This section will cover my sixth year in pro wrestling, 2016. Previous sections:
Chapter 30 – Juken Do It!
To insert a cliché, ‘New year, new me’ – certainly that was the case for 2016. The first portion of the year was all about finding out who I actually was, and how the Juken persona was going to play out. Already pencilled in was another trip to Japan with Gatoh Move, another date in Korakuen Hall, and a fistful of enquiries about new places to work.
I really tried to get my head down and work hard, be it getting myself in the gym and really doubling down on getting myself into much better shape. I wasn’t in bad shape by any means, but in hindsight, I certainly feel that wrestling can lead you to be really insecure in your own skin oftentimes, and you’re never truly happy with how you look. You’re running around in very little clothing for the most part, in front of audiences – you’re bound to be somewhat insecure. I grew to be fairly happy with myself through 2016 to 2018 especially, because I worked really fucking hard to look as best I could.
I made the transition to wearing trunks, so I had nowhere to hide. I had to own it, and make sure I didn’t slip. I doubled down, quite literally, as I would often go to the gym twice a day. I became obsessive. I’d spend hours researching exercises, diet plans, the whole lot. I got to around March and I was absolutely fucking miserable with the diet, counting macros and all that shit, so I sacked that off and just ate sensibly. Good meat, veg as a staple, but I didn’t deny myself anything – loved a can of beer after getting home from a show, for example.
There’s something to be said for finding the compromise of getting into shape, and being so obsessively miserable about eating, prepping, recording and counting. What actually ended up working for me was working out sensibly, armed with knowledge, and knowing when things were getting boring or stale. Its easy to fall into a drab workout, week after week, and feeling demoralised after each trip to the gym. I’ll try and keep the gym talk very minimal, as I find it tiresome now, and even when I was motivated to do well in the gym, I’d find it tiresome when people would bang on about the gym, and sharing motivational quotes. Just get it done, is my take. I will touch on gym stuff a little later in this write-up, as there are one or two things that I think I should touch on. I’ll park it for now though.
I tried to use the ‘Juken’ rebrand as a whole refresh. I launched with a new t-shirt design, rethought out how I would present myself across social media, and began having a uniform way to post things. I began to write the weekly blog, which has proven in hindsight to be a wonderful insight, and snapshot into how I felt at the time, and how poorly I dealt with a handful of things. New wrestling attire, and a thoughtfulness going into that moving forward. I tried having a gimmick, the facemask. As far as wrestling attire was concerned, I began asking a bit more for my wrestling attire, which turned into a very rewarding and fruitful professional relationship with my gear designer, Laura, and collectively we brought out the best in each other. My increasing demand over the next couple of years for higher quality clothing, pushed Laura to become extremely good at her craft, which benefitted others later down the line. She began to bore of making plain gear after a while, but myself, alongside a couple of others always wanted to give her a creative freedom to release her inner artist.
I rethought my wrestling moveset and mannerisms, and made tweaks to transition away from an awful lot that made up Jurgen.
In a nutshell, the presentation of Juken, was the polar opposite of Jurgen Heimlich, and that was always predetermined. It did take a while for momentum to build for Juken, I feel like that was always going to be the case. A good few regular promotions kept me on, some wanted to keep Jurgen, others happy to support my transition. Either way, I was looking forward to putting my all into this refresh, and I was motivated to make it successful.
Chapter 31 – HOPE for ‘The Ear’
I’ll pull in everything HOPE Wrestling here as thats where my year kicked off. A last minute booking in January for a tag match and rumble, proved to be a catalyst for a fair bit of work for the company across 2016. Anyhow, the tag match was myself and White Tiger against Bam Bam Barton and Joseph Conners, match ended in a dq after Conners gave Tiger a kicking. The match was ok, but I took the time in the rumble to watch before joining in, I took to making my presence felt in there. There were a lot of filler wrestlers in there who were inexperienced, and tended to just hide in the corner of the ring. I took it upon myself to keep things flowing until I was eliminated.
And that was HOPE wrestling for a while. I was never quite sure why, with HOPE, I’d go from having a bunch of work, to bugger all for a decent stretch of time. I didn’t think I had a bad relationship with Dale the promoter, despite what a lot of my peers felt about him. As mentioned previously, he always gave me opportunity early on, with experienced performers, and then as the experience with some of the younger, ‘greener’ wrestlers.
My next appearance with HOPE came seven months later, and another of the Walkabout shows (sports bar kind of venue). These were always pretty fun, even if a shortlived project.
On this show, I was pitted against ‘Jack Cave’. Someone who would later co-own/promote HOPE, but here, that wasn’t a thought. This was one of his first appearances, and by his own admittance, he was extremely green, and limited. No worries, I reassured him that we’d keep it simple, and that I’d let him beat me up for a bit until I felt like the crowd have had enough of it.
It was indeed a fairly simple match, I wanted to use this to work on my selling, and gaining sympathy. I think Jack did really well, I let him lead portions of the match, and I took over if I felt we needed to change direction, or switch gears. Yes, he was inexperienced, but it would have been shit for me to just plough through him, and give him nothing to work with moving forward. I always enjoyed the opportunity to upskill the newer wrestlers, because the job is cyclical, people come and go, and it only works if people teach, constantly. You can train all you like, but in-ring training, in front of audiences is critical for the real feedback. And nothing serves you better than learning how to acquire what I always called ‘The Ear’. ‘The Ear’, is where you learn the mood of the crowd in real-time, as they shift, as they want the pace or momentum to change, and learning how to get the right change in pace/momentum. ‘The Ear’ is one of the most vital tools to have in pro wrestling, and I don’t feel like enough people ever get it. You know the wrestlers who have the ears, just by the way they carry themselves, the confidence is clear in their body language, and just how they move around a wrestling ring.
Now, HOPE had been running the FUTR brand for a while, and I’d done the odd one or two over the last year, and I ended up doing a couple more over the summer, mostly with LJ Heron. I also wrestled CJ Banks in a match I thought, and hoped would be good, but I felt was a little flat. I may have read the body language wrong, but I got the feeling CJ didn’t fancy working with me all that much. I was really hoping to learn a lot from him, but was a bit ‘miffed’ by the time we both got back behind the curtain. I didn’t get any feedback either which probably added to me feeling flat about the encounter.
LJ and I knew each other really well by this point and we had ideas flowing almost constantly. I very much enjoyed the main event we did, finishes galore, and generally I felt as though I was hitting a peak in confidence and ability at this point.
Anyhow, HOPE ran a few shows down South, that I wasn’t involved in – HOPE by this time was essentially a Midlands, and a Southern branch. A bit weird as there wasn’t much crossover at this point, two separate storylines etc etc.
Anyhow, I returned to ‘Midlands HOPE’, back to Mansfield, for a 6 way match for the ‘Kings of Flight’ championship. I did a dive. Cool. Nobody wanted to get eliminated first, so I just bit the bullet and said, I’ll go. Eliminated by White Tiger, who actually by this point, I’d dreaded working with. He was at a ‘throw-everything-a-the-wall-and-see-what-works’ stage, and he eliminated me with a submission that he couldn’t pull off very well, and as applied fairly weakly – I tapped out and fucked off backstage quite pissed off for embarrassing myself. Meh. We move on…
No, actually that was it for me and HOPE for 2016, with 2 decent matches and the rest leaving me wondering why I wasn’t getting the regular reps.
Chapter 32 – The Chew
Now usually, I wouldn’t have touched upon these particular bookings that we’ll discuss in this chapter, but there was a learning experience to be had, and one that I think proved to be useful information.
For the most part All-Star bookings tended to be rewarding but somewhat unremarkable experiences on the road of pro wrestling. Shows from this era had a formula which was time tested and proven, and were really useful for someone like myself, on how to slow down in matches, and how to really give matches time to breathe, whilst giving the audience time to digest what was happening. The shows I’d like to talk about here were in February, at Butlins in Skegness. I actually really enjoyed the Skeg Butlins, as there were often two areas of the holiday park that All_Star used. The stage/theatre area, and sometimes in the main foyer, also referred to as ‘The Skyline’.
Entertainment in The Skyline was often extremely well attended, regularly populated with 2000+ people sat waiting to be entertained. There was a regular crew who were fulltime with ASW, and with this being their livelihood, they had matches that they knew worked everytime. People such as Dean Allmark, James Mason, Frankie Sloan, and my opponent for the next couple of weeks, Tony Spitfire. I was a massive fan of Dean Allmark’s work by the way, so an opportunity to watch him up close was always a welcome treat.
Anyway, I’d heard an awful lot about Tony Spitfire, and not much of it was favourable. But I always tried to take people on my own experience with them.
I met with ‘Spitty’ and asked him what his match was, out of respect for his job and experience with this crowd. He laid out which was his match, but only the once. Seemed easy enough though. Something wasn’t clicking for me however, and I just couldn’t get it into my mind. I didn’t want to embarrass myself by keeping on asking him, so I went out to the ring and thought I’d be OK just talking through the match in the ring with him. And it really should have been enough.
The match started well, the audience were with us, and they were up. 2 and a half thousand holiday makers were vocal, and wanted to see me get my arse kicked.
For some reason, I just ‘shit the bed’ and mucked up a spot that was pivotal to our match. He tried to get things back on track, but we never corrected the course. He was visibly pissed off, but to his credit, he kept his cool, and tried to pro through the match, and deliver something presentable. He dragged me to the end of the match, and I made my way backstage. I was livid with myself,and he was really pissed off. He absolutely chewed me out in the dressing room, everything I did wrong, and why he thought I shouldn’t be on an All-Star show. He was right about most of it, I didn’t argue a thing. I said thanks to him, and took it.
As luck/fate would have it, I was back the following weekend, and it turned out he’d asked to wrestle me again, despite me hoping he hadn’t seen me arrive, and that I could just do the rumble at the end of the show.
This was the best thing he could have done, in all honesty. We went out to open the show, and all he said to me was “same match as last week, lets get right this time”. We had the match, and it went smoothly, crowd were exactly where we needed them to be throughout. There was a reason that this was ‘his’ match.
Sometimes the best learning experiences come through embarrassing yourself, but being put right back into an uncomfortable situation. I know a lot of people didn’t really like Tony Spitfire, but I appreciated what he did with me over those two weeks. He probably doesn’t remember it, or even give a shit, but thats what full-time pro’s do, they teach indy guys like I was, to be a more rounded professional.
Chapter 33 – Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands
Pro Wrestling 4U, my home outside of House of Pain, and the promotion and promoter gave me a lot of room to grow, and to play around with my character. A lot of my PW4U story can be found in about 5378 of my previous blogs, and one podcast. If you want the match runthroughs, please click here for a comprehensive PW4U retrospective. However, I’ll treat this whole piece as a separate entity – I’m not going to run through all of the matches this time. What I’d like to do is just give an overall view, with some background information, and my thinking at the time. Looking through my notebooks, I could see how I was thinking and feeling, as the books were becoming a bit of a diary, and in hindsight, a wonderful snapshot of a time when I was starting to feel some frustration.
So, 2016, and a first PW4U show in March, and a match I just don’t really enjoy recalling. A no count-out match with Pyro, the masked ‘Japanese’ wrestler, which was the second in a series of three that we had, and this was the first of the matches that wasn’t a normal match. Set up by me winning at the last PW4U show, and challenging Pyro, for some bizarre booking reason. The third match however, ended up being one of my top 3 PW4U matches. A streetfight, on a Sunday afternoon show. It turned into the most ridiculous and fun streetfight, without being pathetic. Cheap lego, a mop, baking trays, a witch. Great fun! STILL waiting for Phil to put that match online though…
I was reaching the pissed off stage of my PW4U run. I hated ‘The Sickness’, because almost nothing that had been laid out in the original vision had come to fruition. Barricade came in for one show. We won the tag belts in April, in a forgettable fourway tag team match. However after that show, tag partner Danxig disappeared… That was it. I had the tag belts at least, but I didn’t really want them at first. Luck kind of fell into my lap, and Phil and I came up with a plan of bringing someone in as a tag partner. We looked at the roster, and decided on Rob Sharpe. Perfect. There was no real long term plan, aside from eventually dropping them to the Barmy Army. As little as the tag belts meant to me, purely down to the circumstance, I was determined to get something workable coming out of the back-end of the whole Sickness mess.
Once we’d brought Rob into the picture, I had a few ideas, and wanted to just have a go at them. I could’ve asked Phil, but I wanted to just play round with an idea, and see if it had room to grow. Rob and I partnered, and I treated Rob like a dog from the second we came through the curtain. I wouldn’t let him hold or touch a belt – So I carried 3 around. Both tag belts and the G6 championship. My loose plan was to treat Rob so badly, that it turned him babyface, he’d be the one to take any falls or losses in tag match. so that I could berate him and embarrass him.
As there had been no real progress on finding someone worthy of challenging, and eventually taking the G6 belt, I thought that if Rob got the crowd behind him, that he’d be a perfect opponent. I wanted something to really get my teeth into. A story. I knew I could do the wrestling matches, we’d done a couple of years of that at PW4U now, it was time for the creative bit.
I didn’t tell Rob or Phil the plan, as I wanted Rob’s reactions to be genuine, and also to see if he’d follow the lead, and be a bit creative himself with how the story was to go. I didn’t tell Phil, just because I wanted to steer things and see if he could see the seed I’d planted, and that he’d want to let the story play out, and let me guide the story along, with his approval.
So, a tag match against ‘The Barmy Army’, they win via countout in September, which would loosely set-up something for the new year, and leave us to drop the tag belts in 2017.
The last match of the year was a bit of a match where there could’ve been some potential, the opponent was good, but no build, random opponent, and I was about as fed up as I could’ve been. No knock on the opponent intended, more just the situation I felt we were in.
Patience however… ’17 was setup to be decent!
Chapter 34 – Foundation Year
House of Pain, home promotion, training school, assistant trainer at time, as well as taking my own Friday night Japanese-style classes. Juken in HOP allowed me to really try and throw loads of shit at the wall to see what stuck, and what was just rubbish. I’ll push through some key matches, as now HOP was really picking up steam and expanding across new venues across Nottingham, which meant a lot of matches, and not all of them are important to cover in great detail here.
I see 2016 as a bit of a laying the foundations year for me in HOP. Putting the pieces together, learning and teaching at the same time, whilst trying my best to level up. There were a handful of key moments and highlights, and a lot of tag/filler matches. All valuable.
We will, however, start in January with a match against Danny Thomas, who i thought was becoming a solid hand, despite his inexperience. We would wrestle an awful lot more over the next year or so, until he stepped away from wrestling.
Back to Beeston! The Victory Club got binned, and we moved down the road to the Plessey Club. This was much better. A bigger area. A better and more involved audience. The Plessey crowd was brilliant, and they were always loud, which was always a boost when you wrestled there. I had a couple of memorable matches here. The first being a tag match with myself and Joseph Conners taking on Alex Gracie and Flex Buffington – I was actually a babyface now by the way! Joe and I had almost always been on opposing sides when we wrestled so it was great to be able to pick his brain, and see how he thinks about his matches in the babyface role. I’d never wrestled Buffington before, and he was certainly the odd man out here, with him being the comedy heel. He mentioned later that he felt he let the match down as he felt out of shape in comparison – bear in mind that his character is basically a deluded out of shape body builder. It worked. At least to me anyway. As for Alex Gracie, ain’t much you can’t learn from a professional athlete, which he was growing up as a martial artist, or ess-eskrima stick fighter, and now transitioned over to pro wrestling. Movement, anticipation, a fighting logic and attention to detail. He and I worked together a few times over the years, but we never had that match that I felt was there. A shame.
I followed up that Beeston show the next month against Rob Sharpe, our first singles match which I definitely enjoyed. Rob was mostly seen as a comedy guy, and I was still finding my feet as a babyface, so we each wanted to get something out of our comfort zone from this. I wanted to really work on gathering sympathy, and Rob wanted to be more aggressive. We were the opener, but we crammed a lot into this. It was well paced, and we allowed each other to get what we needed from the match.
Unfortunately wrestling at the The Plessey Club wasn’t a long-term project, as the club ceased trading from May. A bit of a pisser, because the crowd was there. All was not lost for Beeston though, as House of Pain would find a new home in Beeston early in 2017, and has been there ever since.
For me though, another new venue, this time in Cotgrave, an ex-colliery town in South Notts. Cotgrave should be a big draw, it has all the ingredients to do well, but I honestly never ever felt like it achieved that potential. However… debut show, and I got to wrestle someone I had wanted to for over 5 years, RJ Singh. It didn’t disappoint on a personal level, I learned an awful lot from him. He came to the match with so many ideas, and his post match feedback was so, so useful to me, it was exactly what I needed. I was still an inexperienced babyface, so to work with a very experienced heel was a blessing.
Luckily we got to repeat the feat, as he was booked again, this time, myself and G-Wiz Bond vs Singh and Visage. Love big Vis too!
Good match, RJ and I the experienced heads here, bringing up two newcomers at the time. Honestly, just good fucking fun.
Other points of note, and I do realise the House of Pain section is light, certainly in comparison to previous years, but trust me when I say the HOP content in 2017 onwards is plentiful.
In September, a brush with injury in a throwaway tag match in Hucknall, saw me get hurt enough to stop me going abroad. Yuk!
A brief alliance with Joseph Conners in tag matches and six man tags etc, leading up to the December rumble. A good bit of back and forth at the end with myself and Garret ‘G-Wiz’ Bond, ending up with me booting him in the mush on the ring apron, and he fell to the floor. I’d won!
This set up a potential championship opportunity at one of the titles, but which one? I was the only still-active member of the class of 2011, who still hadn’t won a championship in House of Pain, and this really had to be the opportunity for me to take one. I’d felt through much of 2015 and 2016, that I was in a bit of an odd role, where I could be presented as a credible challenger to champions, but the general feeling was that ‘I didn’t need’ the belt. I may be wrong, but thats how it felt. For me, I felt as though I had a lot to offer, and that I wanted to help lift HOP. It didn’t necessarily need me to do that, but thats what I perfosnally felt my role should be.
There hadn’t been much discussion between myself and Stixx as to which direction we might be going in, or what the potential outcomes and scenarios may be. All I knew is that I needed to get my head down and keep working hard.
Chapter 35 – Leicester Bow
I actually thought I worked for LCW a fair bit, but on reflection, I really didn’t. Leicester was a always a fantastic place to work, especially when in the school auditorium that they used for its peak years. Fantastic venue, with showers (massive bonus).
Anyway, 2016 proved to be the last bit of my LCW run, and I think it was clear that John didn’t really know how to use me/see a place for me on his roster regularly. I do think changing gimmick fed into that in all honesty, however LCW was the last place that Jurgen Heimlich appeared. John liked the Jurgen character and was clear that he had no interest in Juken. I was fine with that, as Jurgen had been turning into Juken in all but name anyway, flag aside.
February saw the annual rumble, which was just a rumble. Nothing exciting to see here – you know the drill, entrance, flurry, 10 minutes of forearms in the corner, trainees yadda yadda.
I was however involved in a singles match earlier in the show, vs Chris Tyler for the ‘LCW Young Guns’ championship – I was 33 in 2016…
Still, Chris and I always had fast paced and exciting matches and this was no exception. Back and forth, spot after spot, a consistently paced match in which Tyler grabbed the win.
I don’t think we ever wrestled in singles again, so I’ll say this here. I think Chris Tyler always brought out some of the best in me. He was someone with whom our chemistry just clicked every time. I could never outpace him, which was rare around this time, and trust me, I did try to blow him up regularly, but he was always there, for everything, every time. He was athletic, very well conditioned, cosmetically and technically good, charismatic, and really should’ve achieved more than he has to date.
My final LCW match came in April, and was against one half of the Hunter Brothers, Lee Hunter. Anyone with any sense could’ve seen how good The Hunters were, definitely as a tag team, but individually too. I was excited by this match, as this was a level up experience. We decided that we would call the whole match. we just wrestled, with no plan, we let the crowd dictate where they wanted us to go. Man, what a learning experience! We finished when we could sense the crowd were ready, Lee taking the win. ‘The Ear’ got a good testing here, and I felt like I really had levelled up a few notches for the experience. Lee was fantastic to dance with.
And that was it for LCW. The company would be sold later on, and I dare say not for the better. LCW had grown organically over a few years, that crowd made its own stars, and 2014-16 were its peak in my mind. Solid hardworking roster, great talent and experience from top to bottom, everyone levelling each other up all the time. This was was I loved about British wrestling. Thanks to John and LCW for letting me be a part of a special product.
Chapter 36 – Gatoh Move 3.5
I’m sure by now, that you’ve sussed out how much I loved the opportunity to visit and be lucky enough to work in Japan. 3 years I’d been involved with Gatoh Move, and each passing year, I felt as though I’d levelled up, taken on board every syllable of feedback and advice and implemented it. Japan is serious business, and pro wrestling in Japan is a serious business. I owed it to them, myself, and everyone at home, to progress, and improve every time I was afforded the opportunity to perform there.
So onto 2016 in Japan, and a sweltering and humid summer. Fuck it, lets get it. I always, always felt like each trip was my last, but for some reason this one really did, moreso than before. I’m not quite sure why. All the preparation, probably over-prepared, including ‘The Experimemnt’ (see chapter XX), but I was very ready, suitcase stuffed full of merch, the lot. Made sure I arrived plenty early, and got myself a few days accommodation based in Jimbocho before I went to stay at the dojo, as I didn’t want a repeat of last years Osaka jetlagged shitshow. It took an age for me to find my hotel, having arrived in Japan, feeling somewhat confident in the fact that I’d put the effort in to learn Japanese. However, I failed at the first hurdle. I spoke Japanese, and it must have been great initially, as the chap at the train station who I spoke to, replied to me in the most longwinded and detail filled way, that I was lost two sentences in. Bollocks. So anyway, I just got in a taxi. And was still lost. As I’d arrived into Japan late, I couldn’t get a data SIM at the airport, and had initially planned to get one in Akihabara the following day. Not thinking that I’d need it on arriving, in order to use Google maps. Rookie error. Anyway, I got to Jimbocho in the taxi, and he dropped me off outside the metro station. So I just asked a policeman, who obviously saw that I was a bit flustered, and gave me directions in English. And the accommodation was literally 30 seconds away. Brill. Checked in, ran to the nearest Family Mart for some food, washed down with a Strong Zero. And then a fucking good nights sleep.
Next day I decided to head over to Ichigaya and see if Sakura was around. She wasn’t. And it was shitting it down with rain. So by the time I got there, I was soaked. Luckily a newer wrestler/trainee ‘Aasa’ was around, and she welcomed me very warmly, gave me a towel and and the most welcome cup of coffee ever. Sakura was in meetings for the day, obviously not expecting me yet. I thanked Aasa for looking after me, and I said I’d be back for the training session later in the day, and I went back off to the train station. In between training, I took the opportunity to do some touristy stuff, as I knew time would be at a bit of a premium over the coming days. The usual trapse through Akihabara (yes I picked up a data SIM), looking through the second hand game and toy stores as well as the 3rd floor wrestling shop ‘Bodyslam’ that I could never find, but I’d often wander around looking up for the sign. I did feel a bit nostalgic after that, and hopped on the train to Ryogoku, ‘Sumo Town’ for some calories, a massive bowl of chanko. Good shit.
The attendees of training would vary with myself, Aasa, a Jpop Idol called Maki Onizuka the core three, with the likes of Riho, Sayaka Obihiro popping in regularly. The small training groups were brilliant, as we really got to work on things in great detail. Knowing full well what training under Emi Sakura and Masa Takanashi would involve. A lot of sweat, a lot of being out of my comfort zone, and a lot of new ways to look at pro wrestling. One of the things I’d always look forward to when going to Japan, is that I always knew that the only thing I’d have to focus on was pro wrestling. Learning the craft, learning new techniques, new philosophies.
Most importantly, I learned a lot more about myself than I ever realised I would. I often found that foreign travel would often be a pivotal moment in my life, especially with wrestling, as it forces you to confront yourself, and realise who you are. Another thing I found to be a useful tool in life, is that when you can’t speak in your native language but you need to communicate. You learn really quickly to educate yourself in local language and to be concise. Despite my huge confidence knock in the first hour of arriving in Tokyo, I needed to get back and speak Japanese. Training was conducted entirely in Japanese, as I was the only non-Japanese person in attendance at first, at least until the Thai (and Singaporean) crew turned up in a couple of days. It does drive you crazy sometimes however. I absolutely love Japan, but once you’ve been there often enough, and you’re embedded with natives, you do get a peek behind the curtain. This is not necessarily something I noticed within wrestling, however I’m sure it exists – The overly polite greetings, and never being able to do enough for people is wonderful, but you can see that sometimes people are tired, frustrated and unable to voice their feelings, as it would be frowned upon. I’d seen enough drunken business men sleeping in alleyways at the end of a workday (not just confined to Fridays), to see how the culture of saving face, and politeness has a knock on. The pressure to be seen as a hardworker, a team player to go above on beyond. I once heard the Japanese described wonderfully like this – ‘the Japanese are like everyone else, except more so’. Its true once you can see it.
That also ran true in another direction however, because the working environment in pro wrestling was tough, focussed and christ, if you’re basics weren’t perfect, you wouldn’t get anywhere near even having an exhibition match. Gatoh Move however, encouraged a further level of training. Emi Sakura primarily teaches women. In fact, I consider myself extremely lucky to have arrived at a time when she was in a period where GM was trying to establish itself, and had a handful of male trainees, in the Thai branch of GM.
With that female focussed training, she taught ‘wrestling gymnastics’, which I’m sure iI’ve spoken about somewhere in the past, but was one of the greatest fundamentals I ever learnt. Perfect rolls. The way to control my body and protect myself even if my opponent wasn’t great, and potentially dangerous. Perfect bumps, perfect form on dropkicks, how to take moves and show all of your face and body at the same time, ring movement, the importance of making noise when you were wrestling. Some of this had been covered at home, but it was nice to have another point of view and opinion to work with.
The biggest thing I always took away, and was something that I at first took time to fully immerse myself into, was emotion. Gatoh Move was one of the most emotional experiences in life, let alone in pro wrestling. Due to the intimate setting and proximity to the audience, you’re encouraged to be vulnerable and open with you’re feelings with the roster and audience. You’d think that would be a bad thing, but you very quickly lose any inhibitions you may have, you can have fun, you can really tap into the depths of your soul for that deep lying emotion when the moment calls for it. Thanks to some of the skills I gained through being a part of Gatoh Move, I could cry if I needed to in important matches, to really try to sell the moment.
You really buy into the culture and the connection with each other, and the regular audience. The same people would come, and they would buy whatever you had to sell. They would queue to gat a ‘cheki’ with you (polaroid photograph that you would sign for them). Some would bring you gifts, one particular person would bring me photographs that they’d take of my matches over the years – which I still have, and keep safe.
I’ve covered the matches from this trip and all the others in a huge blog, which you can read here. I don’t really want to tread old ground in that regard anymore, instead I want to use this piece to talk about some of the things behind the matches, and the spare time I had in Japan. If this piece of work ever becomes something more than a career overview (you know, like a book), then I’ll itemise everything properly.
I’d like to quickly talk about the match in Korakuen Hall however. Everything I had been doing in preparation this trip, since January, was all aimed towards this match. I obviously didn’t know who I’d be wrestling, but I wanted to make sure that I looked good, that my in-ring work was as good as it could be, and that no matter what, someone looked at me as an investable commodity. I think I managed a good portion of that, however there are a number of things I got wrong, in hindsight. Now, I have watched this match a ridiculous number of times, over-critiqued it, pull it apart, and I just see the match as a disappointment now. That could be quite the blanket statement, but allow me to just share why I think that is the case.
First of all, before I walked through the curtain, the language barrier was a motherfucker here. My opponent spoke no English, my Japanese was OK, but not good enough to get my point across in the matchmaking negotiations/process. I feel like my opponent was so super protective of his gimmick/character, that he didn’t want to deviate too far away from his ‘schtick’. To a degree, I understood it, but it was extremely fucking frustrating. For my part, I felt as though I gave away too much, just so that I could at least get a presentable match in the ring. I gave away my size, which was very noticeable. I gave away a lot of strength, as I was coming into the match as a long-time champion, for a title defence.
Onto the match, fuck sake, I wish I wouldn’t have worn a fucking t-shirt hanging from my trunks. Urgh, it looked so amateur. Wrestling in a big hall, in front of a good audience, on Japanese TV. How small time must I have actually looked? I should absolutely have invested in a good ring jacket, or something to wear on my torso.
There was a particular move in the match that really, I should’ve nixed straight away. Imagine The Undertaker’s ‘Old school’ move, the one where he walks along the top rope, except in opposite land – A small guy walking in the ring, leading the tall guy around the ring ropes… Except he was too short for me to be on the top rope, so I was walking along the middle rope. It looked so shit, and I felt so embarrassed in the match, and subsequently, anytime I’ve watched it back. Finally, this is the only match I’ve ever had, where I didn’t see my opponent to get feedback from each other after the match. I did get an awful lot from other people backstage however, which was a saving grace, and the value of that advice more than made up for not getting it with my opponent.
On the plus side, with my opponent being smaller, and extremely light, he made my ‘bigger moves’ look fabulous, perhaps not through choice. An aim of mine was to be in the Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine. I’d been in the previous year, but only in text. This year I managed to get a photo in the magazine, not in the colour section, but I’m not here to complain about that. Also, another photo on the Battle-news.com website, which was one of my favourite photos I ever had taken, so not all was lost.
I had a particularly poor night at the merch table as well, which also made me think the match wasn’t as good as I’d have hoped. Still, I went the the combini near the dojo, and bought a fabulous selection of beers to drown my sorrows with. ‘Soyoubi No Neko’ (translated as Wednesdays Cat) was a particular standout.
Special mention to the last couple of matches of the tour, the singles match with Thai Super – Rookie ‘Paksa’ in Osaka. I really enjoyed this match. A good stretch at the end, hard hitting, in and out of the ring (with entrances) within 10 minutes – usually that would be a good thing, but apparently we finished too early, so I got a slap from Sakura haha. Loved it though.
Last show of the tour, and we got to main event in Ichihgaya. LOVE Ichigaya, and this was top to bottom one of my favourite shows, and most favourite after show ‘hang’. Ranks in the top one.
Match was EK Baki, Kotori, and the main man, Masa Takanashi vs Hikaru Shida, Riho and a pasty Brit called Juken. Fuck yeah! We had a shitload of fun, and Baki and I were determined to right the shitshow we’d had in Osaka the previous year. We had a quick back and forth sequence, which was smooth as all fuck, not a blip. I can’t tell you how happy I was with that, because over the years Baki and I had some real horrors and differences of opinion, but this, this was the sweet redemption. Did I mention tagging with Shida and Riho? Last note on this match, I ucking loved wrestling Kotori. She was a fiesty young wrestler, with speed, creativity and such wonderful match ideas that it was always great fun working with her. She especially loved throwing in little callbacks to previous matches we’d had over the years, and I really appreciaited that she could remember those details, and that the audience got what we were trying to show.
Last show, cracking last night party, with all of the food, the drinking, the conversations. Made it all feel worth it.
I’d like to spend a little bit of time just talking about a chap who was also a constant during theis tiem. Greg ‘Glorious’ Ho. Now Greg had come over from Singapore to soak in the knowledge of Japanese pro wrestling, and to accelerate his language skills. The fact that Greg spoke English was a lifesaver at times, much as Pollyanna had been in 2013. I’m sure Greg thought I was a whiny bitch at times, when I found things especially challenging. I think I moaned a lot. I shouldn’t have, but he listened, offered counsel and was patient. I really enjoyed time with him, and I was super happy when we reunited in 2018.
Thanks Greg!
Chapter 37 – Real Deal Experiment
Whilst in Japan I got a message from a promoter offering me work. He ran Real Deal Wrestling, which used to run across Lincolnshire. I was up for working for new people, and hopefully new areas, so took the booking.
The show ended up being in Nottingham, which I’m not sure if I thought that was a brave or stupid idea, what with there being about 3/4 other promotions in the area. Oh, it was in a six sided ring as well which was really an eye opening experience. I used to watch TNA back in the day, and the 6 sided ring was something I thought would be fun to work in – it wasn’t it was rock hard.
Anyway, a singles match, ad a first time meeting with ‘Textbook’ Dave Breaks, which was a match I’d been wanting for year. breaks was just returning from an extended absence from the business, but my God, he hadn’t lost a step. Breaks has an old-school British style of working, which was really what I was looking forward to. No stupid risky moves, just good wrestling. Anyway, this match was a good starting point for us, and he won.
Later in the evening there was a over the top rope rumble – yay! Everyone loves a rumble, right..? Meh, not always, but this one was ok, but tiring. Also, the match was to crown the new RDW champion! Eesh!
There was a bit of inexperience in the ring, but I quite enjoyed that aspect of wrestling in 2016. We threw out the mighty ‘Poo-Man’ (hello Dave Andrews) In the end, it came down to myself and textbook as the final two. I managed to throw him over the top to claim the strap! It was an unexpected decision by the promotor, but I felt it was quite the opportunity, what with the company trying to re-establish itself.
A first defence against onetime former champion Simon Lancaster, I really liked this match. Simon was game for it, and really brought it. Previous matches on the card left us with a challenge as they were struggling to get the crowd motivated, at times. I never believed that there was such thing as a dead crowd, and I was determined to prove that again. Simon and I worked our backsides off to cement the babyface/heel roles, and to make the audience invested in our match, which I felt like we achieved.
Skipping ahead to defence 2, and I faced off against Joseph Conners. This was probably somewhere near our better matches, but not the best, and in the end, probably totally unmemorable for the pair of us. Unfortunately, the draw for the show was appalling, definitely less than 50. Venue was tiny, and in a village on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border.
Oh yeah, I got a concussion somewhere in the match too, because I took a shitty back bump.
Defence 3, was the final! Because RDW ceased to run after this show. Fitting, however that defence 3 was against ‘Textbook’. We built upon that initial meeting a few shows ago, and built a slightly faster paced match, with loads of the match called on the fly. Absoloutely thriving.
It turned out to be a bit of a shame that RDW didn’t run again, as there were a few things we’d all been working on. Textbook had formed an alliance with Danny Thomas, and they were running around with plastic title belts calling themselves tag champ, and they started an angle with myself and a young HOP trainee ‘HD Tyler’, who I’d taken under my wing. We never got to pay that off.
There was another couple of shows pencilled in, and I didn’t find out about one of them until the facebook event was cancelled, which was about 2 hours before the show. Great times.
And that was it for RDW. I actually had the belt up until March 2017, when I finally handed it back.
A shame really. Could’ve been a fun company to have built.
Chapter 38 – Missing The Boat (plane)
At the end of September I was booked to return to Thailand, but this time for a joint promotion between Gatoh Move and Michinoku Pro Wrestling the ‘Sawasdee Cup – Asia Pro Wrestling Summit’ . I was VERY excited by the prospect of this opportunity, and I really wanted to capitalise on it. I’d been booked in a 6 man tagmatch alongside one of their top stars at the time, ‘Kenbai’, which I thought was them wanting a good look at those of us in the match. I was also due to perform at the Japan Expo in Bangkok after the event.
As shitty luck would have it, I stupidly worked a show the day before I was due to fly. Friday night in Hucknall, Nottingham, a tag match, should’ve been easy. I got thrown over the top rope, something I could do safely over and over again, but for some reason, things didn’t go to plan, and I banged my knee on the ring apron.
My knee was stiff, but I thought it would be ok. I went home after the show, finished packing my case and got ready to head to the airport.
I checked my bags, and waited for my plane. But my knee ballooned, it got really stiff and I was struggling to bend it at full range. I knew something was wrong, so I went to a medic at the airport, just wanting some ice. They had a look, and strongly advised that I didn’t fly.
A tough decision had to be taken. I wanted to go to Thailand. I wanted to perform. I’d worked for this, why would this injury stop me? Its a 6 man tag, I can hide in it a little bit. Who am I kidding, I won’t hold back. This is my chance to show another company what I can do, where else could it lead? I couldn’t help but think that not going would fuck everything up. But then what if I caused long term damage by flying.?
I had to get off of the flight. I just couldn’t go. I was devastated, but it was the right thing.
I had to have my luggage pulled from the plane, which took another 90 mins or so, and I had to wait for my girlfriend to come and collect me. She drove to collect me, absoloutely exhausted, but she did it without complaining. Despite us no longer being a thing anymore, I am eternally grateful for some of the things she did to help me, and this is one such occasion.
I contacted Pumi and Emi to let them know the situation, I’m sure they were pissed off, but they never said as much. They even gave me another chance the following year.
Such decisions are never easy, but ultimately we must believe that they are the correct ones. I do believe that this was the right one in this instance, as much as it hurt at the time, both physically and mentally.
Chapter 39 – A Confession
Here’s something I have wanted to talk about for a while, whilst at the same time, feeling as though should probably not talk about it.
In the lead up to prepping for Japan, in June, I really doubled down on going to the gym. Advice from 2 previous trips running through my mind – “get bigger, more muscle, more strong, more wrestling skill”. The wrestling part wasn’t really an issue, as I was getting regular in-ring reps, and I was training regularly, in order to stay sharp, and knowing full well what a trip to Japan might entail for me. I could at least control that part, with practice and study.
My physique was an issue, to me, despite looking as good as I ever had up to that point. Ialways found that I was unhappy with how I looked in wrestling, a constant dissatisfaction. However in the last couple of months run up to leaving for Japan, I was going to the gym 6 days a week, and those double visits per day were happening again. I was tired, but determined. I wasn’t giving my body time to recover from the damage I was doing in the gym.
It was at this time, someone who I was close to, mentioned steroids. Probably the most taboo subject in pro wrestling, on any level. I was clueless on the subject, relying on all of the stories and hearsay that you always hear in wrestling. It was the first time someone had mentioned them to me with any true knowledge, or even discussed it with me. The difference this time was that I really wanted to make my mark in Japan, and be asked back more regularly. I asked for specifics, citing that I wasn’t interested in sticking needles in my arse, and I was very wary of side effects. I was pointed to a steroid in tablet form, that I had time to cycle through before leaving. I researched it, and considered all side effects, before decided to try one cycle.
A tub of red tablets were given to me with the advice of, “don’t exceed the dosage, and drink plenty of water”. Apparently staying very hydrated would help keep away the back acne that people who abuse steroids get, and can be a notable telltale sign.
In all honesty, my experience of steroids was pretty uneventful. I could get those two workouts in, and I definitely felt better for having that help in recovery. I remember having an almost constant worry of being judged by others for trying it, and making sure I always had water with me. The biggest issue I found with actually ‘being on steroids’ was the constant anxiety of people finding out.
I don’t know what I expected from the experience, as in whether I’d suddenly have a square jaw, pulsating muscle definition, saggy nipples and an unreasonable anger, or ‘roid rage’. The reality was, I did my research on what I was taking, the advice I was given was sound, and that I didn’t misuse or abuse the substance.
Did it work?
It did, in that I was able to recover from some pretty intense and traumatic (to my body) workouts, and by the time I’d got on the plane, I’d done as much as I possibly could have done in the lead-up. I looked great in some of the photos taken whilst in Japan.
This was, however, the only cycle I ever did.
That was based purely on the fact that I couldn’t deal with ‘being judged on that’ factor, and that working out as much and as intensely as I was, was very unsustainable, and probably quite unhealthy in the long run. Also, I really didn’t want that square jaw. Or the ‘bacne’. Aside from that, I may have considered having another round later on in my ‘career’, but never really got the urge to follow it through again. I got lazy for a little bit after coming back from Japan, in that I still worked out, but to nowhere near the level of pre-Japan. I didn’t work out whilst in Japan either, as I struggled to find a gym that would let me use it as a foreigner with a (shit) tattoo.
That wasn’t sustainable, however I felt I lost a lot of shape. I had some promo photos done and I hated them as I thought I looked ‘doughy’. I wasn’t doughy at all, I was still in decent shape, the photos just weren’t very good. I don’t think I even publicly shared them, I hated them that much. It was clear that the ability to recover quicker, and go again bore results, but there was no-way I could carry on working out that way, and certainly not with any help.
I never discussed my decision to try steroids with anyone else, and I wasn’t too sure whether I’d include it in this write up. What swayed me is that I actually don’t think steroids are a terrible thing. Research is your friend with everything. We hear about abuse of things like steroids, and thats often what people’s lasting impression is.
Wrestling is a weird conundrum.
Its not a sport, yet we train as athletes. I look at a wrestler no different than I would a Hollywood actor, prepping for a role. You can’t tell me that the likes of The Rock and Mark Wahlberg don’t do them regularly…
Wrestling is performance art, live action stunt shows. I don’t know a performance, or sport that that the participants take more physical abuse in. We throw our bodies into the ground, multiple times a week. Shows, training, we traumatise our bodies in the gym. No one works harder than a committed professional wrestler. But I don’t care what anyone says, it isn’t a sport. We shouldn’t treat it as such.
Juken Pro Wrestler 