A British Wrestler’s Diary

Long time no see, back in February I had a fairly major injury so there hasn’t been a lot for me to update, and training has been fairly uneventful, so I’ve been waiting for this weekend to pass before I added a new entry.

This past weekend was my first show since my injury. The weekend began on Thursday, where I took a trip to the general area of the show with my family, since I am unable to drive yet due to a few factors, and the show itself being held around 200 miles from where I live, it was nice to have a little change of scenery, if for a brief time.

On Friday, me and my family went out for lunch, and I cooked myself a high protein dinner in the evening, an uneventful, but easy day.

Saturday came along and I was suddenly a lot more nervous than I had been, while shaving my body and applying some last minute fake tan, I felt on the verge of throwing up a few times, I suppose the fear of ring rust was finally starting to kick in, this was of course my first match since that injury, and the first match in a few months, so I guess that’s pretty natural. After packing my suitcase we were off to the venue, about an hour’s drive from where I was staying, so once again not the most convenient.

I arrived at the venue feeling a little lighter, the other wrestlers said hi and we all engaged in some light small talk before the ring arrived. But once again I couldn’t escape that feeling of being an outsider, it’s a feeling I’m pretty used to, on shows with a lot of guys who train together and wrestle on the same shows regularly, I’m bound to not know the old stories or understand the in jokes, but it still makes me feel a little lonely, I wish I could be on the inside of these relationships for once, wrestling on shows around people who know me, who I share jokes and stories with, but as long as I’m unable to get to training regularly enough, I doubt I’ll ever be good enough to get on the school’s shows in my coach’s eyes, which sucks, but ultimately there’s only one solution to it.

After the ring was set up we had about half an hour to come up with our matches, my opponent was pretty easygoing, so it was pretty easy to come up with a good match structure, before we all had to get changed into our gear for the pre show meet and greet. The whole time I was thinking to myself “why do we have to be in gear for this? Surely the fans understand we’re not in our costumes 24/7?” But I suppose it may have been for the fans to more easily discern who were wrestlers and who were their fellow observers. My match was shockingly positioned towards the end of the card, in a spot specifically designed to cool the crowd down for the main event to bring them back up, which sucked a little for the artist in me, but it without a doubt made my job easier, so swings and roundabouts I guess. As the match grew closer my nerves grew also, and when the match before ours had finished my heart was racing, my hands were cold and I could barely stay upright, so pretty regular for me pre match. My music hit, I went through the curtains ready to yell— and nothing came out of my mouth, my chest was tight, and my throat closed up, luckily I was able to disguise it (I hope) as cool confidence, as I handed out pieces of merch I carried with me to random crowd members, I realised my legs felt about as heavy as a lorry, but at this point it was far too late to head back through the curtain and have a panic attack, so I kept up to the apron, stepped into the ring, hit my signature pose, and thank god, the crowd erupted. The match started, and my mouth suddenly became as dry as Antarctica (the world’s largest desert, Google it!) and my ability to focus on just about anything faded from my mind.

I hit the moves we planned, sold as best I could, made sure to try and keep moving constantly, and just about managed to get through the match, although, my opponent forgetting a key spot did mean we finished up about 2 minutes before we were meant to, but the whole time my brain was screaming at me to put more effort into everything I was doing, but my body just wouldn’t listen, I thought to myself “god, I must look like shit out here” but even if I thought it, the crowd seemingly didn’t. and as I hit a huge move to cut off my opponent’s momentum, they cheered even louder than before, which gave me enough confidence and the slight boost in energy required to hit the sprint to hit my finishing clothesline. Whoever says that crowds don’t matter in wrestling is a dirty little liar.

The match was over, I yelled out a call to action to the crowd, and they responded even better than I wanted them to.

No one was hurt, no one was upset, it went as well as it could’ve under the circumstances.

I just hope that next time it’ll be a little less difficult.

Today I’m grappling with some conflicting thoughts.

I’m happy that my fitness is improving, I’ve dropped 6KG over the past 3 weeks, but I’m still dealing with feelings of jealousy and self loathing whenever I see wrestlers I know who look better than me.

It’s shallow to think I know, but a lot of it is just the fact that I want to be attractive, I wanna be the guy people on here and Instagram make thirst posts over, I wanna be the guy that women (and some men) really want.

It should be that I want to improve so I can be better in the ring, and I do, but part of me is just focused on the aesthetic.

Beyond that, I’ve been working on adding new moves, I have some that will hopefully spice up future matches a little, and one that will add a little depth to my performances.

Headstands and Frustration

Today was another different coach than usual, which brought an entirely new set of annoyances and challenges.

The cardio was a little better, although I tweaked my ankle during the conditioning section, which would affect me for the rest of my session today. So I wasn’t able to keep up with the running, jumping and burpees as much as everyone else, but at least it wasn’t because I was sucking air.

During the portion that had us conditioning our neck muscles, I was able to hold a full headstand for a full minute, which I had never even attempted before, so I was very happy with that.

The main aspect of frustration today was my inability to take a fireman’s carry takedown, for some reason my body would just not move when my opponent was on his knees, which caused me to nearly lose my temper at myself, which is something I thought I had grown beyond, but apparently not.

Some ground rules, I won’t be answering anything that would reveal who I am (real name, where I’m from, companies I’ve wrestled with etc.)

“Improve Your Cardio”

Today wasn’t the most fun session for me, my biggest issue has and continues to be my terrible cardio, training began with fairly normal conditioning, jogging on the spot, high knees, push ups etc. And then we did 90 Squats, despite my quads feeling like were about to fall off the bone like one of those videos of pulled pork on Instagram, I managed to push through, then it was time for burpees, and that’s where it began to fall apart, I was slower than everyone else, couldn’t do as much, and was just generally worse. I want to make the excuse that it’s because I’m a bigger guy, so I have to drag more mass, but I’ve seen guys my size do this stuff no issue, so it was a little embarrassing.

Running and Rolling drills weren’t as bad, since my good technique carried me decently enough, I was fairly happy with how all that went.

Finishing the session was about an hour of practicing a fairly basic international, I worked at my usual pace, good footwork, and good bumps. After every run through of the sequence, I didn’t really get any feedback, and I’m torn between thinking “is it because what I did was good? Or was it because I’m not worth it to give feedback?” but as I was told after, my cardio needs to improve, so my pace can improve, and I can show more intensity.

It’s a little disheartening that even after all this time I still struggle, but I’m still as determined as ever.

On this account, I will be going by the name Felix, it isn’t my real name or my ring name, but I like how it sounds, so apologies to any wrestlers out there named Felix.

I’ve been wrestling on and off for about 2 years now, I’m in my early 20s, and thus far my career has been a series of steps forward and jumps backward,

I tell people that my only talents in the world are wrestling and writing (even if I may be lying about the first) and I thought it would be good to combine the two. I hope it’s an enjoyable reading experience.

In this diary I will talk about my matches, training sessions and general run ins with the world of British Wrestling.