Years One and Two
This section covers the first 18 months or so, of my time in Pro Wrestling, from starting training, up until my first couple of matches.
Chapter one – Getting Started
For 10 years, I found myself in the world of professional wrestling. A whole decade of my life has been spent on this pastime, hobby, job, inconvenience, mental mind-fuck, soul-crushing, exciting, door-opening – and most importantly, the making of me.
Before I got into wrestling, I had just broken up from a girlfriend who, in fairness, was a rebound relationship, but we were not healthy for each other. Looking back, we just didn’t fit, but I wanted it to work. I think she did too, but I think we tried for too long. I wasn’t in a good mental space whatsoever, and I couldn’t drag myself out of it. I don’t blame her, I think we both should have ended it a lot sooner.
Anyhow, I needed a new focus, I needed to keep busy, and I think I needed to feel something.
A few years before, an old band mate, and later housemate, Luke, mentioned about wanting to try wrestling. In between watching news updates about Michael Jackson’s death, we looked on the Internet for wrestling schools, not expecting much, but stumbled across Slam wrestling school in Nottingham. We sent an email, but got no reply. Oh well we tried. That was it then – But actually that was far from ‘it’.
March 2010, I happened to be in Nottingham City centre picking up my kids one Saturday morning when a sturdy bald chap handed me a flyer for a local wrestling show. I recognised the guy from the website I’d looked at a couple of years earlier. Oh shit! That was Stixx. After I told him that I’d emailed him years earlier, he mentioned that the school was still up and running, and I should come and try it. I went to the show, at the Notts County football ground to get an idea of what I was letting myself in for. I’d not long since read Mick Foleys first book, so I half expected a shit hole and to be practicing my bumps for weeks on end in a cold room and a 3cm thick crash mat.
The show really impressed me. I remember seeing things I thought you could only find on TV. Some of the people that left an impression on me at the time were a high flying baby face, with big gross pleather trousers on, called Shane Spyral. Terrible attire aside, his crowd work, selling and move set really stood out to me at the time. ‘Textbook’ Dave Breaks stood out to me, a pale throwback to the older more technical style, but with a brutal side that was delivered impressively, especially in the chain match he had that afternoon . There was a lot to take in, and a lot stood out, but I felt like this was a reputable place to start training. So, the following day, I went back to the Notts County ground, and attended my first House of Pain training sessions. I had just turned 27.
Now, House of Pain at the time, exceeded all of my expectations. There was a ring (the FWA reboot ring), crash mats and a load of mirrors, because why not have a wrestling school in a squash court?
I stood and looked at the ring for ages, not actually expecting to get in it. A chap got up and came over to me and said “first session? Why not get in the ring?” the chap was Cliff Oldham. Shane Spyral’s dad. Cliff wasn’t a trainer but he was someone who seemed to give a shit about the school and wanted to see everyone succeed. Of course I didn’t know that at the time, but I climbed onto the apron anyway. And I stood there for ages too. “Get in, lad!” encouraged Cliff “if you want to be a wrestler, you’d better get used to that ring”. I never forgot that. I wiped my feet on the apron, just like Mick Foley said in his book, climbed through the ropes, and stood in the corner just looking at the ring.
So fucking cool.
As the session started, Stixx came in to take the class (he also worked the reception to the gym that was in the building), I got paired off with Shane to learn how to bump (how to fall over safely) – fortunately not in a cold room with a worn out 3cm mat, but on a huge thick padded mat for the first few goes.
I must’ve spent a good hour working through those first bumps. Back bump, flip bump and a front bump, and then a basic drop toehold and a hiptoss on to the mat.
During a break in the class, we jumped into the ring, and I took my first flat back bump. I had imagined that the ring would be rock hard, so braced for the worst, but it definitely wasn’t as bad as I’d first feared. Definitely wasn’t a nice feeling though, let’s get that straight.
No one in wrestling enjoys bumping, let’s be honest. I joined in the class alongside Shane who quickly brought me up to speed with where we were, which I definitely remember, was hammer locks, and a few other basic bumps from moves, like hip tosses and a body slam. I actually managed to learn a hell of a lot more in that first session than I imagined. “I’ll be back” I told Stixx as I left, “don’t tell me you’ll be back… I hear it so often, and most don’t come back. If you’re going to come back, just come along when you’re ready” he replied. I didn’t expect that answer. That first session set the tone for the early part of my training and I pretty much never doubted that this was something I wanted to do for the foreseeable. Even if it was just training. Maybe even a match. Let’s see where this goes, eh?
Wrestling training very quickly became a part of my routine. I was working in a pharmaceutical facility on alternating shifts at the time so I could only train every other week, but on the weeks I could train, I’d go twice a week – on a Thursday, and to the newer Monday class. To be honest, I did much prefer the Monday classes. Most of us were of a similar ability, I was a bit behind them I’d say, but we kind of grew better together.
On the regular there was – myself, Big Chris – later Barricade, Ben (Benjamin Synn), Dave (Crazy Chris Connell), Supes (long story, not mine though, German Jules, Shane (Stevie Mitchell), Anthony (Dropkick) ‘Danger’ Russ, and a good few others. This core group generally stuck together for that first year or so until people started filtering onto the monthly shows.
During that time Stixx organised a lot of training seminars with established British names on the circuit, which really helped to inject new ideas and approach to wrestling in those early months. I got a lot from these people like; Alex Shane, RJ Singh, Doug Williams, Spud and Johnny Storm, specifically things like selling and where to place spots.
Course as with most things, there were seminars where I got absolutely nothing from, but you know, you try and get something from them somehow, and move on.
Chapter 2 – Gym Combat
At the end of the year, it became very apparent that the Notts County venue started to become untenable, and shows had to stop for awhile. The ‘owner’ who quite frankly was a shady bastard (paid the electricity bill yet, Nash?), moved the gym to what could only be described as a derelict warehouse early in 2011. It was cold, barely any lights and not even a fucking toilet!
I remember the first session we had there, and we were warming up dodging piles of rubble. Looking back, absolutely shite. Not Stixx’s doing, it must be said. Eventually, shows started running again. In that warehouse. Funnily, on the poster for the second show we had there, it even said ‘we have toilets’! Unreal. ‘Gym Combat’ as it became known, slowly improved, and shows actually started to look, and feel important. They were starting to catch up, and began to surpass the standard set at the Notts County venue. It must be said, a lot of that was down to Matt Hall, and his dad, Tony, who used to invest in a lot of the lights, and peripheral setup. Matt now does this for a living, to an incredible standard. I used to go to all of the shows, to see everyone else’s standard, take notes and began to imagine where I might fit in.
I’d always imagined myself in the ring as a baby face (good guy), being cheered by the masses (OK, 50 or so people…) , and really, that was about as far ahead as I’d planned to go with it. One or two matches, and that’s about it. Except, that wasn’t about it.
So anyway, those first handful of shows at Gym Combat, I sat in the crowd, and I was itching to get in there and do a match. I saw the other guys who were in my usual circle of training pals get on the shows and make their debuts, and wondered why I wasn’t in there with them. In fact I asked Stixx why, and he told me I wasn’t ready yet. I was a bit pissed off at first because, yes I was! I was definitely good enough, I thought. I wasn’t good enough yet in actuality, because, whilst yes, I could do the moves, I had no clue about pacing, story and how to structure a match. Very quickly I learned that Stixx was indeed correct. I didn’t really question his judgment on wrestling after that, because the bloke knew what he was talking about, as far as wrestling was concerned. From that point, I tried to get my head down and figure out how to grasp how to put together a coherent pro wrestling match. I asked questions, I watched the academy shows back, I watched loads of Sunday Night Heat matches, specifically with guys like X-Pac, Tajiri and Jamie Noble in. Any combination of those 3 in a 5-7 minute match is a work of art, by the way.
Chapter 3 – What’s In A Name?
Not only could I not really put a decent match together, just as importantly, I had no wrestling name or gimmick, and certainly no gear. I was quite clueless with it really, and at first I didnt put any thought into it. At first I just thought Id wear all white – Glad I didn’t. I used to do a running headbutt, like a spear with no arms, that I called the harpoon – Maybe I should come up with a name including that? – Ah, cool, Harpoon Man, Mr Harpoon, need a first name, I dunno what do you call yourself when you have no idea? Oh yeah, Jonny. Jonny Harpoon! Cool, I like that. Glad I didn’t. Christ, could you imagine? Jonny Fucking Harpoon. Imagine all the bookings that I’d absolutely RAKE in with that name (!).
In that regard, thank FUCK for Jules… German Jules. The gift that used to keep on giving. Skye Light, “Love Is Blind”, Universal Soldier – if you know, then you know…
Anyway, Jules was dating Shane Spyral at the time, and Shane would on occasion would work for one of the local, but not as good companies in Mansfield, MCW. On one particular show, Shane took Jules to be his manager/valet in a match he had. The match wasn’t great, and to me the highlight was Jules’ spot in the match. Skye Light as she was known (never actually had a match before or after this show), thong hanging out her arse in a Lita tribute, climbed to the top rope to do a, I think, crossbody. Except that crossbody never came. Because she slipped. From the top rope. It was awful. I can imagine she wanted the ground to open up below her in that moment. But… She wasn’t embarrassed enough to not share the video on her Facebook profile a couple of days later… And I’m glad she did, because not only did she give me fuel to take the piss out of her the very next day in training, much to her amusement at the time, that also led to one or two people at training mentioning how good my German accent was, whilst I was taking the piss.
Food for thought, and I kept messing with the accent in training to see if I felt comfortable with using it – and well, if you followed my career at all, then you know full well that I felt comfortable using it. Too comfortable. Comfortable enough to know that I was gonna use it. In wrestling, as a wrestler. Great. Halfway there, we have a gimmick, so how do I come up with a name? I liked German suplexes (obviously that was gonna be my finish now), a German suplex you hold like the lifesaving Heimlich manoeuvre , cool, I can call my finish the Heimlich Manoeuvre, oh shit, why don’t I just call myself Heimlich? Do I need a first name? Yeah, I can’t use Johnny though. I used to love football growing up, and I liked Jurgen Klinsmann. JK Heimlich? Heimlich Klinsmann? Jurgen Heimlich? Fuck yeah, Jurgen Heimlich! Thats the one! Perfect!
Right then, we’ve got a name, but how does Jurgen look? This was genuinely the hardest part of the whole gimmick at first. There wasn’t the abundance of wrestling attire makers back in 2011 that there is these days. Ebay or Highspots seemed to be the go to at the time, and the selections that they had weren’t the most inspiring. Randomly I came across a Germany singlet on an actual ‘amateur wrestling’ website, and I thought that was the one. Einstein on the arse, German flag on it, Oh yeah, I ought to buy a German flag hadn’t I? So yeah, I bought that, and I got a good year out of that singlet. Looking back, I was much too small to be wearing a singlet. I think I realised that after a bit and rolled it down more often than not.
So that is essentially the birth of Jurgen Heimlich. We should probably start to cover that first match hadn’t we? I mean, there’s over 400 more after that I could cover, but lets not do that. Also, the first match is always the one we like to look back at with fondness…
Chapter 4 – Jurgen Heimlich Arrives
Here we are then. It took 16 months for me to finally be able to make my professional wrestling debut. 16 months seems a long time, but, training twice a week on alternating weeks, and one academy show every month, meant that competition was quite fierce for spots. At this time too, a year seemed to be about the sort of time you’d go before getting considered for shows. Also, traditionally at this time, debut matches were inclusion in the HOP rumble match. So for me to have my first match scheduled to be a singles match was pretty cool, and unexpected. I was pencilled in to wrestle Supes in a singles on day one of HOP’s first weekend double header shows, one show Saturday, and one on Sunday at the end of July 2011. Plans change, as they tend to do, and Supes was taken out of the singles match, and put into a 6-man tag match instead. My new opponent was Antony – or ‘Dropkick’ James Murphy (guess what move he liked doing…). Now, Supes and I had pretty much put a match together in training, and Antony didn’t bring much once I started throwing ideas at him, he seemed pretty happy to go with what I’d suggested. He helped me tidy up a few bits and pieces, and we had a match put together within about 15 minutes. A quick walk through on the Thursday and that was it. Ready to go!
Saturday rolled round, and I was raring to go, and to get in that ring. Packed my case, checked it numerous times, made sure I had wrist tape, baby oil, hair product (yeah I had hair back then), beard shaped into some weird chinstrap. I walked to Gym Combat, absolutely ready to do it, to be a pro wrestler taking my first step in front of an audience.
I got dressed into my fancy singlet, styled my hair, oiled up, put on my wrist tape, did 12 push-ups and 12 squats, and I sat and watched as the crowd file in. I watched the entrances for the first match, and then I walked through the match with Antony again. I then popped a stick of gum in my mouth and made my way down to behind the entrance curtain. This was it!
German flag draped over my head, Rammstein ‘Engel’ kicked in, and off we fucking went. Walked out with the flag over my head, and turned my back. Raised that flag up fully and got some boo’s. Amazing. I turned around and dropped one side of the flag, and made my way around the ring, shouting in German at anyone I made eye contact with. I slid into the ring, and raised the flag again as Stixx, acting as the ring announcer that afternoon introduced Jurgen Heimlich to the House of Pain audience for the very first time. That feeling was as good as I’d imagined it. I watched as ‘Dropkick’ James Murphy made his way to the ring, as I ran through the key spots in my head, reference points. Bell sounds, and we’re underway, we did the 1,2, 3 spot, which is where the heel* one ups the blue-eye** on three occasions with a move, before the blue-eye hits those three moves on the heel in quick succession. I then cut him off and work my section of the match, the ‘heat’, where I can show out more, work the audience to dislike me more etc. I also remember I completely forgot how to do a chinlock and ended up just smothering Murphy’s face with my forearms. Crap. We work to a double-down*** , which ended in a double running cross body. Both down. Couple of bigger moves, and Murphy snatches the win. I lost my first match, but I reckon thats the way it should be anyway, but honestly, what a rush. What a truly fantastic feeling I just had. I was keen to get more matches under my belt, because that feeling was indescribably amazing. Wow…
The match went to plan, and I couldn’t have asked for a better debut match. I felt alive. That aspiration to maybe have a match or two was out of the window. I was in. I needed to do this now.
Luckily the next day I had 2 matches! An eight man tag team match, which was pretty throwaway, but a hell load of fun. I made sure that the big blue-eye at the time Big Mark Scott, press slammed me out of the ring for shits and giggles, and that was really my biggest spot in the match.
After that though, out of sequence of usual HOP debut bookings, I took part in the rumble match in which I got to rub shoulders with a good selection of HOP regulars, as well as a young Robbie X. Agood learning experience overall here, as I planned nothing, and just fed myself for people to beat me up. Anyway, I didn’t win.
Big lesson learned here though – that chewing gum – Never again. I took a bump and it shot to the back of my throat, and just for a second or two it wouldn’t come up. I got it out pretty quick, and I don’t think anyone but me actually noticed, but it was enough to ensure that I never put gum in whilst wrestling again, and actually even now, I very rarely chew gum.
First weekend of wrestling done. Shit! That was amazing! Now what?
*Blue-eye: the good guy. Also, babyface
**Heel: The badguy
***Double-down: a set piece in the match where both wrestlers knock each other down for a similar amount of time. Usually good in a fast paced match and used to give the crowd chance to catch up and appreciate the work leading up to it. Also, cracking way to grab a breath…
Chapter 5 – The Stinker And The Kick Of Doom
So, first match done, and its time to look ahead. There wasn’t much happening in the grand scheme of things for Britwres. The FWA (Frontier Wrestling Alliance) was attempting a comeback, but wasn’t hitting the heights it had in the early 2000’s when they were on The Wrestling Channel. 1PW, once king of the supershows was ripping people off and running off with money (allegedly). All that aside, none of those were really attainable for someone of my ability anyway. It looked like a stint of doing shows in front of a handful of people in exchange for ‘experience’ was on the cards for the foreseeable future. Wrestling was not popular in the early 2010’s. Low attendances were pretty common, and a decent wrestling wage was a pipe dream.
Whilst we’re on that subject; don’t expect to make money in wrestling. You’ll always spend more than you make, unless you get somewhere of note, or you’re selling pictures of your arse on OnlyFans.
Facebook and twitter were in their relative infancies and we were all trying to find our way with how that worked, in terms of being marketable and how to promote yourself. I don’t think I ever got Twitter right by the way…
First few months were another couple of matches, and one that stood out early on, especially for learning experience, was a tag match I had the month after debut. It was myself and Johnny Lavelle (now Gene Munny), taking on former House of Pain champion LJ Heron, and Britwres veteran T-Bone. The planning for this match was awful. From all sides, in hindsight. I don’t know if I gave off the impression I knew more than I actually did, but I felt overwhelmed and lost in this match. I blew one spot, then it all fell apart. And T-Bone let me know. The henchest backclub I ever took, a safe wakeup call, followed by the snappiest snap-suplex I took in my career. Wake up kid.
Can’t remember the finish, I know we lost, couldn’t have given a shit. It was wank. I was wank. This match shot my confidence. And I was supposed to be wrestling again the next day in the same building. I didn’t want to, and I told Stixx to replace me in it. He said no, the best thing to do was come along tomorrow, and get it right, and erase the bad match from my head. Too late to change it now. He was right.
So I did. I was tagging with Lavelle again, and this time we were taking on Stealth and ‘The Blackheart’ Rudi. Apparently these guys had been in wrestling for a while, but honestly, I couldn’t tell.
The previous month these two had wrestled ‘Special Edition’ Joseph Connors and Paul Malen, two experienced, and very legit wrestlers. They’d later make the tag team a fixture across the UK, known as The Predators, and they were fucking good. Back to Stealth & Rudi the previous month… They looked like excitable backyarders who wanted to just do every move in the world, which resulted in Connors being dropped on his head. The crowd knew it and were silent until he shouted ‘FOR FUCK SAKE!!’, before clotheslining Stealth’s head off… That is how you do a receipt.
I was quite wary of making sure the same didn’t happen in our match and I said as much to Lavelle. Between the four of us we put together a safe but exciting match, which kept a high tempo, with Lavelle and I making sure we negated any stupid spots, by offering alternative ideas. This was also the first match in which I did my disgusting inverted flip miss-spot. Special occasion bump after that. I’d run to the corner, spring off of the middle rope and do a front flip whilst flying backwards, and I’d always miss the opponent. Grim landing every time.
This was also the first weekend in which I used the running diving crossbody into the corner, a move that Stixx used at the time, and also one I’d seen Emi Sakura use whilst I watched Japanese women’s promotion Ice Ribbon.
It’s always hard to take having a poor match, especially when you’re working with people such as T-Bone, but the lesson I learned here was you really can’t dwell on it. You’ve just got to get it tidied up the next time that you get in the ring, and when you’re starting out, that’s easier said than done, especially when you have to wait a month for the next match at times.
Chapter 6 – Ice & Eve
Alright, here we go. This is where it all starts to shape pretty much my entire pro wrestling career. It’d still be possible to get to where I eventually ended up, but I think specifically this weekend got the ball rolling, at least in the back of my mind.
October 2011, and Gym Combat had been tidied up and was presentable enough that some of the slightly bigger wrestling companies started to visit. On this occasion, Southside wrestling teamed up with all-womens promotion Pro Wrestling Eve to put on a weekend full of shows. 4 shows over the weekend. OK, but that wasn’t the draw for me, because you see, what was different for me was the appearance of 4 Japanese women wrestlers from the promotion Ice Ribbon, which was a company I’d been following for a while, and even managed to start collecting bootleg DVD’s of theirs. I was excited for this, even moreso because they brought over my favourite wrestler in the company, Hikaru Shida. Maaaaaan, I fucking loved Shida. Also making the trip over, was Ice Ribbon founder and head trainer Emi Sakura, Ice Ribbon’s main champion, the Icex60 champion Hikari Minami, and Shida’s ‘Muscle Venus’ tag team partner Tsukasa Fujimoto.
It’s hard to know where to start when talking about this weekend, because despite not even wrestling, this was so life changing.
Let’s start with the Friday. Now Friday didn’t even figure into my plans until Ben Synn messaged me to say say the IR girls were already at Gym Combat. Eek! I was keen. So I actually went for a look. Such a mark… Anyway, I met them, my son Brandon cried (he was 3), and we left. Haha!
But yeah, so cool.
The next day, was the Southside show and the first night of Eve. The Southside show was OK, wasn’t too bothered about what happened on it aside from the Ice Ribbon feature match, which was Shida/Fujimoto vs Sakura/Minami. Was great to see them all live, and immediately stood out to me. The athleticism, the noise, the intensity, the everything. I think I’d have been happy with whatever they did in the ring in all honesty, but it was a decent match to me. Minami’s ‘Cutie special’ finish was always a thing of beauty to watch.
Bit of a break before the evening show, and there was some good, some bad. I remember really enjoying the main event of Jenny Sjodin vs April Davids, made even more impressive by the fact that April wrecked her ankle in the match and still finished it. I actually got on with April, she and Jenny ended up staying on my couch on the Sunday evening as they’d missed their train home that night, and were suddenly stranded in Nottingham and luckily I lived across from the train station at the time.
The Shida match, which I was most looking forward to, was actually my least favourite on the show. It was essentially a squash match against the big German, Alpha Female, and pretty much was just that. A squash. Meh.
Show finished, I buggered off home to rest up. My friend and younger trainee Gabe wanted to train on the Sunday morning, and I quite fancied it too, so we arranged to meet at the venue early.
Got there about 9:30am and did some stuff, worked a little etc, before all of the Ice girls arrived. Before too long, Minami was in there with us trying to show us how she did her split legged springboard move ( I never could do it, even though I tried for years), Shida was around the ring, whilst Fujimoto was stood chatting with a Japanese journalist who had come over with them. I noticed Sakura at the far end of the building, just sort of squatting down on her own on her phone. I apprehensively went over and just asked if she was ok. Obviously in English because my Japanese was non-existent in 2011, she smiled and said thanks, and that was about it. Nothing remarkable, aside from her passing me her business card. I later used the email address on the card to write Sakura-san a lengthy and Google translated letter describing the weekend to her. I didn’t get a reply, probably because it made no sense.
It was a surreal thing thing though. I felt like this wouldn’t be the last interaction I had with Sakura-san.
Anyway, the show in the afternoon, was good, I can’t remember much about many of the matches aside from the EVE title match between Jenny Sjodin and Sakura. We were also sending notes up to the dressing room, of course by we, I mean Gabe – specifically to the Scottish wrestler, Viper. She was brilliant all weekend, and she played along with us. Proper loved Viper.
We were there all day, and left as the roster left. A good weekend, made some new friends, and got an email address for the Japanese journalist, who told me to send him some video. I did, it was way to early, and I didn’t ever hear back from him. I did see him a few years later, but he wouldn’t have recognised the skinny lad from Nottingham. There was an awful lot to take away from the weekend, and I don’t think I can coherently or chronologically put it all here. Needless to say, a new goal had been realised, and I needed to start working towards it. That goal? To wrestle in Japan. It felt a million miles away, but I wanted to spend the next couple of years chasing that goal down.
So how do you get from training for something to distract you from a bad breakup, to then just wanting one match, to suddenly wanting to go to the otherside of the planet? God knows, but thats where I found myself.
Chapter 7 – The First Steps Out of Safety
The logical step now was to get out on the road and get some outside bookings. Now, again, bear in mind that this is 2011, and there still wasn’t a lot of other places to go. Nonetheless, we jump to December, and I got that first chance. Stoke – on – Trent, a place that I’d call ‘home’ for a while, albeit a different company than this. A booking for United Wrestling, which I think is really the place that most of the House of Pain guys end up going to for their first outside booking. The venue, The Bidds Club, is/was gross though. A stage with two side rooms to change in, I got told not to go in one of them as “we piss in that corner”. The room the ring was in wasn’t great either, looked unfinished, with unfinished plasterboard on the walls. This wasn’t how wrestling looks on tv!
A tag match, myself, Jack Union (Birchill, Chris Smith, British Pride, Rossi, whatever he is this year), and a couple of Paul Malen’s trainee’s, Alexander Croft and Terry Isit. Croft and myself as the heels, versus Union and Isit. It was OK, mostly character work, a couple of bumps, first match on. The crowd were rather hostile to the bony German shouting abuse at them, job’s a good un. That really was all there was to report about the match, unremarkable, but we all got the job done. I didn’t get paid, which was a bit weird, but OK, its the first one, maybe thats normal. What should I charge anyway? Money is an uncomfortable and seemingly taboo subject in wrestling, which is something that I always thought was stupid. I’ll talk about this in depth in a later chapter.
To round out my rookie year, I finished off in House of Pain, 4-way with myself, Danny Chase, LJ Heron and Chris Connell. I watched this back not too long ago and thought I looked clunky and awkward. I tried to catch a flip dive from Danny, having never practiced it, or asked how to catch them. I tried to catch him like a cricket ball, then realised that wouldn’t slow his fall, and threw my body under him. He was ok. I wasn’t. What a twat. I pulled my knee, and couldn’t put any weight on it for a couple of weeks after. Still, I wasn’t wrestling after this, so I had time to recover.
So that was my rookie year completed, and it was extremely eye opening. I started wanting nothing from it, but once I got a taste for performing in front of a live audience, I craved it. I was hungry for more, and more to the point, I had clear goals now.
I kept notes throughout my career in a notebook, and I’d always write down matches, finishes, venue, promotion, things learned, and little ideas I had. I never let anyone read them, and I’d write them when noone was around. At the back of my first notebook I wrote:
2012:
- Win single match at HOP
- Train at another school/new ideas
- 3 new companies (work at)
- Gym more regularly – get to min 175lbs
- Make a contact abroad – EU/Asia
Some attainable, some more ambitious, all achievable…
Juken Pro Wrestler 
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