Split Personality

This weekend there were two more shows. Saturday was the first long drive of the year as I travelled down to Fareham near Portsmouth for Megaslam. Sunday would see my debut for Tidal wrestling in Leeds and yet another new character to add to the club! The split personality gets worse!

A Russian in Fareham

After a quick six-hour drive it would be time for a different sort of match in Fareham where I took part in a triple threat tag match. This consists of three teams of two facing off against each other. I would be teaming with Bully Boy Carter, my Russian sympathiser for the evening, against the teams of The Family (Saxon and Cousin Jake) and the Solent Brothers (Kris Kay and Might Oak). The promoter, Brad Taylor, was a little concerned we would struggle with this type of match. I assured him we would have a great match…..an assurance that later proved to be overly optimistic.

It wasn’t terrible by any means, but we lost the audience a bit at the end of this. The venue and crowd of 600 were great too! I did my usual Russian routine at the beginning and the place was booing me out of the building. We shouldn’t have lost them. In my opinion there was too much in the match and it became confusing. I should have known better and a lesson learnt.

The main concern for everyone else was me being dropped on my head during a double suplex/spear combo on me. Everyone seemed very worried when actually I felt absolutely fine! Either it looked a lot worse than it was or perhaps I'm related to the legendary Samoan tag team ‘The Headshrinkers’ (notorious for having hard heads). Ok, it’s probably the former, but a man can dream….

As an aside this show featured perhaps one of the busiest meet and greats I have been to recently. Another sign as to how well Megaslam is doing! Several autographs and photos later and we were back in the van for the long ride home. 

A Monster in Leeds

A 5.30 am arrival back in Leeds and it was off to bed for some rest before the debut of my newest character at Tidal wrestling. He doesn’t actually have a name yet but is part of the tag team Ward 13, who are meant to be from a mental asylum. We would be facing the team of The Burial!

Wearing hospital scrubs and wearing a creepy white mask I entered the ring to eerie music, accompanied by Wedge and River (my tag partner and a creepy looking girl who sits at ringside playing with a doll). I was quite looking forward to this match, as I’ve always wanted to play a mentally unhinged character. For whatever reason, I always thought I would be good at it! However, a bit like my triple threat tag match I was left feeling slightly deflated after my initial optimism.

The more experienced I become I like to improvise more and more in wrestling matches. It feels more natural and you can just immerse yourself in the character. In this case immersion meant making a duck like noise and lying down on the floor grabbing my leg (this was meant to be me laid in the fetal position wailing like a mad man, but just looked more like the scene from Family Guy where he hurts his leg). It certainly was random, but not quite the insanity I had envisioned in my head – although upon reflection part of me quite likes the duck noise!  Also I felt we looked a bit trash bag* in our hospital scrubs!

It was strange wrestling under the thick material of the mask. Both my vision and hearing was impaired and anything I said just sounded like muffled grunts (which given my character may not have been a bad thing). There were a few sloppy bits and mis-timings, which I was disappointed by. However, I think overall it was enjoyable to watch and both teams came away stronger than they had come in, which can only be a good thing. The Burial remain one of the best up and coming tag teams today and are always great fun to wrestle.

This weeks silly injury – I bit two small chunks off the side of my tongue during this match whilst executing a move of my own! A lot more painful than the double suplex head drop encounter the night before. Nobody cares!

Final Thoughts

I was left feeling a bit down after the weekend. I think both matches still entertained the crowd (which is the main thing), but I could have done things differently in both cases that would have improved things.

My main concern right now is the in ring work. I’ve never been known for my finesse (nor will I ever due to the Carr clumsy gene!), but my timing and general smoothness in the ring was far better when I was younger. I feel old when I’m wrestling right now and I think it shows. There are a lot of wrestlers older than me who look fantastic in ring, so that is somewhat of an excuse. I suppose the only way to counter this is to keep wrestling, keep training and maybe a visit to the Fountain of Youth. Forever Young!

Thanks for reading!

JCT

Thank you for all your kind donations so far, we are closer to buying that ring after the last one was destroyed by the floods! It is appreciated (link below for current position).
https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/james-carr-1

*Trash Bag – Wrestling terminology for a bit amateurish or just a bit shit.