that memory lingering in my grey matter, I suppose I
was a little apprehensive in approaching my first multi-person ladder match of
the year in February. It was for CCW at their over-18s venue The Kino (which,
admittedly, I always found a bit of a logistical nightmare to perform in, due
to the lack of space) with Lycan, Danny Butler and Pastor William Eaver.
My apprehension was
thankfully ill-founded, though, and the match was such a pleasure to both plan
and perform. Everyone provided good input in the planning stages, and the
performance was a superb team effort with (amazingly) all four of us escaping
largely unscathed. I had frog splashed Lycan from the top rope as he was lying
on a ladder on the outside, and expected one of us to get the worst of it, but
both of us were fine after, aside from the usual knocks and bruises.
In addition to the ladder match, I’ve had the chance to work
separate singles matches with all three of the guys this year, too. I worked
Lycan the next month in a really fun match at the Kino’s last show, worked
Danny at PWU in a match that was technically sound but in front of a subdued
and unappreciative audience in Belfast, and had a very enjoyable clash with Pastor
for the CCW Title in Cork a few months after the ladder match. (That match led
to my only really notable injury of the last while, as I developed a trapped
nerve in my neck and accompanying shoulder/forearm discomfort, but that’s
thankfully departed in the weeks and months since then. Touch wood, that’ll be
the worst of it this year.)
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| Battling the good Pastor at It's Always Hardcore in Cork City (c: Shea Wolf Media) |
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| Always a blast working with Danny Butler (c: Michael Barbour) |
The CCW ladder match was a great team effort, as I said, and
the WZ one for the Tri-Counties Title was no different. Bryan, Zach & Aspen
were terrific to work with, and the match flowed very well in front of a loud
and appreciative audience of over 1,300 in the Beach Ballroom. Though everyone
got a little banged-up, again, we all got out mainly unscathed in the grand
scheme of things, which was great. (The visiting stars this year were all
sound, too – Rikishi, Melina and Hornswoggle were all grand from my own
experience. One or two of the previous year’s guests were dicks, I thought, so
it was good to not have that this year.)
Also good to witness was the Ballroom débuts of Nathan North
and Bradley Evans in the pre-show tag, and Jack Macgregor (reffing his first
Anarchy show, alongside WZ’s other great officials Dennis Law and Mikey Innes.)
A hard worker, and a good dude, Jack’s done me many solids (as they say in the
States) over the last while with airport pick-ups and the like. It’s always
good catching up with him when I’m over, and was great to see him get his spot
on Anarchy this year.
With two exceptionally enjoyable multi-person ladder matches
under my belt this year, it’s definitely made me better disposed to the idea of
doing them compared to the previous one I had done years before.
BABY WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT
In October last year, I wrestled a show for IWW in Galway,
facing off with Lewis Wood (of the impossibly nice Wood Brothers. Honestly,
just such a lovely pair of guys, and always a pleasure seeing them at shows.)
Lewis and I were halfway through our match when some travellers (who were
ejected from the venue, having not paid in) turned off the lights in the hall
on the way out. Left with only a sliver of light from the corridor, we
continued on for a few minutes in near-darkness until they managed to get
things up and running again. (Having seen earlier in the day how long it took
the lights to warm up and reach full beam, I wasn’t sure how long we’d have to
buy time for, but thankfully we were bathed in light once more as I made my
comeback.) Darkness aside, it was a blast working with Lewis, and later in the
evening with his brother Lorcan in a tag. (Lorcan actually took a ridiculously
funny bump off a running Yakuza kick I hit him with on the outside, akin to
something Shawn Michaels would’ve taken in his match with Hulk Hogan. Without
the accompanying disrespect, though, of course…. I think…. Hey, wait a
minute….)
BLOODBATH(GATE)
October marked my second trip of the year to Bathgate for SSW and
(despite the Ryanair flights, which I didn’t especially enjoy) it was a good
time. It was encouraging to see the progress the trainees had made since my
previous seminar – two, Luke & Kourtney, had actually débuted- and my match
with Brandon Adams was largely a fun one. I say largely, as I took a blow to
the beak that caused me to lose a bit of the ol’ red stuff. (I bled, to put it
in a less flowery way.) Brandon’s heater The Alpha Male accidentally caught me
in the face with a Drive-By while the ref was distracted, and my nose was (to
put it bluntly) pissing blood. Though the match was cut a little shorter to
accommodate for the blood loss, we hit all the main highspots and big stuff, so
it didn’t impact too much.
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| The red stuff just starts to flow (c: Graeme Gilchrist) |
Nothing was fractured, broken or askew, thankfully, though
one of my favourite pairs of tights (my royal blue and orange ‘Irn Bru’ tights)
were polka-dotted with blood, and needed a good bit of scrubbing to get clean.
That said, the blood added to the drama, and we made the most of it. When life
gives you blood, make blood-aid, and all that. (Two ladies very kindly handed
my handkerchiefs as I made my way to the back, which was a very nice gesture.)
OMAGH GOODNESS
I performed at BEST Wrestling’s début show in Beragh, Co.
Tyrone in early April of last year- running my friend Bruiser over with a
go-kart, as you do- and returned at their show in Omagh during a hectic week
for wrestling in late August. (I went straight to Omagh after work on
Wednesday, worked Thursday and Friday as normal, then had shows for CCW and IWW
in Cork and Tipperary on Saturday and Sunday. To say I was fairly knackered
come Monday morning would be an understatement.)
The show in Omagh, at any rate, was good fun, with a jovial
crew to work with, and hang out with backstage. I worked The Fighting Fintonian
in a fun (and unexpected) Hardcore Match, which I accidentally won, haha. After
ad-libbing a Stunner late in the match (and hitting a second one on request) I
made a tentative cover, and surprisingly got the W through some sort of
miscommunication.
In addition to my inadvertent victory, I superkicked
promoter Nick Campbell (allowing him to be beaten by a woman) and partook of a
spot in the eight man tag main event, which closed out the show on a spirited
note.
I returned to BEST in April of this year at a show in Tempo,
Co. Tyrone, named in my honour- that was quite flattering! An enjoyable bout
with Tim Steed led to us dislocating the middle rope when Tim Irish whipped me
into the corner at speed! I débuted a new finisher in the match to conclude
proceedings, called the Knee-DT. I’d been using it on-and-off for a few years,
but never as a finisher. Testing it out beforehand, though, I was happy Tim
took it like a champ and it was strong enough to finish, itself, rather than
transition to a ‘bigger’ move. It’s something I can use on opponents of any
size and safe as houses, so it’s handy to have in the back pocket.
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| Wiping out Tim Steed at BEST's inaugural Bingo Ballance Wrestling in Tempo |
In addition to my match with Tim, I faced frequent IWW
opponent Cambo Cray later in the show, and had a tremendous match with him;
definitely one of my favourites of the ones we’ve had. A little skulduggery led
to a ten-man tag to cap off the show, and that was that.
QUICK MENTIONS
Kicked off this year in an enjoyable ‘face-vs-’face match
with LJ Cleary in Athlone. Crowd turnout wasn’t great, but it was a fun match.
Enjoyed a triple threat with Tucker and then-CCW All-Star
Champ Conor ‘The Body’ Charisma towards the end of 2016. I’d worked Tucker
before in Dublin in 2011, so it was cool working with him again, and I was
really impressed with Conor, especially from an attitude standpoint. The match
was designed to have him let Tucker & I battle it out, and him to
periodically sneak in and try a few guerrilla-style attacks. Rather than gripe –
as some might have- about not getting enough time to get his spots in during
the match, he completely got the story we were going for, his role in the match
and why it worked for his character, and played the part to perfection, hitting
his cues and getting his part across. He’s a young guy, but it didn’t show from
a maturity standpoint – very impressed, for what it’s worth.
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| Conor's patience paid off - battling at the Fight Before Xmas (c: Shea Wolf Media) |
Going wrong more often than it’s gone right, it may be time
for me to retire one of my favourite moves, unfortunately. I’ve used a
backcracker out of the corner for a good few years now, but slip-offs due to
sweat, mistimes and other related fuck-ups have led me to think it’s time to
either put it out to pasture, or me switch up how I hit it. If you see me hit
it on a show and it gets fucked up, just know that I’m dying a little on the
inside.
ADVICE FOR TRAINEES
A few weeks ago, while I was prepping this blog, I asked for
questions on my Facebook page, and was overwhelmed with the response… Haha, nah, I kid. I got one question. One. You guys suck. Haha. I will, however, take the
time and answer that question now, as best I can.
Training – Find yourself a decent school with reputable
trainers. Conduct yourself with respect for your trainers and fellow trainees.
I actually took a class a few years ago, and was giving pointers to two guys in
the ring; some of the other trainees were around the ring watching and
listening, and others were off taking selfies of themselves at training, so
they could stick them on Facebook and Instagram. Who do you think I had more
time for?
Know Your Role – If you’re lucky enough to get booked on a
show, the promoter has a role in mind for you for that show (or should do, if they’re
any good at booking.) Ask them what they want from you and from your match, and
act accordingly. If you’re the second match on the show, a certain format is
usually followed, so don’t try recreate Michaels/Taker, as the promoter more
than likely doesn’t want that, and you’ll take away from the main event.
Don’t Get Hung-Up on Wins & Losses – A guy I trained
with early on was always griping, bitching and moaning about having to put guys
over, even though he was a villainous foreign heel. Rather than try to grasp
that him being vanquished by the hometown hero was what the audience wanted
(and would send them home happy) he couldn’t understand that he could be beaten
by someone smaller than him. As with the above (Know Your Role) try to think
beyond yourself, and think about what’s best for the show. Even in defeat, you
can make yourself look good.
Online Presence – With social media platforms so prominent
these days, there are more avenues than ever to get yourself out there, but how
you conduct yourself on them is extremely important. As a wrestler, you’re your
own brand, so if you’re posting stuff under your worker alias, do so
professionally, and don’t get into silly arguments with fans online.
Stay Grounded – Success may come to you, and you may start
making strides in your wrestling career, but keep your feet on the ground.
Arrogance is an extremely ugly trait, and will be quickly picked up by others,
especially in wrestling when people tend to go for the worst possible
interpretation of any situation! No matter how good you think you are, there’ll
always be someone better, so stay humble and show respect for the people around
you.
All of the above is behavioural stuff, you might notice. In
the grand scheme of things, learning the moves and spots, and how/when to
utilise them to the best effect is actually the easy bit! Wrestling is a
political minefield, especially in Ireland, so trying to conduct yourself in a
way that will piss off the fewest amount of people is probably a fairly safe
way to go…
FILMS
Here we go! Last entry was July of last year, so I’ll run
down some of the best and worst I’ve seen since then…
Best: Of last
year, from July onwards, I enjoyed Don’t Breathe a lot, and thought it was one
of the better thrillers I’d seen in a good while. The Accountant (from Gavin O’Connor,
who directed another favourite of mine, Warrior) was a great action/thriller, I
felt, which I didn’t know much about going in. I liked Arrival, which seemed to
be quite a polarising film. This year, stuff that’s particularly impressed me
has been the likes of Manchester by the Sea, Logan, La-La Land, Get Out, Life,
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (better than the first, I thought) and War for the
Planet of the Apes. I've literally just seen Dunkirk, too, and it left quite an impression too. (Christopher Nolan is one of my favourite directors, and this is definitely another good notch in his filmography.)
Worst: Regrettably, I’ve seen some pretty bad stuff since
last July as well! Independence Day: Resurgence was pretty awful, as was the
Ghostbusters reboot. (I enjoyed the opening with Zach Woods, and was hopeful
the film would continue in that vein, but it went over a cliff soon after. Just
glad I didn’t pay to see it.) The David Brent film was a huge disappointment,
and just so unnecessary. I gave I Am Not a Serial Killer a shot, as I like
Christopher Lloyd (star of a few childhood favourites of mine, like Camp
Nowhere, Clue and Addams Family Values) but it was a very slow and quite dull
film. I loved Ben Affleck’s first three directorial efforts (Argo, The Town and
the criminally-underrated Gone Baby Gone) but Live By Night was an atrocious
film, unfortunately, and I didn’t care for any of it. Similarly, A Cure for
Wellness – which had all the hallmarks of an interesting psychological thriller
from its trailer – was a bloated mess of a film that was at least half an hour
too long
SIGNING OFF
Thanks for reading, guys, if you managed to make it to the end. Hoping it won't be another year before I get to one of these, but I might do a themed one (rather than a recap) if I get any ideas or suggestions. 'Til then, take it easy, and all the best.
SIGNING OFF
Thanks for reading, guys, if you managed to make it to the end. Hoping it won't be another year before I get to one of these, but I might do a themed one (rather than a recap) if I get any ideas or suggestions. 'Til then, take it easy, and all the best.
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