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