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Two wins away…

It comes down to those three simple words. I am two wins away from accomplishing my goal of establishing myself as the ‘face of Madness’. In recent times, Keiran King has tried to take that away from me. I’ve been through this rodeo before. It’s always someone like him.

It’s always someone effectively being a ‘glorified troll’ as my sister would put it. To me, I have felt that Keiran is more of an annoyance than a daunting challenge.

“Sometimes, you’ve got to realize that there are people in this business and even whole companies, that are going to do anything and everything in their power to keep you down…” I mentioned to my small room of wrestling students while I was back in Miami giving a bonus lecture. “I think I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been in a situation like this. But the first time that I ever dealt with it… it was painful…”

I took a pause as I glanced at some of the expressions that were looking back at me. I was feeling it in my heart that the story that I was about to dive into a little more, was a story that they all needed to know about.

“In my first wrestling company, 15 years ago… there was another girl that signed with them not too long before I did. I’m not going to use her wrestling name not only because none of you would remember it unless you REALLY studied my career… and I don’t expect any of you to by the way. I don’t have that kind of ego which is more than I can say about a certain someone in THAT wrestling company I used to work for…”

There’s a bit of a pause for laughter.

“But for the purposes of this lesson, I’ll refer to her as ‘Sasha’, okay? See, Sasha was this pretty little farm girl from Georgia that EVERYONE in NSWA, my first wrestling company, was high on. She had no experience. She literally went from farm to wrestling ring with hardly any training. But for some reason, she ‘wowed’ their scouts and thought she had a natural ability to be a star. Of course, it helps that she had connections with their talent VP…”

“SEXUAL relations?” one of the students blurts out, causing laughter in the room.

“...no….” I said sternly. “A personal friend… at least as far as I know. BUT, she was a girlfriend of someone already on the roster. So anyway, they sign me, right. I was HAPPY! After five years of training and busting my ass in the Indies, 23 year old me got her first big break. But, they didn’t think so highly of me. Yeha, my youth and attitude didn’t help, but they just saw me as this pretty little thing from Florida. In fact, their second in command even called me a ‘dumb Florida moron’. Out of the gate… Sasha as thriving. Me? I was scuffling in mediocrity. I think I was 5-5 after my first 10 matches while Sasha had won a title already. She was getting SO much praise while her boyfriend kept running me down, saying I was shit, saying that I wasn’t going to hack it and so forth. It’s funny looking back on it NOW, but then? It was rough. Sasha, however, let her early success get to her head, okay?  She started to slack. She started to half ass everything. She wasn’t putting in the work that she once did. Her stock fell, but even then, she was considered a ‘favorite’ to win a certain ladder match that happened in Vegas that I was in that NOBODY but me and like my best friend thought I could win.

And then I won and… the rest is history… KIDDING, it’s not that simple…

More laughter in the classroom.

“NSWA finally noticed me and they started talking me up. I remember their owner being all ‘Bloody hell bint… you’re actually really fucking good. You might even be the golden girl this company needs…’

After his side chick retired… mind you…”

Some “oooooh’s” are heard in the room.

“Meanwhile, Sasha… she kept Ryan Leafing her career: bad decision after bad decision. She even started to sleep around…”

“Oh so she WAS a skank! I KNEW IT!” another student blurts out.

“Well…” I said, sort of uncomfortable to go there. “...sure. Yeah. And hey, beating her for the Women’s Championship was a hell of a feeling and she flamed out and went back home to Georgia while I became the absolute best women’s wrestler NSWA ever had as I won multiple world championships and got into their Hall of Fame… oh if ONLY it were THAT easy. Don’t get me wrong, I was Women’s and TV Champion at the same time at one point and I was hauling ass in early 2009 trying to break the system and give the company fresh new blood in the main event scene because their world title had a tendency of revolving around the same 5 people. Yet…”

I paused, letting out a sigh.

“...I never got that chance. Not ONE fair, one on one shot at their world championship.

Then Sasha comes back and she gets a world title shot immediately… and that GUTTED me because I WANTED to be that ‘franchise face’ and I did everything they asked me to do… but despite my hard work and my loyalty to NSWA… they chose Sasha over me. So, this new company called PRW… they contact me and I honestly didn’t want to talk to them, but I accepted an invitation to do an interview because I didn’t want to be rude, honestly. So, we talked and now? I was faced with the toughest decision of my career up to that point…

They offered me a contract.  In this situation, what’s the best choice to make?

Stay in NSWA, with the traditions they had built up for a few years, try to work through it all and stay strong no matter how long it takes for you to reach your goal?

Or take the gamble and join the then fledgling PRW feeling like doing so would be admitting failure in the aforementioned goal? I took a poll of this on my fansite and over 70 percent say that they would’ve stuck it out in NSWA… and I can’t fault them for that because in MOST cases, sticking it out IS the better choice…

But NOT in this instance…”

March 2009

Flashing back to when I was 24, closer to 25. For days, I had been weighing such a tough decision. I loved NSWA. I grew into the wrestler that I became as a whole while I was there, especially coming off of that amazing ladder match victory the year prior. I was so loyal to that company even though they hardly ever repaid that loyalty in return. My sister, as much as I loved her, didn’t know much about wrestling and wasn’t a wrestler so there was no way I could go to her about this. My lifelong best friend in Jazmyn Rain wasn’t a wrestler yet. Candice Carter, another of my good friends, had her promising training cut short by a horrible neck-related medical report she got.

So there was only ONE person that could help me…

My old trainer…

My father figure…

Scott Lockley.

I remember sitting on his couch as I showed him the contract offer I had gotten from PRW. He seemed very calm, cool and collected.

“I wish I could work for both…” I admitted without thinking. Obviously, I was far more naive at the age of 24 than I am right now. “...because honestly? I don’t want to leave NSWA. But what PRW offered me has an exclusivity clause so if I go and work for them, then I have to leave.”

“What would your mother have done?” he asked me.

“Was she in this same situation?”

“Similar. You have to remember that in our day, wrestling was still doing the territorial system. The best she could do was leave one territory for another. She won the CWA World Women’s Championship, yes. But, it took her many years of trying… as well as many failures before she finally broke through and achieved the one thing she had always wanted to achieve. She stuck it out and it worked out for her.”

“I see…” I said with a sigh as I looked back at the contract offer. “So, if I stick it out in NSWA, then maybe I can make this work and I can become their world champion and lead them to that new era they desperately need to be led to as the face of their franchise. It’s still possible…”

“Barely possible…” Lockley said bluntly. “...when they’ve already chosen the woman that they want to ride with and when they refuse to budge on new blood in the main event scene, you’ve got an uphill battle. But, you are strong enough to break through all of that.”

“Stick it out then…” I said. I was ready to tear up the PRW contract but…

“...what the hell are you doing?” Lockley asked me. “Sign the damn contract”

My eyes widened with shock at what I just heard.

“WHAT?”

“Myra, this is a situation where you are never going to be the franchise face of NSWA. You’re never going to be their golden girl and before you go nuts on me, I just want to say that it’s not going to happen NOT because you’re not good enough, but because that company isn’t going to let it happen. It’s not because you’re not good enough for them, it’s because you’re TOO GOOD for them. That skank that they want as a star… they chose her. They’re going to do everything she can to make sure she’s successful. They didn’t choose you. They didn’t think you’d amount to anything. They only gave you the opportunities that you did because you left them no other choice with that ladder match win, but if you never won that match, they would’ve let you go by now. Come on Miranda. Have some common sense!”

I was frozen, especially knowing that Lockley was deeply serious whenever he used my full first name as he just did.

“But… PRW is a new company… it would be a career gamble to go with them…”

“You have to take the gamble and you have to take the offer. They want you. They value you otherwise they wouldn’t be offering you one of the richest contracts they’ve given out. THEY see you as a potential face of their company. Even if you DID, somehow… someway… cut through all the red tape in NSWA, you’re only carrying on a tradition that was already built that they would expect you to continue even though you know it’s full of politics and corruption. In PRW? You would not only be a world champion there as you were in WXWF, but you’d be THE face, THE golden girl, THE standard bearer, THE tradition builder. PRW is new and cutting edge. NSWA is a dying brand. Take the offer, Myra. Take it and realize the fullest potential that NSWA is never going to allow you to reach…”

I took a deep breath trying to calm myself down as everything was happening so fast. I knew he was right. NSWA never appreciated me and they never will. They made that clear when they chose ‘Sasha’ over me.

“You’re right…” I told my trainer. “...I think I know what I need to do…”

Present Day

“So, I made the jump. PRW would last four years. I’d be their world champion twice. I got to be a Triple Crowner and a Hall of Fame member there and when you consider I was sadly injured a lot while I was over there, I carved out a damn good career in my twenties. Obviously, it pales in comparison to who I am today and where I am at in this business, but PRW is where I REALLY built the foundation. As for NSWA? And for ‘Sasha’? As expected, Sasha flopped. NSWA bet on the wrong horse and in 2010, the company shut down its doors for good. Sasha’s career never amounted to anything and she’s lucky to even get work in backyard trampolines these days.

What’s funny is, I came to the same exact quandary last year when I left SCW. It wasn’t admitting defeat, it was knowing that my greatest potential could be somewhere else and you can’t be afraid of making that jump when you have to. So, going through it the first time helped me understand that I had to leave SCW and come here to potentially be the face of a brand and just like I did then with PRW when I established myself as the face of THAT company, I’m going to finalize it with Madness with two more wins. If you believe in yourself enough, those are the tough decisions you have to make…

Anyway, go on and have some lunch. The food truck is arriving any minute now”

I did soak in some applause from my small class of students before they slowly left the room.

Was I thinking about how my career would’ve gone if I had stayed in NSWA? Honestly, I never did consider that because I made the decision that my heart wanted me to make to begin with. I knew that if I stayed, I likely would’ve never gotten as far as I have in my career but it’s nothing I gave much thought to.

Over the past 16 months, did I ever think about where I’d be today if I never left Sin City Wrestling to come here, among other federations? Nope. Because I knew that coming here was going to give me the chance to accomplish the goal that I knew, as painful as it was to know, was never going to happen there. I came to XWF, I came to Madness, because I knew that with a fledgling brand as it was at the time, I could make a difference and I could carry the brand to greater heights as I established myself as the ‘face of the brand’.

It’s been an amazing ride on Madness, title and all.

I’m two wins away from making it all happen…

And the first of those two?

It’s happening tomorrow night…