- originally written Dec 24th, 2010-
Last one this year-- promise!
Retro edition!!! Jeah! *fist bump*
I gotta say: doing a blog this year has been a bit out-of-character for me. As a person, away from wrestling, I’m quite private, and some people who have known me for years probably don’t know that much about me, truth be told! Socialising, I’d tend to be more of a listener than a talker; I don’t feel comfortable bleating on about myself nineteen to the dozen and, as I said in my first blog, I tend not to post statuses/stati on Facebook, as I don’t feel that my life is interesting enough to stick online. That’s not a knock at all on anyone that does, by the way—everyone uses social networking in their own way, and gains enjoyment from it however they see fit; live and let live. Such is the great thing about life—the various types of people you encounter, and the differing opinions they have, and ways they see the world. My own introversion, as it were, has always caused me to lean towards keeping my cards close to my chest, so writing about my experiences wrestling, and putting it out there, has been a departure for me. I’m surprised and pleased that some of you have enjoyed reading my stuff, and am grateful for the positive feedback that I’ve gotten on it.
I dealt with 2010 pretty exhaustively this year, but references to pre-2010 stuff have been a little bit fleeting, or vague, I guess. So, that’s what this one’s about. I genuinely toyed with the idea of just putting down some of my favourite Irish Whip stories in this, but without their proper context, they wouldn’t really mean much, and the experience would be a little hollow. Confession time: I generally cheat a little bit, by the way, when I write these things; I’ll write the main body of what I want to say, and then stick in a fitting intro, afterward. This time, I started with the intro, began writing, then realised that there was no way I was gonna be able to condense the information I wanted into a blog; there’s too much. As a result, this is more of an ‘origin’ story, in the spirit of ‘Batman Begins.’ This is ‘Ballance Begins.’ Heh heh. Maybe, at some point down the line, I’ll find a more suitable medium through which to get out all my stories, anecdotes, info, etc.…
I think most people at this stage have probably read a wrestling autobiography or two and- I can only speak for myself here- there’s always that temptation just to skip through the childhood/growing up crap, and get straight to the wrestling! Maybe that’s just me? I don’t know. Anyway, I’ll be brief with my own, ‘cos this ain’t an autobiography. (That’s coming next year: ‘On the Wings of Tomorrow: The Bingo Ballance Story.’ Heh heh.) My first experience with wrestling was when I was seven or eight. A Spanish student was staying with my family at the time, and he introduced me to WWF, as it then was. One of my earliest memories is Razor Ramon squashing some jobber on WWF Superstars, or one of those shows. I got hooked on it, and absolutely loved it. (That was around 1992, or so.) It played a large part in my childhood; I remember my first WrestleMania (8), and also remember when I was on holiday in Tenerife that year; we were in a shopping arcade that had a big screen and seating in the centre of it, and watched Survivor Series ’92. I was a big Bret Hart fan, and was “totally stoked” (as they say in the States) that he beat Shawn Michaels in the show’s main event. In 1993, however, WWF disappeared off Sky One—or Sky One disappeared off terrestrial TV; I can’t remember. Either way, wrestling was gone for me. Sad as this sounds, I used to listen to the matches and shows on the scrambled Sky Sports channels. There was no picture, but the sound was clear, so I used to just listen to the shows. Sad? Yes. But I loved it. I couldn’t get enough of it. Desperate times, as they say…
I also rented loads of old PPVs on VHS from Xtra Vision (the local video rental outlet), along with watching WCW on ITV (when it was on) and watching some of their old shows on video, too. In ’94, my folks got a satellite decoder (with the Sky Sports channels) and my access to wrestling was back. My parents really indulged my love for wrestling (in a healthy way) and were amazingly kind like that; on another trip away, they bought a shitload of the WWF stickers before they left, and hid them around the apartment every day for me to find. That I remember stuff like that goes to show, first, I’ve a weird memory and, second, the impact wrestling had on me as I was growing up! I went to my first live WWF show at the Point in Dublin, in 1995, and it was amazing, from what I remember. There’s more stuff, I’m sure, but I don’t want to get bogged down in the early years, or we’ll be here all day!
Over the years, from my primary school days through secondary school and even through university, I continued to watch, and enjoy. I started to ‘get’ wrestling- and watch it from a different perspective- as I got older, and really began to appreciate, primarily, the in-ring stuff. I liked the ‘smaller’ guys like Jericho, Paul London, Austin Aries, Brian Kendrick, Billy Kidman, Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero, the Hardys, etc etc., and appreciated their matches. It was always something that I wanted to try, myself, but I felt in the back of my mind that that was impossible. I wasn’t aware of any independent promotions in Europe, and felt that all the action, as it were, was going on in the States. In 2005, that changed.
It’s funny the course that your life takes, and how sometimes, things feel fated. I don’t believe in a ‘divine plan’ or ‘destiny’, or stuff like that, but it’s funny how sometimes aspects of your life feel like a precursor to something else, like a link in a chain. I worked part-time in McDonald’s in Dublin from 2003 until 2006 and, in 2004, met another wrestling fan who I worked with, called Ian. We got on fairly well, and he got his mate Stephen a job in McDonald’s too. I got on very well with Stephen, through our mutual love of wrestling, and similar outlooks on life, and he tipped me off to a show going on in Dublin, in March 2005, featuring AJ Styles and Chris Daniels. (I was on a major ROH buzz at the time, so this sounded good to me.) We got tickets to the show—the Irish Whip Wrestling Supershow, in the SFX Theatre in Dublin city centre. (The SFX is now, unfortunately, a parking garage.) Stephen, his mate Bryan and I headed along, enjoyed the show, and went to a couple of subsequent IWW shows around the area. I learned, through attending the shows, that IWW had a training school in Dublin, and this was music to my ears; it was something I definitely wanted to try. I put off joining until the summer of 2005, as I was in the second year of a very intense university course, and needed to focus on my degree.
I finished up my second year college exams at the end of May, and a week or two later, made the trip down to the Irish Whip gym in Baldoyle (in north Dublin.) I knocked on the roller shutter, and could hear the noises of the ring in use on the other side; I didn’t know what to expect. Vic Viper opened up, and I recognised him from the few shows I’d seen him on. Though Vic came across as a brooding, taciturn heel on shows, he was a really nice guy to talk to, and answered all my questions patiently, and gave all the info I needed. I signed up that day, and arranged to have a private class with Vic the next day, aided by Seán South, who was almost like a teaching assistant. Stephen joined me, and we made the trip together. We bumped, and learned the basics, and my neck was in agony the following morning; par for the course with bumping for the first time! It’s using muscles your body isn’t used to using, so it can be a bit of a shock to the system.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I did a few more private classes, with Vic and with Red Vinny, and also joined in the group classes, too, when I felt I wouldn’t be holding the others back. (Stephen joined me for a while, but I think he stopped enjoying it, or his priorities changed. It’s a shame, though, as he definitely had potential. I continued solo.) Though I genuinely hate blowing my own trumpet, as it were, I picked up the basics incredibly fast, and was pleased with my progress, as was Vic. (It needs to be noted, at this point, the effort Vic put into training during that period. Sheamus—yes, WWE’s Sheamus—and Red Vinny were both credited as the Head Trainers in IWW, but both were busy with their jobs, and didn’t made it down that often. Vic, who never got credited publicly as being a trainer, was down in the lock-up several days a week, ensuring the place was open, and that people could train. The word ‘sacrifice’ is thrown around a lot in wrestling—almost to clichéd proportions—but Vic genuinely did sacrifice a lot of his time and energy to keep the School running, and it deserves mention.)
Three weeks to the day from my first private class, there was a Gym Wars show in the training school. The Ballymun Bruiser (who I’d recently met in training, when we did a bit of chain together, and got along well with) advised me before to come down and bring some gear, just in case, and I did as asked. Though, as a trainer, I’ve always advised people against this course of action, I ordered some gear off the ‘Net within a week or two of joining, including a pair of pleather pants from Highspots. I was all-set, gear-wise, when the time came. At Gym Wars, Vic pushed for me, and I got a spot in a battle royal. It was an absolute clusterfuck, but it was the first step (or one of the early steps, anyway) on my wrestling ‘journey.’
At this Gym Wars, too, I met IWW’s promoter for the first time. Though he and I developed a good working relationship over time- and my opinion of him evolved as we got on better- in the early days, I found the man to be an absolute fucking prick, to put it very mildly. The first time I met him in my capacity as an IWW trainee was to discuss my ring name. I’d come up with a few ideas, and was pitching them to him. To set the scene: he was standing with his back to one of the walls, and I was facing him at a forty-five degree angle. He never looked at me once, shot down all my ideas, offered none of his own, and kept his sunglasses on (though we were indoors) the whole time. He was standoffish, blunt, fairly rude, and I didn’t like him. I may have been a little over-eager, but I’ve always been a polite guy, and always represent myself fairly well when meeting people for the first time. Regardless, the début was in the can—I débuted under the name Matt Richards; a little bland, though I have to say my preference was for a ‘real’ name, rather than something cartoonish.
I continued training hard in the weeks after, and one Monday night, a break came. I drove down to the lock-up in Baldoyle to help with the process of taking apart the ring, as it was due to be used the following day on a show in Trabolgan, in Co. Cork. (Trabolgan is a holiday camp in the southwest of Ireland, and during the summer of 2005, Irish Whip would do a show there every Tuesday.) I arrived to find only Vic there. I gave him a hand, we chatted, and after a while, Manson (‘Mad Man Manson’) and Bruiser arrived with the van. I helped with the loading, and they appreciated that I was there to help out. Someone put in a good word on my behalf, and I was invited to go to Trabolgan the next day, to the show.
The experience was mixed—I got my first singles match, but also was forced to strongly question whether this was a world I wanted to be a part of. I had to be up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus out of Dublin city centre to this place in the back-arse of nowhere (as we say in Ireland) called ‘Borris-in-Ossory.’ From there, I’d be picked up by the promoter, and a few of the other wrestlers, and we’d make the rest of the long journey to Trabolgan, in Cork. It was a minivan we were travelling in, and I was sitting in front of the promoter who, for the entire journey, decided to ‘hilariously’ rib me, and take the piss, for his own amusement and as one of these pathetic little wrestling tests/initiations that make absolutely no sense to anyone in the real world. It’s bullshit. Though he’s about ten years older than me, he displayed the maturity of someone about a third of my age, drawing on my neck in magic marker and, in general, being an insufferable cunt, pardon my French. I’m all for having a laugh, and having fun, but I didn’t find this particularly pungent brand of crap amusing. But for the fact that 1) I’m not typically a violent guy, 2) I was reliant on the van for transport, and 3) I didn’t want to blow my opportunity to wrestle, I would’ve cracked the fucker in the jaw as soon as we arrived. That said, I definitely think restraint paid off in the long run.
The ‘Matt Richards’ name was being replaced, and I was given the choice between two others: ‘Dropkick Murphy’ or ‘Bingo O’Malley.’ (Both dreadful, but neither were the worst names that have been used in the promotion! The promoter had many strengths—naming people was not amongst them. From the Horrible Name Hall of Fame: Ted E. Bear, B. Ling Bling, Mickey Magpie, Ray-Gun Rooney, Billy Boy, Popcorn Ryan, Danger Doyle, Blaze Bailey, The Bosco Hanley, Working Class John, Paddy Whack, Fritz Fitzpatrick, and Skaterboy Jeebus—never met the guy in my time there, but it’s an abysmal name. Not his fault. You play the hand you’re dealt.) Anyway, Bingo was chosen for me, and I wrestled my first match as “Bingo O’Malley.” (I was amused to discover last year that there’s an actor in the States by that name, who starred in the remake of My Bloody Valentine.)
Of what I can remember of the match, it went fairly well. Certainly not a bad first singles match, especially for someone who’d only started training about five or six weeks before. My strikes needed work, along with my selling and feeding, but the experience of wrestling in front of a couple of hundred people was excellent, and thoroughly enjoyable.
The trip back to Borris-in-Ossory was, like before, difficult and awkward, and put a sour note on what should’ve been a good day. It was a bit deflating. A few days later in training, though, I got a bit of advice, and a pep talk, that turned things around.
Though a little cynical as a person, I was a bit naïve to wrestling. You can read all the autobiographies in the world, and all the gossip on the ‘Net but, truly, to understand wrestling and the inner-workings, you need to be in it; in the thick of it. I thought that everyone got on with the promoter, and that he just had a problem with me for some reason. Bruiser took me aside outside training, and I told him what had happened on the trip to Trabolgan and that, honestly, I wasn’t interested in working shows, if I had to deal with him; the promoter, that is. I didn’t care about progressing; I’d keep training as I had been, for myself, to get better, and because I enjoyed it. Bruiser and I got on well together at that point, and we had a laugh, but I think that was the point he actually seemed to gain respect for me. Bruiser proved himself to be a true friend with the advice he gave me. He could’ve agreed with me, and advised me to stay off shows, in order to ‘protect his spot’, but he didn’t. He allayed my fears that everyone else liked the promoter and got on with him, and revealed that most couldn’t stand him, and thought he was “a cock.” This was encouraging. He told me to stay the course, and to keep doing what I was doing, and gave me the drive I needed to continue on. That conversation meant a lot, and was a key turning point for me.
Two years later, the Zero Gravity show rolled around. I was nervous; I had three matches ahead of me, and my main worry was that the crowd wouldn’t accept me as champion, or winner of the tournament, and it would fall flat. (That didn’t happen, thankfully.) Bruiser was there again with a pep talk and told me that it was “[my] night” and that I deserved it. He fired me up, and it was a really, really nice thing to say. Along with that, he was there post-match to congratulate me, once the final with Pac was over. (As someone who was a key advocate of keeping kayfabe—or ‘staying in character’—I appreciated him making an exception!) Like mentioning Vic’s dedication to training earlier, Bruiser’s role in helping me out early on definitely deserves mention, and no account of my career origins, as it were, would be complete without him.
So, how did Bingo Ballance come about, you ask, when it was Bingo O’Malley? There was a ‘trainee forum’ at the time, on the IWW website, and the promoter was thanking everyone who had come to the Trabolgan show the previous day. Bruiser put something to the effect of “congrats, Bingo” on the thread, in relation to my first match, and I replied, semi-jokingly, with “It’s Ballance, dammit!!” (and possibly with some sort of emoticon after that. Most people called me “Ballance" at the time.) The promoter shot back with something like: “Grand. That’s settled, so. From now on, you’ll be Bingo Ballance.” It’s stuck since then. A lot of people asked me why I never changed it once I left IWW in 2009. (I hated being called “Bingo.” Even to this day, I prefer to be called by my real name, or “Ballance.” This is with the obvious exception of the audience or fans.) Simply put, I put in over four years’ worth of hard work under that name up to that point, and had busted my ass to try and earn a good reputation, so I didn’t see the point in changing it. That, plus it’s catchy! It’s got a lyrical quality to it.
There’s loads more from that first year, but the main turning point was a match with Mad Man Manson at Gym Wars 8. I was very happy with it, Manson looked after me (and I suspect had been pushing for me even further behind the scenes) and the promoter began to treat me a little more soundly than he had been, after it. Post-Trabolgan, he pretty much ignored me, which is what I wanted, but I think I was on his radar a little bit after that match, and in a slightly more positive light. Our relationship began to improve, and my career continued on into 2006, and up to the present day. Loads and loads and LOADS of stories since then, but this blog ain’t big enough to hold them! Maybe another time...
Anyway, there we have it. Bloody long blog! If you’re still reading, I admire your patience! Fair play. That’s me done, blog-wise, for 2010. I don’t know what the story is for next year, but I don’t imagine I’m done writing just yet. Heh heh. Not by a longshot.
Happy Christmas to ye, and cheers for reading.
Ballance
No comments:
Post a Comment