19/04/2026
I wanted to be a high flyer.
Can you imagine? Me, flying around like a luchador?
Those who know me will read that and probably laugh their heads off!
And now that I've had a chance to find what works for me in wrestling, I can laugh as well!
When the idea of getting into wrestling was conceived in my mind, I thought my finish was going to be a springboard Swanton Bomb. My reasoning? Because not many people do that and it looks super cool!
But after quickly finding out that I'm not a super athlete, flippy boy or speed demon, and I'm still scared of heights (!), I made my character my strength and my approach shifted towards wrestling in a way that makes sense for the character I'm trying to portray.
And frankly, I'm much better for it.
I can speak from the perspective of a casual fan because that's what I am, and it wasn't all that long ago that I went to my first ever wrestling shows at my home school Kamikaze Pro Dojo.
What I remember most about the shows were the characters. A sports coach, a cat, a gremlin, a religious cult leader. Sure I remember how the matches finished, but the rest of the moves are kinda blurred together.
That's not a bad thing at all because maybe I want to get into a shouting match with a cult leader, maybe I want to count reps with a sports coach, whatever it is I want to come away from it thinking “I had fun!”
That's the approach I'm taking now. I want to wrestle not just for myself but for a crowd, especially casual fans or people who have never been to a wrestling show before and who want to come back again. Because I was a first time crowd member once and I remember what stuck out to me: the characters. So that's what I keep in mind now - how my character would act and what moves would make sense for me.
Its much easier on my aging body too!
Don't get me wrong, there's a sense of achievement in being able to do something really cool, and maybe one day I'll be able to pull off that springboard Swanton. But I get just as much fulfilment now in getting a crowd loudly invested in me and the story I'm telling, and hearing that they want to come back because of me.