09-06-2014, 12:01 PM
Just another Saturday night for yours truly. Sitting alone in a hotel room watching TV. This time, I'm in a cheap hotel in Los Angeles, just waiting for my first singles match in the XWF at the Memorial Coliseum.
As I'm flicking through the channels, I catch a repeat of Bob Murray's show. He was going on about how he was going to become the next great professional wrestler.
I couldn't help but laugh.
"Great joke, Bob!"
I never heard anything more ridiculous in my life. Don't get me wrong, I loved watching Bob growing up! But to hear this old geezer say that he's going to become a wrestler just out of the bloom makes me sick. It takes more than just stepping into the ring and acting tough to become a wrestler.
But I get it. He saw it on TV and thought that he could do that. I was in a similar situation years and years ago...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was introduced to wrestling when I was about 8 years old. I was hanging out with a friend of mine one Friday night. We had been playing video games for several hours. My friend looked at his clock.
"DUDE! IT'S ALMOST 8!"
"Yeah, so?"
"You gotta see this!"
He turned off the game, and switched it to one of the local channels. It was a taping of a local wrestling promotion. It was a small venue, but still a pretty good turnout.
It was like love at first sight. It was amazing what these guys were able to do! Tossing other guys around the ring like Frisbees! Flying across the ring like superheros! Never before had I seen anything like this!
Towards the end, a guy by the name of Crusher Bill came on and cut a heel promo on the crowd. From the moment I saw him, I wanted to kick his ass. There were only a few wrestlers that I hated. He was up towards the top of the list.
When the show ended, my friend turned the game back on. But I wanted more.
"You thought that this was awesome?"
"YEAH!"
"You haven't seen anything yet!"
My friend popped in a VHS tape of one of the Monday night shows. I was blown away even more, but for different reasons. This was at a much larger venue with more interesting wrestling styles! And the crowd was going nuts for everything!
Imagine getting the chance to do that in front of a crowd that size. That would be a dream!
From that moment on, I was hooked. I was watching whatever wrestling show that I could. It didn't matter what day of the week it was on. Monday night, Thursday night, Friday night...if there was a show on in the middle of school, I would have ditched school to see it. I couldn't get enough of it!
Then, one day, I got a call from my friend.
"Hey, there's gonna be a live show going on this weekend. Wanna go?"
There wasn't a chance in hell that I was gonna miss an opportunity like this! Getting to see these larger than life characters beating the living hell out of each other right in front of me!
It was a small show; maybe no more than 50 people. But these guys wrestled as if there were 50,000 people there! And I loved every single minute of it!
Finally, the main event was about to get underway. That's when he showed up. The bane of my existence.
Crusher Bill.
He stepped into the ring, and started cutting another one of his heel promos. I don't remember much about it, but I remember how furious I was; angrier then I had ever been. But I'll never forget what happened towards the end.
"When I look around this room, I see a whole bunch of nobodies! Every single one of you is beneath me! NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON HERE TONIGHT could compete at my level!"
I was getting angrier.
"I could kick every single one you loser's asses without breaking a sweat!"
Wanna bet?
"C'mon! Who thinks that they can take me on? C'mon, anybody!"
I shot my hand up straight in the air. And he saw it.
"Really? REALLY?!? This little kid thinks that he can whip my ass! Do you really think that you can kick my ass?"
I knew that I couldn't kick his ass at that stage in my life, but I wanted the chance to.
"Kid, you don't have the skills that I have, the strength that I have, or the smarts that I have. What chance to you have? Huh? You wouldn't last 1 second with me!"
He was right, but I didn't care. I wanted to jump in that ring and do what I had seen done on TV thousands of times before; the things that I had fallen in love with!
"I'll tell you what, when you grow up, and somehow become less of a failure than the rest of these people here, I'll give you a shot. Until then, sit down!"
That was the moment that changed my life. From that moment on, that was what I wanted to do. I WAS gonna develop the skills! I WAS gonna train to become that strong! I WAS gonna do what I had a passion for. At the time, I wanted to do nothing else but kick that guy's ass! But the more that I thought about it, the more I thought "Why stop there?"
Yeah. Why just beat him? Why not beat the guys that say that they're the best? Why not take on the whole wrestling world?!?!? I could do it! I WANTED TO DO IT! I WANTED TO BE THE BEST!
|
![[-]](https://xwf99.com/images/portal2/collapse.gif)
