EPISODE 6 THE HAMMERLOCK

Now, my mother is a religious woman, so God himself must have had a word with her—because against all hope she let me go to the wrestling summer camp held by Hammerlock in the UK that August. Being at camp gave us a chance to drill the sport day in, day out for a full week, with different instructors and varying styles. Thankfully, I had the guidance and protection of my brother to keep me in line.

We got off the train after a two-hour journey from the airport at Sittingbourne, Kent. Richy pulled out the directions he had written on a sheet of paper and led us down a shifty-looking alley until we came to an equally shifty-looking side door. There right in front of us was a wrestling ring that had most certainly seen better days. Like in ’72, when it was probably new. We were in the right spot.

To the right of the ring was a bar, with about three or four small dark wooden tables in it. The room was filled with dodgy-looking geezers. The most dodgy-looking of them all was the owner, Andre Baker, like he had popped straight out of a Guy Ritchie movie and into this dingy gym. He was bald, short, and wide, covered in awful tattoos, with eyes that bulged out of his head like a pug’s. Despite Andre’s menacing look, there was a warmth and charisma to him. He was a dodgy geezer, but a nice dodgy geezer. The bar was for wrestlers only. I can’t imagine Andre had a liquor license. But it allowed him to make some more money, and for all of the wrestlers to unwind after a day of practice, and no one was going to be snitching anyway, because Andre was an intimidating lad.

Hammerlock had been featured on a TV show called Faking It. The premise was that people from different walks of life would train under a certain discipline for four weeks. At the end of the show, they would show off their newly learned skills alongside three actual professionals in that chosen discipline.

To my fifteen-year-old self, anyone who appeared on it looked like an A-list celebrity.

As different roster members would pop in during the day, we would nudge one another as if John Cena himself had walked into the room. One was a tall, blond, strikingly handsome twenty-one-year-old guy who was jacked out of his mind. I had seen him on Faking It and was instantly in love. Or I thought he was hot—same difference at fifteen. Turned out he took a liking to me too. That or I was the only option, once again being the only girl in the camp.

After our first day of training, I spent the evening in the filthy side lane, flirting with the British stud. And after a few drinks from the bar and no reservations, we were making out in the middle of a roundabout up the road. I loved this camp! Not only was I getting to do the thing that I loved and improve at it, but for the first time in my life, attractive men were paying attention to me and I didn’t even have to stalk them!

The days were long—nine hours of wrestling in a hot gym in the middle of summer with no air-conditioning. Sleeping on the mats or in the ring or under the ring, or, if you were really lucky, you’d get to sleep on the crash pad. After we’d been up until three or four in the morning drinking, our wake-up call came at 8:00 am in the form of a pit bull named Chester with the biggest pair of testicles I have ever seen on a mammal. Chester would come in bounding across our lifeless heads, teabagging anyone unlucky enough to have their mouth open.

Then the bright lights were turned on and it was time to head to the bar again. Only this time for small plastic cups filled with crappy instant coffee. Then to the mirror to see if anyone had shaved off your eyebrows in the middle of the night. Ribbing was alive and well in the NWA UK culture of wrestling.

Over the course of that one week, the class banded together to tie one lad up in red duct tape and hang him upside down like a giant fish as we posed for photos. I witnessed one guy shave his pubes and stuff them into another’s open mouth while he was sleeping. The owner of a large bottle of cider left it unattended for a pee break, only to return and, after taking a large, satisfying swig, realize someone had taken a pee break in his cider bottle.

Thankfully, my brother and I returned home unscathed but exhausted. A full week of that schedule—combined with little more nourishment than some French fries from KFC and Dooley’s toffee liqueur—hadn’t exactly done our bodies a service. But my wrestling had improved dramatically.

I went back to school a few weeks later with all the excitement of a summer’s worth of wrestling brimming in me, plus a newfound confidence that comes from dedicating yourself to a skill.

Even more exciting was that Paul and Fergal announced that we were going to have our very first wrestling show! In front of a real crowd. After wrestling for a little over six months, November 11, 2002, would be the date of my first show. My training was going to be kicked into high gear. My diet of bread and water would be strong—no veering off course now, Becky, the time has come!

As someone who had never really tried at anything in life, except maybe chasing boys, I found it was rewarding to learn that hard work does indeed pay off.

The week before the show, Paul and Fergal gathered the class to announce the card. We all stood around the ring eagerly waiting for our names to be called. Only when they got to the main event, my name hadn’t been called.

I didn’t get a match, and my consolation was to be a valet for my brother, who now went by the (awesome) name Gonzo de Mondo. I didn’t want to be a valet. I wanted to be a wrestler. And I’m sure my brother didn’t necessarily want to babysit me in his debut match either.

I was, however, put in the commiseration battle royal. That’s where they put the people who sucked. Along with almost everyone else—who’d already had matches—in an effort to fill out the numbers.

I was crushed.

I tried to reassure myself that it was just because I was the only girl. It might send a bad message to have a guy beating up a girl. But Chyna got to do it, damn it! And just a few more years of my brioche-based diet and I was gonna have muscles like her!

I had bought new baggy pants to wrestle in and was given a spot at the end of my brother’s match where I would do a hurricanrana off the top rope (you jump and wrap your legs around the opponent’s head and flip them over as you fall to the side) to his opponent in an effort to cost him the victory. I was just a blatant rip-off of Lita at this stage, just without the abs, shoulders, tattoos, or moonsaults—i.e., I was the “what comes in the mail” Lita, versus the “Instagram ad” Lita.

The day of the show, the audience of family and friends buzzed outside the curtain as we all got ready to go out and wow them with the best wrestling they had ever seen. I looked around at the congregation of young lads in tight booty shorts greasing themselves up with baby oil, making jokes as if they had done this before. Was no one else deathly afraid of what was beyond that curtain? Social rejection? Public humiliation?

As I questioned how I would fare should I have my own singles match one day, my brother was gearing up to make his entrance, as chill as if he were about to order a McDonald’s Happy Meal. I, on the other had could feel my lunch starting to reappear at the bottom of my throat.

“I’m gonna be sick,” I confessed right as the poorly played version of Richy’s entrance music rang through the large peach-colored hall. You see, Fergal had asked his brother’s “band” to play the entrance music for all the wrestlers that night. And by “band” I mean it was his brother on the drums and another lad with an untuned guitar attempting to play “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith.

My brother busted through the curtain nonetheless, swaggering confidently as if he was born to this. I tailed closely behind, hoping to pick up some charisma fumes that he might have left in his wake.

As I cheered generically at ringside, Gonzo wowed the crowd with his strength and finesse.

At last, it was time for my big moment. I hit my maneuver, not completely terribly. To put it any other way would be a lie. Kindly, the crowd went mad! It was enough for Gonzo to hit him with his finisher, the Demondo Driver!! One, two, three!! It’s all over!! So this is what winning feels like.

But I still had to go out for this battle royal! Normally with a battle royal, the winner is decided when all other opponents have been tossed over the top rope, leaving one person standing alone in the ring, victorious.

The problem with the battle royal in this case, apart from being mostly filled with the class’s rejects, was that we hadn’t yet learned to go over the top rope. Considering that ineptitude, the stipulation became that if you landed on your back you would be eliminated from the match. It quickly became hard for the audience to understand, as the ring was crowded with awkward bodies pretzeled around each other. Several times people tripped or botched their own moves, landed on their backs, and would hop up hoping no one noticed. Everyone noticed. And no one was impressed.

I took a body slam from a larger gentleman and rolled outside unceremoniously with a certain amount of relief.

Battle royal aside, I was on a high. The thrill of performing, the fact that we had more than two hundred people in the crowd and they had actually cheered for me. For Becky with the belly like a sack of potatoes.

Wrestling was in my bloodstream now and it wasn’t going anywhere.

I was now a professional wrestler. Sure, I hadn’t made any money, but I was a performer and I couldn’t wait for the next one.

This time, though, I wasn’t going to settle for being a valet or being in a nonsensical battle royal, even if it meant I had to fight for it.

“I want a match,” I told Paul.

“We just don’t have any girls for you to wrestle, and I’m not sure it sends the right message.”

“I work as hard as anyone,” I pleaded.

“I’m not saying you don’t; we just don’t have any other women, Rebecca.”

“That’s not my fault, though. It’s not fair that I won’t get the chance to have a match because I’m the only girl.”

Whether I hounded him just the right amount, or they were a person short, or the ghost of wrestling past visited Paul Tracey in his sleep, but he gave me my first real wrestling break by booking me in a tag match at the next show. He might as well have told me I was about to main event Monday Night Raw against “Stone Cold” Steve Austin for how much it meant to me.

However, as life goes—that is to say, all over the place—I ended up banging my head pretty badly taking a simple body slam early the day of the show during practice.

“I’m just going to go look at the trees for a second,” I announced to the class as I stumbled outside, trying to figure out how I had gotten down there and what day of the week it was. Where the hell am I?

I started a full medical examination in the privacy of my own head.

What’s your name?

Rebecca Mary Quin—born January 30, 1987.

Seeeee, I’m fine. I’m fine, guys. It’s all good; I’m fine.

Where do you live?

Glasnevin. No, wait, that’s not right! You moved—remember? Oh yeah, where was that to again?! Sutton? Howth?

Bayside, you idiot!

Oh yeah yeah yeah. Cool. You’re fine, Rebecca. Pick your chin up and go inside and don’t you tell a damn soul you’re fucked-up.

There was no way I was going to let forgetting where I was come between me and my big break.

Backstage, all of the lads were seasoned veterans now, with their one match under their belts. I had begged and pleaded to get this match and I wasn’t about to be seen as the rookie with the soft head. Show no weakness, I coaxed myself. And actually, my residual loopiness may have taken a bit of the edge off.

I was partnered with a big, burly man named Davey. A delightful Dub with all the strength of a silverback gorilla. We were the good guys (in wrestling terminology, the babyfaces).

Standing in the opposite corner was a heel (bad-guy) pairing of posh, ginger boys. One being the tall, gangly guy I mentioned earlier.

Davey was the perfect partner for me. Tagging with him was how I imagined it might be having a trained pet bear. I could taunt and rile up my opponents and he would come in and maul them to pieces. When they were incapacitated, he gorilla-pressed me and body-slammed me onto the evil villains, eventually allowing me to pick up the victory as the crowd gave this odd couple a big ol’ standing ovation.

I had just done my first proper match. And I had proved I could hang with the boys.

I wasn’t very good, but the crowd didn’t seem to care; they cheered regardless. Whether it was out of pity or respect for this young girl trying to hold her own with the lads, I felt like we had a connection.

It is that connection that would carry me further than I ever could have possibly imagined later in my career.