The Decision

For the last two years I have been living and working a well-paid finance job in the British Virgin Islands, Caribbean. I spend my weekends out on boats or on beaches having fun in paradise. However, recently I made the decision to quit my job and leave these beautiful islands to return to England. At this time I have no job, no home and I’m returning just in time for it to soon become bitterly cold. The first question most people ask is why. The answer usually confuses them even more; I want to be a professional wrestler!

By way of background, I have been a professional wrestler before. I wrestled for about 7 years in Great Britain, primarily by the name of JC Thunder. I’m probably best known for my loser to champion story in IPW:UK, which is where the above picture was taken from. I also wrestled for countless other promotions in the UK, along with a few shows in Holland, one tour in Italy where I spent most of my time getting squashed by former WWE stars and I have had a couple of months training in the US too. There are many stories to be told from these experiences, but I will save them for future blog posts.

I wrestled throughout University and spent a brief time afterwards making that my primary focus. However, I soon piled on a lot of debt on top of my already high student loan. Depressed and in massive deficit, I ironically got a job in Insolvency. I continued to wrestle whilst I worked, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to juggle everything at once. In 2009, I took a long break from wrestling to take my Joint Board Insolvency Exams. After I passed them I did the odd show here and there, but for all sense and purposes I was no longer a pro wrestler. In 2011, I then got a supposed dream job in the Caribbean. I have been here ever since. Why then do I want to come back?

Anyone reading this who is a wrestler or a wrestling fan should be able to relate to my love for wrestling. However, it’s very hard to explain to a non-wrestling person the attachment people get to this bizarre form of entertainment, so for now I’m asking you to just accept the attachment is strong! Essentially I love wrestling and that’s it. However, that doesn’t make for a very interesting blog post, so the least I can do for you is share some of the considerations that were very important to me in making this decision.

Turning 30

In June, I turned 30 – this was a biggy for me! Suddenly I wasn’t young anymore, at least from the point of view of someone who is still thinking of pursuing an athletic endeavor as a career choice. There are a lot of famous wrestlers out there that are my junior. I became obsessed with how old pro wrestlers are. I spent far too much of my previous employer’s time googling professional wrestlers’ ages. Diamond Dallas Page (a former WCW champion and huge star that didn’t even start wrestling until 35) soon became my new hero. I realised that if I left it any longer I would become even more far removed from the wrestling circle and soon it would be too late to do anything about it!

Money Money Money

I was once told it doesn’t matter if you’re eating baked beans out of the can every night, it’s more important to be doing what makes you happy. In reality I should probably be paying more attention to my diet now I want to be a wrestler again, but the sentiment is there - money does not buy you happiness!

Money is obviously still very important in life and I am very aware that I am going from a very high paid job to a very low paying one. However, I’ve seen the sort of life I could be living if I carry on with my current career path. I don’t begrudge anyone else on that path, but for me I don’t want it. For whatever reason, wrestling is my thing and that’s what I want to do. Hopefully that will make me money too. The chances are slim, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

I’ve changed, honest!

You might be asking why I’ve suddenly got it in my head that I’m going to be a successful wrestler when essentially I failed at it before. Good question! And one that has been on my mind for the past few months. Ultimately I can’t prove that I will be successful, but for various reasons I do think my work ethic and self-belief have increased dramatically in the past few years and I’m hoping this will carry through into my wrestling. I have also had time to review what went wrong last time and the reasons why (although that is a post in itself!). I think I am now far more focused on what I need to do.

This is a very do or die attitude, but my thoughts are by throwing myself back and completely immersing myself into wrestling I don’t give myself any choice but to work my arse off. Either that or I will be spending a lot of time crying into my baked bean can!

The Boyhood Dream

We’re hitting cliché city now I know, but here goes! I want to be a wrestler because I’ve always wanted to be a wrestler and it feels wrong not to be one.  Ever since I was 8 years old and I watched WrestleMania 7 at my friend Adam Sutherland’s house I was completely captivated by wrestling and wanted to do nothing else. I fell in love with the over the top characters and storylines. It was a fantasy world that I was completely obsessed by and I never grew out of that. Even though I left wrestling I justified it by saying ok, I’m going to sort out my finances and other areas of my life and then get back involved with wrestling. Well I’ve done that now. It’s time to put up or shut up. You have to one day wake up and actually live out your dream or you will have just spent your whole life sleeping!

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed my first blog post. I will try to do one of these each week. This weekend I will be flying back to the UK and next week I will be starting my wrestling training. I am painfully aware that this road will not be an easy one, but it’s what I want to do and I will be annoyed at myself if I don’t at least try.

I welcome your comments below and also encourage anyone to contact me at jc12345@hotmail.com if you are involved in wrestling. I am currently interested in visiting as many training schools as possible to get back into wrestling shape and get back into the scene as quickly as possible.

Thanks for reading!

JCT