-originally written Aug 30, 2010-
I'm not much of a blogger, to be completely honest. I don't tweet, rarely use the old FB "status" thingie, and genuinely don't think my life is interesting enough that folks care what I'm doing every second of the day, what brand of toothpaste I buy, what I do to relax or anything like that. I don't generally write a whole lot about wrestling, either. I've always felt a bit weird writing about it. Though the cat is well and truly out of the bag as regards to kayfabe, and so forth, I'm still somewhat reticent about writing about what I do. That said, I'm a strong believer that writing is therapeutic, and helps one to get their head sorted, and gather their thoughts. I also know "sharing is caring" or some crap like that (heh heh) and since you guys "cared" enough to like/join this page, I thought I'd "share" with you a bit about my experiences this year. Eh? See what I did there? Eh? Eh?? Ah, forget it... Anyway, if you can stomach my casual writing tone, and self-perpetuating egotism, please read on, and enjoy... Perhaps you might like to help yourself to a warm beverage, or some sort of modified pasty (Cornish, maybe), as a nice accompaniment, but let me not overstep my bounds...
JANUARY: 2010 kicked off for me in a quite unusual fashion in that my first booking took me all the way to Osnabruck, in Germany. An early morning flight had me in Berlin’s Schonefeld airport around 10 o’clock, or thereabouts, where I was met by Alpha Pro Wrestling ref Roberto, Ivan Kiev (a worker on the evening’s show) and another German worker whose name, unfortunately, escapes me at the moment. The journey by car, from Berlin to Osnabruck was an extremely tough five hours. I HATE road travel, by the way, unless I’m driving. It’s weird like that, but I don’t find a trip that bad if I’m behind the wheel. Anyway, with that in mind, the five hours (after a previous two hour Ryanair flight) were difficult, especially since none of the guys in the car spoke English, and my German is nowhere near good enough to maintain a conversation! It was a LONG five hours…
My one lasting memory from the journey to the venue would be us stopping along the way for a Burger King. The meal itself wasn’t the memorable part. (I should note, actually, that Germany was COVERED in snow at this point in time, and it was absolutely FREEZING. Really, really, really cold.) Once we were finished, we left the BK (where I had it MY way!) and walked to the car. At this stage, the German fella decided he fancied a smoke, and we all ended up standing around in the freezing cold while he finished his cigarette—longest four minutes of my life!
The show itself was in a weird location, in a kinda disco/nightclub hybrid, with quite a low roof. Thankfully, the ring was much softer than the last German one I worked in. In February last year, I worked for SWO in Kaiserslautern, and their ring was like concrete! Two months later, I worked for them again, but they had a different ring—softer, yes, but the canvas was peppered with fibreglass which made everyone itchy afterwards! In a similar vein to “Goldilocks and the three bears”- not that I’m likening myself, incidentally, to some bed-hopping young trollop- the third wrestling ring was JUUSST right! Soft canvas, more padding, no itching, and good ropes. All the tools were there and, thankfully, the match went well too, especially for a face vs face (good guy vs good guy) match opening the show. (Typically, a standard heel vs face match would be the ideal way to warm up a crowd for the show ahead. If you’ve never seen a wrestling show live before, it kinda trains you for what to expect, and the type of characters you’re likely to see. When to cheer, when to boo, etc. A babyface vs babyface match confuses the audience in a sense, as there are two guys vying for your adulation and respect. Generally, in my experience, these matches aren’t ideal to open a show with.) I worked with Bernd Foehr, Germany’s resident cruiserweight who I’d worked with before last February in the “concrete” ring! Bernd is very enjoyable to work with, and is a lovely guy, and we had some fun. He won our SWO match, and I got my win back here on the Alpha show, with my G-17 finisher. Hopefully, the decisive “rubber” match will happen somewhere down the line. I’d love to work with him again.
Five hours of road awaited after the show, and they were (again) exceptionally tough. I nearly drifted off on a number of occasions, but couldn’t sleep for any more than a minute or two. I got dropped back to the airport in Berlin around 3 or so, and spent maybe six hours waiting for my flight—horrible, especially since there were barely any seats around the place, and most shops were closed. I ended up lying on the ground somewhere upstairs, covered with my jacket, but couldn’t sleep. Those who think wrestling is all glitz and glamour? THIS is the unfortunate reality about wrestling—there’s a lot of waiting around, a lot of discomfort, a lot of bullshit, and a lot of strange situations you’d rather not find yourself in. Breaking it down, I had a two hour flight, and ten hours of road travel in order to work a seventeen minute match! It’s crazy, and it defies logic and, as a fairly logical guy, I often wonder why I do it, especially with all the niggling little aches and pains you pick up along the way thrown into the bargain. I do enjoy it, though. I love the in-ring stuff, seeing other places, and some of the people you meet along the way. (Some, not all.) The flight back was excruciating, and I was fucked. Really, really tired. I got back to Dublin, went home for a while, and then went to Naas for a show. Yeah, I know…
I knew in advance that scheduling a booking the same day I was getting back from Germany was a bad idea, but I still did it. There’s no fool, as they say, like an old fool! Why did I take the booking? For one, I don’t generally get to wrestle in the Republic of Ireland much these days. I worked with Irish Whip Wrestling for four years, wrestling all over the country, but I left them in June 2009, and have no plans to go back. Don’t get me wrong—I’m proud of my achievements in IWW; the matches I had there, the guys I trained, and the experience I amassed, but after four years, I wanted to try new things. That said, when I left, I hoped to continue working in Ireland, even though I knew that no one else was really running shows. I was pleased to hear NLW was running a show in Naas in January, and was even more pleased when I was offered a place on it.
I’d wrestled in Naas a few times before for IWW and, to be honest, the last show I’d done there left a very bad taste in my mouth as I’d taken part in a very scrappy three-way match which didn’t turn out well; along with this, I had been stiffed on pay (whereas my two opponents and even the fucking REF had gotten paid! A great ref, but still… It was an insult, considering my experience, and the effort I put into every match.) Anyway, this show for NLW was a chance to wipe the slate clean, and start over; thankfully, I had a terrific guy to work with on the night in Machine/Bonesaw McGraw, and he and I had a brisk, energetic and exciting match that I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve worked with Bonesaw a lot over the last twelve months, and think I’ve liked every match we’ve had—he’s a superb worker. This match nicely expunged any bad vibes from the previous Naas show the previous year.
Getting home at 10:30, I pretty much went straight to bed, and straight to sleep! I was knackered. That was it for January.
More to come...
- Ballance.
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