Reflection

I have a startling confession to make! In less than a year after leaving the Caribbean to pursue my dream of becoming a professional wrestler and I am back there again! Back working in finance, back on boats, back drinking rum. However, please do not lose faith in me. This was only for a two month contract and I have once again left the Caribbean to be involved in British wrestling. Who knew this once in a life time decision would occur so frequently!?

To add to my time not wrestling, I also had appendicitis shortly after my return to England and had to have my appendix removed recently. I now won’t be wrestling until the New Year. Annoying, but all this time away does give me time to reflect on what has been going on during the last year.

Just Relax Mon

The other confession I must make is I had an awesome time away from wrestling and back in the British Virgin Islands. I have put so much pressure on myself in the last year to be successful at my wrestling endeavors that it was nice to just relax and have fun. Thank you to everyone who made my time great there.

The time away has shown that I am taking this all a bit too seriously and a lot of the time I am actually a bit miserable, which is really a bit stupid when I’m meant to be doing something I enjoy. I do still love wrestling and I do not for one minute regret my decision to come back, but I do not enjoy my constant worry about how well my match went or how many people are going to buy tickets to my wrestling show. I am a natural stress-head and to some extent I like it, but there is a limit - which I have certainly crossed this year. As my BVI brothers would say ‘you need to chill out mon’ (usually followed by a fist pump that I awkwardly try to shake hands with).

True Grit the 3^rd

Talking of ticket sales, I recently ran the third True Grit show. 10,000 flyers out to our target audience, 100’s of posters put up, months of tweets and Facebook posts. Excellent work! Come show time, a draw of 100 people. Shit! That wasn’t fun!

I do like running wrestling shows and I do think from a creative and management side I am good at it. However getting people through the door is very frustrating! The third show itself was yet again amazing and the few people who did come loved it. I know the product is good and will continue to improve every show. However, I was naïve to think we would be having sell-out shows straight away and I think that will take time to build. 2015 I will do everything in my power to make TGW a success…….and if any TGW fans are reading this bring a mate next time would you.

Trav-Aid

The night following True Grit was a very special night. It was Trav-Aid, which was a show organised by Harvey Dale to raise money for my good friend Kris Travis who was recently diagnosed with stomach cancer. I am pleased to confirm that Trav has now had the cancer cut out and is currently receiving chemotherapy. He is still in remarkably good spirits and has shown such strength. I’m sure we will one day be seeing him in a wrestling ring again.

Trav-Aid saw myself and LJ Heron (who was replacing Scotty Hexx) against my old clique brothers El Ligero and Cameron Knite. This was Cameron’s first match in 9 years. I’m sure Cam would readily admit he is not in ring shape at the moment, but that said he was absolutely fantastic! We had a few rickets to start with (that’s wrestler speak for the bits that don’t look too good), but by the end Cam was on fire. He hit a Northern Lights suplex with a wrestler’s bridge that would put most pros to shame. He also hit a picture perfect Swanton Bomb to finish the match. The man is a natural talent and it is a shame British wrestling lost him. I certainly hope this won’t be the last time I will be sharing a ring against my old wrestling nemesis.

What’s Next?

So what do I want from all of this? What is the end goal? These are questions I’ve never really answered.

In the short term I hope to become a more regular performer on the British circuit. I will be making more of an effort to get my name out now I have had a year back in the industry. I also hope to continue running my own shows and hope that crowd numbers will soon reflect what the shows deserves.

In the long term…….Wrestlemania baby! Ok maybe not and and I certainly don't want to live in a permanent state of dream chasing that seems to plague some people and just causes unhappiness. That doesn't make sense to me (although I have been guilty of it myself). Long term I just want to be involved in something that I’m passionate about and I want to be as good at it as I can be. It would be good to make a valid contribution to the world of wrestling that I can look back on and be proud of. Hopefully I will come out the other side a better person for it......the film 'The Wrestler' had a happy ending right??

Final Thoughts

It’s been a real up and down year. On one hand I’ve had no money and it has been a bit of a lonely existence. On the other hand I have taken the steps I intended to take, I have had such fun wrestling and met new and old friends who share a similar love for this strange business. I am looking forward to continuing my journey with a slightly more relaxed attitude in future. Succeed, fail or anything in between my goal now is just try to enjoy the ride.

Thank for reading!

JCT

A Russian Summer (Part 3)

Summer over and 31 shows done. Less than some of the wrestlers on the tour, but still a good number for a guy who has only been back wrestling for 8 months. One of my last acts of the summer was to fall over into an upside-down turtle position, legs and arms in the air, a large spanner in my right hand (I assure you this is still wrestling). As I squirmed around like a die-ing wrong way round woodlouse I got a moment to think how much I had really enjoyed the last 6 weeks. Let’s see how I got there and what happened next – A Russian Summer (Part 3)…….

Scottish High

My first assignment after arriving back from Weymouth was another trip to bonnie Scotland. This time I was travelling with American wrestler John Skyler and the Welsh Warrior Kayden Lay (ironically I seem to have a lot more international friends now I’m Russian!).

I worked with Skyler, who is an up and coming independent worker in the US, as well as having brief appearances on both WWE and TNA. We had 3 simple matches, but I was really starting to have fun with the character. We gelled well and by the third match we had a great bout at a camp that is usually renowned for not being so hot in terms of atmosphere. My confidence was at a high and I was pleased with how it was going.

Filey Comedown

That weekend I was in Filey again and glad to be working with the talented ‘Showstealer’ Nathan Cruz, whom I had heard a lot about but never actually wrestled. However, we had a bit of a stinker for our first match. I was all over the place, it was sloppy and the match was rushed.

When I returned backstage I was confronted by All Star veteran and former WCW star Avalanche (previously P.N.News) who proceeded to tell me how terrible I was. I did not feel like a wrestler, just embarrassed and a bit stupid. However, I had 2 more shots to get it right!

That evening I was sharing a chalet (ok - a medium sized caravan) with Avalanche, Sam Adonis (another All Star regular over from the US) and a Finnish lad who everyone called, er, Finland. I was initially apprehensive and for-saw a night of awkwardness. However, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Avalanche did continue to grill me about my views on wrestling, but it ended up being a night of learning from both him and Sam Adonis, along with an immensely fun night at the bar too.

The next day I was determined to improve my performance and implement some of the guidance I had been given. I am pleased to say my next two matches with Nathan were far better. Sometimes you just need a little reality check to improve some more.

Little Legs in Cornwall

Following on from Filey and another match with El Ligero in Rhyll (that was easily our best so far this Summer) it was time for the final leg of the tour all the way down in sunny Cornwall, leaving Leeds at the completely reasonably hour of 2 am! Oh well only 400 miles and 2 wrestling shows to go before I can sleep…..

During this week I had matches against Daniel Bryant (Yes! Yes! Yes!) and dwarf wrestler Little Legs (of Harry Potter, Life’s Too Short and Celebrity Juice fame). This match involved me announcing to Daniel that these lousy English wrestlers were no match for a real Russian man like myself and I demanded that I wrestle two men (cocky for a guy who has lost the majority of his matches over the Summer).

The music hits and the tag team partner turns out to be Little Legs (who always gets the biggest cheer of the whole show). The match then involved me getting bitten on the arse, having a dwarf stuck to my leg that I can’t shake off and eventually getting double teamed (again still all wrestling this I promise) and beaten by the pair much to the delight of the crowd. I enjoyed every minute of these matches – an unusual but incredibly fun match to be a part of.

The End of the Summer

During Cornwall I also continued the epic Mexican/Russian feud with El Ligero (everyone knows how much those countries hate each other right? Tequila vs. Vodka, Sombrero vs. Furry Hat - it’s a cultural battle that may never be resolved!).

As I lay there squirming around with spanner in hand - I was content (despite just falling over when I shouldn’t have, which had led to my slightly awkward position in the first place). There had been ups and downs, and moments of doubt but ultimately I was feeling like the ring was becoming home again.

Just as I was having my poignant moment, Ligero rips the spanner from my hand, he lifts it above his head in retaliation to my failed weapon attack. However, the referee is on the ball and demands he drops the weapon. As the commotion grows and the referee is dealing with the foreign object (the spanner, not Ligero or I) I sneakily reach across for my flag and jam the pole (Ikea curtain rail) into my opponents neck thus rendering him helpless and giving Radik the 1, 2, 3. Not today Mexico, not today…

Final Thoughts

I have had an amazingly fun and unique summer and spent time with some fantastic people. I am thankful to All Star management and everyone I worked with. It really helped me develop and learn. I would recommend to any aspiring wrestler to do the camps should you be lucky enough to have that opportunity.

Thanks for reading.

JCT

The 'Shooting Star' Kris Travis

This installment of the blog was meant to be Part 3 of ‘My Russian Summer’, however that will have to wait. I recently heard a good friend of mine ‘The Shooting Star’ Kris Travis has been diagnosed with stomach cancer. He has just been through surgery and has ongoing chemotherapy. I felt this edition should be dedicated to him.

For those of you who don’t know him, Kris Travis has been a British Professional Wrestler for over ten years. He is an amazingly talented athlete and combined with hard work and perseverance has become one of the best wrestlers in the UK today. It is fantastic to see how well he has done and it is now heart breaking to see that being taken away from him. However, it is great to see the response of the British wrestling community and all the various projects set up to assist him in this time of need.

If you get a moment to read this Trav – please know that I and a lot of other people are thinking of you. We know how tough you are and firmly believe you will get through this. 

A Sheffield Start

Trav and I both started out at Elite Pro Wrestling in Sheffield, a connected school to NWA Hammerlock. The trainer was a man named Alan Johnson. Back in those days Trav was a skinny kid, who didn’t really have the look or presence of a professional wrestler (boy how that has changed!). However, he did have good movement and a natural athletic ability. His flexibility and nimbleness certainly set him out from the crowd early on.

Another noticeable trait was his heart and his indestructible attitude. Having the ability to take moves well in wrestling can sometimes be a curse and often Trav would get more than his fair share of being thrown around and beaten up during training (possibly by me sometimes – sorry buddy!). However, he always came back and was a true fighter even back then.

The UK Clique

After time, a few of us wanted to expand our wrestling horizons and started to train and appear on shows elsewhere. Myself, Trav, El Ligero, Cameron Knight and Scotty Hexx started to travel to GPW in Wigan and were soon appearing on their shows.

Some of the GPW trainees referred to our group as the 'UK Clique'. I’m fairly certain this was meant as a derogatory term, but we didn’t seem to care and our parody group of the WWF 'Clique' was born – ‘Big Sexy Trav’, ‘Double H’ (me), ‘LigeroPac’, ‘Scotty Hall’ and ‘HB Gay’ (Cameron). Much more importantly we became a tight group who grew together as professional wrestlers, traveling from show to show honing our craft and having a hilarious time in the process. I have fond memories of our early matches at GPW, which often involved us ‘clique’ members facing off against each other and stealing the show (or at least we thought they did – I’m fairly certain they would be terrible matches looking back). I also have very fond memories of our many nights out in Sheffield that involved a lot of booze, very cheesy music, bad chat up lines and on one occasion an impromptu wrestling match on the top of a car bonnet between Trav and I.

A Shooting Star

As I was living and wrestling down in London, Trav remained in Sheffield and started to make a real impact on shows up North. He soon started to tag with a wrestler named Martin Kirby who I’m sure some of you know well. They started to dominate the UK tag division as ‘Project Ego’ and I think a lot of you will agree have become the best tag team in the UK.

Alongside his work with Project Ego, Trav continued to wrestle as a singles wrestler, perhaps most noticeably for Preston City Wrestling (“PCW”). As I sat in the hot Caribbean far away from my wrestling past, I became increasingly impressed with Trav. I would see his matches pop on my Facebook News Feed. A brutal no holds barred match with Lionheart and a sensational match with Chris Masters (of WWE fame) stand out as ones I remember. Gone was the skinny kid getting thrown around on judo mats in some dingy Sheffield gym. What I saw now was a polished performer who was stepping into the ring with guys like Chris Masters and completely holding his own. I was genuinely proud of him.

Trav is True Grit

A show I recently promoted had Trav compete three times in one evening. He faced his tag partner Martin Kirby, Cyanide and Rampage Brown in the TG Cup. His performances were outstanding. Not only that, but he managed to pull them out of the bag despite only arriving at the venue ten minutes prior to the show (due to a transport issue which was no fault of Travs). That was quite a remarkable feat in itself, but now I find out that Trav was experiencing medical problems at the time and would have already had the cancer at the time he wrestled on my show.

This is truly remarkable and a sign of the true professional that he is. Next time you are not feeling up to doing something please think about that for a minute – Kris Travis wrestled Martin Kirby, Cyanide and Rampage in one night with cancer! He is an inspiration and do not think the name ‘True Grit’ could be more fitting than to a man like Trav.

What makes him so good?

So we’ve already established Trav has gone from being a skinny kid to a well polished wrestler with an abundance of confidence, talent and a body and look that make women swoon and make men hold their girlfriend’s hand a little tighter in his presence. To look at Trav and the character he portrays one might think Trav is some arrogant playboy…….and that definitely is one aspect of his personality. However, what I don’t think people give Trav credit for and what I believe is what really separates him from other wrestlers in this country is he is actually an extremely emotional guy. That is important in professional wrestling. In order for people to emotionally invest in you, you need to be able to emotionally invest in what you are doing yourself and that shines through when Trav performs. Through any bravado that appears on the surface there still remains a sense of vulnerability that I feel only adds to his appeal and makes Trav one of the best.

Final Thoughts

It is terrible what has happened to Trav, but he is a fighter. I am sure he will come back from this and once again be the ‘Shooting Star’ amongst British Wrestling.

Please take some time to donate to the link below. Trav has dedicated his life to pro wrestling and now it is time to give something back to him. Even if you do not know Trav, I urge you to just donate a small amount to help him through this difficult time. Wrestlers do not make money when they are not wrestling and Trav will have no income until he has defeated this. Any amount you can afford would be much appreciated.

Trav - my heart goes out to you, I love you man, please get better soon! 

Thanks for reading!

JCT

#GetWellTrav #C4Lx

Please donate to Trav now

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/showing-some-love-to-kris-travis