My first bit of wrestling action in August took me back to WrestleZone in Scotland, to Stonehaven. For the second time this year, as well, I’d have a travelling companion in Brother Skelly. He & I headed over to Total Action Wrestling back in April, and it was cool to have his company again for this trip.
Travel-wise, everything went nicely to plan. There was no Dublin-to-Aberdeen flight that morning, so we flew into Edinburgh, got the bus into Edinburgh city centre, and got the train to Aberdeen. We had about an hour to hang around Edinburgh city centre before the connecting train, and it was great to see it again. I’d had a nice break there a few years ago with ‘the missus’. The train journey was relaxing and enjoyable, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the train was going to be stopping off in Stonehaven, so Skelly & I got off there, rather than in Aberdeen. Gave us a few hours to chill out, and explore.
It was an absolute scorcher of a day, so we sat by the river awhile, shooting the shit, figuratively-speaking, along with shooting pigeons and children, literally-speaking. (Well…, not really..) It was cool having Skelly there- as I probably would’ve just wandered around the place awhile if I were ‘on my Tobler’- and it allowed for a rare “stop-to-smell-the-roses” moment, appreciating the opportunity to see the places we’ve seen; places we would never have got the chance to, if not for our involvement in wrestling. We probably never would’ve crossed paths, ourselves. I could apply that to most of the guys I’ve known, and formed friendships with, in wrestling. Would we ever have met, if not for our mutual involvement in this crazy activity? Who knows? It’s funny how life works out, and the various people you encounter, and collide with.
Stonehaven Town Hall was a great venue and, though the “unpredictability factor” kicked in, since the place hadn’t had a fix of wrestling in ten years, such worry proved unfounded, as the place was nicely packed out, once bell-time came around. Before that, however, I had the chance to do another training seminar with the WZ lads, who put in a terrific amount of effort again, as with previous seminars I’d done with them. It’s encouraging, and pleasing, to see them improving each time I come over. As well as that, they’re a great bunch of lads, so I like to see them progress.
Skelly opened the show in a very nice match with Johnny Lions, who I’d previously worked with twice in 2009, and enjoyed working with thoroughly. My own match was against the masked Blue Thunder, after the interval. There were two minor notes of interest, prior to this bout, though.
First, I was trying out tights for the first time. Pretty much since I started in 2005, I’ve gone with pleather, and I like it. As much as others tend to look down on pleather and kickpads- and regard them as “indy”- I like them. Fuck the “gear snobs”- I like my gear, and think it looks well, and suits my character and body type. That said, I do like to branch out on occasion, and try different things, so I wanted to give tights a shot. They felt good, and AWP did an awesome job with the gear design again, surpassing my expectations. I’ll be mixing and matching over the next while, I reckon.
The second point of note- and of slight concern to me- was that my right elbow was massively puffed-up with fluid at the time of that show. I’d banged it a few times in weeks leading up to the show, doing my big plancha to the outside- the “Sexual Harassment Plancha”- and having had a fall on it in a game of indoor football. The obvious answer would’ve been to wear an elbow pad, but I’d sold my only pair a few weeks before, to a trainee over here. I’ve never worn elbow pads, and just don’t like wearing them, but really could’ve done with one on this occasion, as I feared that one bad fall on it would pop the fluid sac in my elbow. I didn’t know what would happen if that was to occur, but I didn’t want to find out. Thankfully, one of the WZ trainees- a nice chap named Dave- loaned me a pad for the match, so I was all set.
The match with Blue Thunder went well, and I enjoyed it, but it was slightly marred by some idiot who jumped into the ring, early into the match. Full credit to the security staff, who had him out of there in very swift fashion. It took away from the match a little bit, though, and distracted the audience. Though we got them back, it was an unwelcome interruption to proceedings. Weirdly, when I took off my elbow pad after the match, the fluid had gone, and my elbow was back to its normal size. I probably bumped it out, or the fluid’s gone elsewhere; probably, my brain. That would explain a lot, actually…
As with previous trips to WZ, I stayed over in ‘Chateau Stirling’, with Alan & Cara. Regular readers of this blog (heh heh- yeah, right) might recall that last year, I hit a woman; granted, just a light, retaliatory slap, to a particularly foolish woman, but the point stands. Could I possibly sink lower, you’re wondering…? Heh. How about beating up an infant? Poor Jake- Alan and Cara’s two year old son- got a fair old pasting from this visiting Irishman, suffering an ankle lock, Walls of Jericho and my own G-17 finisher! He was quite a trooper, though, and sold them all nicely. He’s got a bright future ahead of him! The stay-over was, as always, very nice, and it was cool seeing Alan, Cara, Jake and Oliver again.
Skelly & I flew back from Aberdeen, though the flight was delayed by an hour or two. I usually find delays rather vexing if I’m flying solo, but it was fine having a bit of company, on this occasion, and we actually got to have a bit of lunch at the Airport, before the flight. The Sunday we flew back, incidentally, was the weekend that the London riots kicked off, so it was interesting to see that unfold over the course of the next week. An extremely bizarre situation. Nevertheless, we made it back to Dublin without any hassle, and parted company. It was a fun weekend, and enjoyable travelling with Skelly again.
The following week, wrestling writer Phil Allely dropped me a mail, and asked if I would be interested to do an interview for him. I was, and did, and the interview is here: http://www.famemagazine.co.uk/2011/08/24/irish-wrestler-bingo-balance-talks-indy-grappling/
The next weekend, I worked for Emerald Wrestling Promotions, in Galway, in the west of Ireland. EWP is Eamonn O’Neill’s promotion, and I found him a nice, sound chap to deal with. I drove to Galway with Joe Cabrey, Shawn Maxer and Phil Boyd, and the trip was fine. The show drew quite well for a Sunday matinée, and I worked Maxer in the second match.
For only the second time in my career, for lack of a better term, I was wrestling masked, as Eamonn wanted a masked wrestler on the show. Understandable, considering the popularity of guys like Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara. It was quite a knock to my vanity, though! Heh heh. (The other time I wrestled masked, by the way, was as a “Blagger Boy” for IWW, back in 2006. The Blagger character was a masked jobber, in a boiler suit and balaclava. Nearly everyone on the roster had done ‘Blagger detail’ at one point or another , and it was fun. There were a load of complaints about the Blagger characters, actually, when they appeared on Season 1 of Whiplash, in 2005; many thought they were IRA-type paramilitary characters!)
Rather than a balaclava this time, though, it was a standard lucha mask I’d be wearing. The mask, incidentally, was the gold ‘Space Cadet’ mask from IWW, previously worn by Brother Skelly, and the DCW/original incarnation of Space Cadet, who very kindly loaned it to me for the occasion.
The match went grand, though I have to admit I found it difficult working under the mask (as ‘The Lightning Kid.’) For one thing, it kinda fucked with my depth perception, particularly jumping for my springboard crossbody, a move I’ve done countless times over the last six years. It became slightly more difficult to judge the jumping distance, and so forth, but I landed the move alright. Following the unwritten rule that masked wrestlers on indy shows have to hit a 619, I hit the old.. eh.. the old 619, didn’t I? Heh heh.
After the interval, there was a royal rumble-type match, which was fun, as they usually are. I worked a bit with UK wrestler Stixx, who I hadn’t seen in a while. Nice fella.
It being a matinée, it was nice getting back on the road back to Dublin early, and I was home, myself, around half seven, with a few hours left in the weekend, to enjoy. That was a nice plus.
I was due to work my rematch with Andy Phoenix the following weekend, for DCW in Drimnagh but, due to some controversial goings-on, shall we say, the show was cancelled, the promoter abdicated, and the promotion has since been wrapped up. (I use that expression in a casual sense, not a business one.) All DCW’s faults and failings aside- most of which have been publicly aired in the weeks that followed- I enjoyed the few occasions this year getting to work locally, on shows with some of my mates, even getting to work with some of them. I hadn’t worked Vic Viper since 2009 or so, and it was great getting to have a few matches with him. It was nice to see some of the ‘old guard’ again, along with meeting a few new faces.
The following weekend, I flew back to Edinburgh. Though I’d been there only three weeks before, it felt a lot longer, weirdly. The flight over was hassle (and hen/stag party) free, which was refreshing. I spent the journey over getting stuck into a puzzle book. The turbulence made it somewhat difficult to colour within the lines. Heh heh. Nah, it was one of those puzzle compendium dealies, with crosswords, arrowords, Sudoku, etc. Passed the time quite quickly.
I was working for SWE in Dundee, and I got picked up by one of their workers, Claymore, and his fiancée, Charlotte, both of whom I’d stayed with when I worked the Hell for Lycra show last year. Nice seeing them both again, and catching up.
There was a fair bit of time to kill before the show, but it gave the opportunity to catch up with the WrestleZone lads, who were there as well, and Rob Cage, who I hadn’t seen since March of last year, when we worked a triple-threat match in SSW. Very sound man. Along with those lads, the show featured a few former WWF guys, in Ted Dibiase, Sr., Virgil and Tatanka, all of whom were very polite. I’d heard stories before that Tatanka was a bit of an asshole but, to be honest, he seemed like a nice guy, and was professional and friendly to everyone. Goes to show that most of what you hear in wrestling is bullshit, and you’re better off judging someone on your own experiences with them, rather than on stuff you hear. Unfortunately, more often than not, that’s not what happens, and hearsay generally becomes fact. Such is life…
The show was ‘Hell for Lycra VIII’, and was at the same venue as last year: Bonar Hall, in Dundee University. It’s a nice place, and a good venue for a show. Last year, I faced Scotty Swift in a very enjoyable match. This year, I was part of a six-way ladder match, with Rob Cage, EG Mackie, Don Roid, Martin Stallyon and Ian Ambrose. I was reticent about it in advance, due to the dangerous nature of matches like this, and because trying to plan six-way matches is insanely headache-inducing. My reservations about the latter proved fairly well-founded; planning was not fun. That said, it got done, and the actual execution of the match was great. Certainly turned out to be a lot more fun doing it than planning it! The crowd of around 300 or so were into the action, and it seemed to be many people’s favourite match on the card, which was cool to hear.
Regardless of the hassle trying to put everything together, it was very enjoyable working with all five of the other lads, and a really nice team effort pulling off the match, particularly the innovative finish; Rob and Martin were trapped under the bottom rungs of the ladder, Ian Ambrose and I were hung upside down (“tree of woe” style) on opposite sides of it, and Don Roid seemed to be making his ascent for the SWE Future Division Title. EG Mackie snuck in, though, and managed to grab it first, much to the approval of the crowd. Fun match, anyway.
SWE trainee Sam Ross very kindly put me up for the evening, after the show, and ran me back to the Airport the following morning, which was much appreciated. Very nice chap. The flight home was grand, and that was that for August.
In other stuff… I never had any major beef with Bruno Mars prior to recently. I found ‘Grenade’ to be a ridiculously overplayed, mildly irritating song, but that was a classic compared to the woeful ‘Marry You’, currently polluting the airwaves. Having had to wake up to that song for a few mornings in a row- as my alarm clock radio is set to Dublin station Spin 103.8FM- I have grown to DETEST it with a passion. It is the epitome of “crap” and- as someone who’s not really a morning person to begin with- has put me in fairly bad humour, the few occasions I’ve had to wake up to it… Grr…
Ending on a positive note, I give my thumbs up to the remake of Fright Night, which was a very entertaining, and fun film, and one of the few 3D films I’ve seen that used the technology fairly well. That said, I’m still not a fan of the whole ‘3D craze.’
That’ll do it. Cheers for reading, folks.
Ballance
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