EPISODE 14 THE FALSE FINISH

Italy had become a hot spot for wrestling, with some promotions drawing upwards of ten thousand people, so when I was invited for a tour, despite my existential crisis, I jumped at the opportunity.

I got off the plane into the muggy summer heat and was guided to the tour bus where two pleasant Canadian heads popped up from behind navy bus seat cushions.

“Hi! I’m Kevin!”

“Hi! I’m Rami!”

Kevin and Rami, aka Kevin Steen and El Generico, aka Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, would go on to become two of the most beloved wrestlers in all of WWE, and WrestleMania main eventers.

But back then, they were just two best friends with a following on the independent circuit, bantering back and forth like a couple of old hens, and they were kind enough to let me join in their friend gang.

My opponent never showed up, leaving me as the only girl, meaning there was no other option but to put me in a match with Kevin and Rami. Two of the best wrestlers in the world, they carried me through some barn burners… even if there was no one there to see it.

The buildings had a capacity for about five to ten thousand people. Our best night drew one hundred people max. And even that’s a stretch.

What the promoter failed to recognize was that advertising was a big part of getting people to come out to see a show, and having some big stars people would actually pay money to see. Not that we weren’t big international draws at the time (we weren’t). Yes, Kevin and Rami had big names on the indies, but to garner audiences in the thousands, wrestlers who had been on TV were preferable.

In between shows I binged on cereal and threw up constantly without trying to hide it, passing it off as drinking the dodgy tap water.

Even though I was struggling mentally and physically, Kevin and Rami offered reprieve for my broken soul. The two of them, who had traveled the world together for years, behaved like a comical old married couple, entertaining everyone on the roster with a 24/7 sitcom.

Though the tour hadn’t been a success in how things are standardly measured and I was weak from wrestling and vomiting nonstop, I was sad to be leaving my newfound friends.

I still had one more weekend of bookings before I shipped off to Orlando.

Now slightly thicker than I had been recently, I rocked up to a venue in Germany and was greeted by one of the UK’s most respected wrestlers, Doug Williams. “No more abs?” he asked as if I weren’t a teenage girl with a complex. More tone-deaf than malicious.

“No, Doug. I have a fucking eating disorder and was killing myself” was what I wanted to say.

But instead, I just laughed and said, “Ha-ha, apparently not,” and then cried in the bathroom.

My opponent was green as goose shit, but I wasn’t in the business of toning it down for anyone anymore. I had wrestled internationally, had made a name for myself, had numerous tours of Japan under my belt, and was a regular main eventer.

I had the X factor. Someone on MySpace told me so.

We were having the match I wanted to have and it was going to be great. Whether my opponent liked it or not. Or whether she knew what she was doing or not. My previous goal of making everyone look good was now reduced to just trying to make myself look good.

But on this fateful night, I made no one look good!

She did not, in fact, know what she was doing.

The result being…

We went out there and stunk up every convoluted spot we attempted.

After one botch too many, the crowd started chanting, “Women’s wrestling.”

Nowadays, if the crowd chants, “Women’s wrestling,” it is meant as the highest of compliments. Back then, it was meant as the harshest of insults.

In a rage I grabbed the girl and attempted an impressive modified version of a German suplex. Terrified, not understanding what was happening, she clung on to me for dear life, landing right on my eye. The only thing impressive about my attempted move was the sheer volume of blood it caused to pour out from above my eye.

Almost immediately I couldn’t see out of my left eye. It looked like the whole world was smeared with red paint.

I was furious at her for being so incompetent that she got me in this position, but it was my fault for trying too damn hard. Even at nineteen, I was the veteran and I should have known better.

I finished the match with blood pouring down my face and was brought to the hospital right after.

I had a concussion and the large gash above my eye needed stitches.

My biggest concern was how to hide the injury from my mom. She was already looking for me to get out of wrestling. If I came home looking like Frankenstein, she would lose her mind.

The next day, I arrived in Norwich to wrestle for a lady who was considered somewhat of a legend in British wrestling—Sweet Saraya. She only weighed about one hundred pounds but had a reputation for being a hard hitter in the ring. But then again, so did I. She was always great to me. And on this particular occasion she was an angel.

She met me at the airport and brought me back to her house to coddle me like a real British mammy, because she was one. She lit up as she introduced me to her kids, Zak, fourteen, and Saraya, thirteen. In one of those rare situations that can only happen in wrestling, she had bestowed her working name on her child.

Zach was a little more reserved, while Saraya was high-spirited and clearly excited about a new wrestler in their house.

“Saraya just started wrestling. She’s really good; isn’t she, Ricky?” mom Saraya said to her husband.

“Oh aye,” says Ricky.

“She’s gorgeous too, isn’t she?” mom Saraya asked me. A rhetorical question, really.

“Stunning,” I admitted.

“She’s gonna be a star,” mom Saraya cooed.

She was. Even from a simple “Hi” you could see it.

Years later, she became Paige in WWE. A true groundbreaker. Hell, before she even turned thirty they were making movies about her life.

Saraya (the mom) lathered my eye with aloe vera and gave me arnica tablets to take down the swelling.

“Will it be gone by tomorrow?” I inquired hopefully.

“Probably not.”

“Shit.”

Sweet Saraya took it supereasy on me that night, making sure to stay away from the face.

It was my last match for almost seven years.

I walked into my house, baseball hat dipped low, sunglasses on. I am a master of disguise. No one will suspect a thing! I thought.

Shockingly, neither the aloe vera nor the arnica had cured the bruising or dissolved the stitches overnight.

Like a cheetah, my mom pounced out from a corner and instantly began the interrogation: “What are you doing with those sunglasses on inside?”

“Wrestlers and rock stars, Ma. They wear sunglasses indoors. Don’t worry about it.”

“Take them off your head.”

“No.”

With one swift ninja-like snatch the sunglasses were in her hands and my scarred and swollen eye exposed. I of course blamed my slow reflexes on the concussion; on any normal day I’m quick as a cat.

“Jesus. What happened?” Mom gasped.

“Just a flesh wound, NBD.”

“That looks awful! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! A move just went a bit amiss. They took me to the hospital and stitched me up, though. All good,” I reassured her.

“What are you doing? You need to stop this. You have no plan; you could have been severely injured. You could lose an eye or break your neck; you need to stop!”

The list of possible threats went on and on.

But I did have a plan now… kinda. I was going to Orlando. I was going to get my personal-training diploma. I was gonna wrestle… maybe. That part I actually wasn’t sure of.

Dieting too hard had taken everything out of me, especially while trying to wrestle too. On my strict calorie-deficient diet, I wouldn’t build muscle or look as ripped as I wanted to, so it’s not like I would have gotten the attention of WWE as a body girl who could wrestle. And I didn’t feel like I could add anything in my current state in terms of ability to the TNA roster. My plan had already failed.

I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t want the pressure. I didn’t want the potential failure. I didn’t want to be in pain. I didn’t want to be so uncertain about what was happening next.

What I did know was I didn’t have the balls to tell anyone I was suffering.

Like a coward, I used the injury as a way to step away while I tried to figure out my head, without having to admit that I simply couldn’t hack it.

A doctor friend gave me a plausible excuse, something that sounded severe but that I could come back from if I changed my mind: “damage to the eighth cranial nerve,” which is essentially tinnitus but sounds pretty gnarly.

At least this could buy me time to figure out the world, but my mind was so foggy that I had no idea what the right path was anymore. Only a year ago it had felt so simple and clear.

I left for Orlando all the same, an erratic mess.

I was connecting through New York when I felt like I had an awakening. Or a panic attack. Maybe something in between.

Wrestling was over. I was done. I needed to return home.

I was going to call my mom and let her know immediately. She’d be so happy to have me back and hear that I was going to leave wrestling and finally be the daughter she wanted me to be.

I found the nearest pay phone in the airport and dialed. Ready to get on the straight and narrow. Ready to finally make her happy with my decision.

“Mom, I don’t want to do this. I want to come home.”

“No.” There was no hesitation in her voice.

Huh? That was the last thing I expected to hear.

She didn’t want me wrestling. She didn’t want me dieting and obsessively training. How could she say no to this? Especially since this was the first time she heard it. Had she anticipated I would back out?

The panic increased. I just need her to know I’m genuine.

“I know I’ve been all over the place. I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I’ll get a normal job. I’ll go back to college. Please. I’ll be normal. I promise I’ll be normal. I just want to come home.”

“You have dropped out of everything and you haven’t seen anything through. You can’t do that this time.”

My heart sank. My stomach tightened; tears poured down my face; my voice strained.

“Please, Mom, please. I don’t want to be like this anymore,” I begged and pleaded.

“I’m sorry.”

She hung up, leaving me in a cocoon of dread. Lost, alone, broken, and feeling like a complete failure. I had ruined my life for the sake of abs. For the sake of trying to fit into a mold so that I might be more worthy of my dreams. The dreams I had already been on the path to fulfilling.

As I made my way to the gate, face red, snot falling, passersby looked on with pity and concern.

I waddled onto my flight to Orlando with slumped shoulders and found my seat, starving, with only a big bag of raw oats to eat for some fucking reason.

After what seemed like an endless day of travel, I eventually pulled up to my new digs in Orlando. There were students everywhere, loud music playing, frat boys obnoxiously drunk dangling from the stairways. I pushed past them to find my apartment. Brown walls with brown furniture all resting on a brown carpet.

After I climbed into bed that night, under my sheet that provided about as much heat as a sleeve of newspaper, and rested my head on a flimsy pillow, I cycled between feelings of fear, sadness, and dread.

I called my mom the following day to let her know I had arrived safely.

She had a rage in her voice that was reserved for special occasions. On this special occasion, she had discovered the lingerie shoot I had done in North Carolina.

“You’re acting like a porn star. You need to have respect for yourself. What are you going to do with your life? Are you going to be a forty-year-old wrestler living in a trailer park?”

I had no rebuttals, no more fire; I was defeated and ashamed of myself. And she had seen the lingerie shoot that hadn’t ended up in a porno mag.

The brown walls were closing in; I couldn’t see a better life ahead of me. All I had was the possibility of this personal-training diploma to try to get me on the right track, but it felt so wrong.

What I quickly learned in personal-training school was that as much as I loved training myself for my own purpose of vanity, I could not have cared less about training anyone else. Class was boring, the workouts basic. I had no motivation to do well and quickly learned to tell the difference between a real passion and a forced one.

I relied on my roommates for rides to school and back but was otherwise confined to the brown apartment and sitting on the brown couch, with only my meal prep and thoughts of better days to occupy my mind.

My golden years were behind me. At nineteen years old, I was a washed-up has-been.