EPISODE 12 THE HEAT

Even with this brand-new unbelievable offer, after being admonished so many times by Shima I felt like I had failed in Japan.

As a result and on brand, I began to try even harder. My matches started to become more complicated. Now that I had wrestled in Japan (albeit badly), I acted like I was better than I was and tried things I couldn’t pull off. I attempted difficult spots without fully grasping the psychology behind them. Nonetheless, faking it till I could make it, I was continuing to build hype around the world.

Fergal had moved across the country to train at the New Japan dojo located in Santa Monica, California. I came to stay for a few weeks in March and maybe pick up a thing or two or a booking or two.

I didn’t pick up much of either, truth be told.

The dojo was a large warehouse, with a ring, a weights area, showers, a kitchen, and a large padded area. We slept on old mattresses in the rat-infested attic. Fergal, being the incredible talent he is, had already made a name for himself in the short time he was there.

A couple of weeks into my stay at the dojo, Fergal got called to train in Tokyo, as what is called a young boy—essentially an apprentice wrestler.

When he left, I knew it would soon be over between us. The distance was too great and over the last few months I had simultaneously become demanding, clingy, and too scared of losing him. Whether that was a result of ego, or insecurity, or a combination of both, it didn’t really matter; he was about to live out his dream, and I wasn’t going to be part of it.

He would eventually go on to become one of New Japan’s biggest stars and create one of wrestling’s most talked-about factions—the Bullet Club.

But by the time he left we were barely talking.

I dropped him at the airport with one of our friends and fellow dojo roommate Chad Allegra (aka WWE’s Karl Anderson), and we didn’t as much as hug goodbye.

Chad comforted me as I sobbed my eyes out when Fergal left. Too embarrassed to tell Chad the truth, that I was devastated by my broken heart, knowing that this move meant me and Fergal would surely be over, I blamed my hysteria on an illness in the family.

On the phone, my cousin urged me to come back to Canada as I bawled, “I feel like a part of me just died.”

I always did have a propensity for the dramatics. But this was my first real love and I had fucked it up. Now he was going away forever, leaving me behind. When he made it to Japan and called me a few days later, we agreed the relationship was over but that we would always remain friends. But to quote the famous song by the band The Script, “When a heart breaks, no, it don’t break even”—and I was absolutely the more devastated one.

I came back to Canada, and like every heartbroken teenage girl, I set my sights on getting a better body. As if that would heal the pain and make him want me back.

I was offered to do custom matches in North Carolina by a company called Ring Angels, along with a lingerie photo shoot for $150, which sounded like a small fortune to me.

It was, of course, completely against anything I had set out to do. I wanted to prove that I should be looked at for my technical ability, and had never wanted to sexualize myself lest that take away from my credibility as a wrestler.

I did it anyway.

In my confusion, my heartbreak, my wanting to make it to the top and feel good about myself, I justified, All the WWE girls do it; it’s just part of the job.

I hated it. I hated every second of it. Trying to fit into the mold that I had so vehemently set out to break felt like I was selling my soul for $150. I still cringe every time I see those photos—this fluffy, awkward nineteen-year-old trying to look sexy while so obviously feeling uncomfortable. It can be so confusing being a woman in wrestling. Doubly so when you’re raised Catholic. You see what the women on TV are doing and think that’s how to get ahead, but you also don’t want it to come with the objectification, so you wonder if you should shun your femininity completely. It’s a fine disorientating balance to be walked carefully when it should be easy. Just be you and do what you love well. But instead of realizing that I didn’t need to sell myself as a hot little sex kitten, I put more emphasis on my body. As if that were the only thing that could lead me to greatness.

I cut my calories in half and pushed the intensity at the gym. It wasn’t long until I started seeing big changes, in both my body, my mood (not for the better), and my pure obsession with the physical.

In the midst of my identity crisis, my Canadian visa was also coming to an end soon and if I didn’t find a way to stay I would have to return to Ireland, where I promised my mom I would go back to college. The hourglass was running out and there was nothing I could do to stop the sand from falling.

I even had to drop my coveted SuperGirls title. At least it was to Lisa Moretti, formally known as Ivory in WWE.

I had grown up watching her on TV and was massively intimidated by the prospect of working with a future WWE Hall of Famer, but she couldn’t have been nicer. Having left WWE a year previous, she felt like she was out of practice and listened to my ideas with no ego about her whatsoever. Unfortunately for both of us, my ideas sucked. Don’t get me wrong, the match had its good moments… and a lot of bad ones too. When I came back, Starr looked at me with a wry, disappointed smile.

“What happened?” he asked.

“It wasn’t good?” I responded, rhetorically really.

“Not like it usually is.”

I tried too hard. Overcomplicated it. Overcompensated.

Lisa, however, was thrilled or at least feigned as though she was. She thanked me, complimented me, and pretended to hand the title back to me.

“This belongs to you.” She laughed giddily.

Starr was right, though. I was capable of better. But on this night, as would be the case with many other upcoming nights, I tried to be something I wasn’t.

I left Vancouver heavyhearted. A lot had happened in that one year. I had changed and grown in many ways. I had reached and achieved all my dreams in that first night in Japan and instantly began to spiral uncontrollably downhill afterwards, believing my own shit far too quickly.

I had done the things I said I wouldn’t and with that found new insecurities that rapidly began eating me up as I floundered at home, looking, in a panic, for ways to make it to the big time before the summer was up.

Or certainly before I turned twenty. Because after that, I had decided, I was too old. I needed to be seen as the teenage protégée I was and get signed by one of the bigger companies, be it WWE or, more preferably at the time, TNA, where they put more emphasis on women’s wrestling, while I was still nineteen, or, truthfully, before Fergal did, so that I could validate myself as being worthy and make him want me back.

Back to Ireland I went, now living under my mother’s roof again, and considering my previous promise to her, she was pressuring me to have a plan.

I didn’t have one, other than I planned to get signed. But that wasn’t practical enough and she did not want me out there slinging pillows at another woman in a G-string.