EPISODE 5 THE COMEBACK

Once college was over and I was out in the big bad world, auditions weren’t exactly flowing and finding an agent was like mining for diamonds. Shockingly, no one wanted to take a chance on this perfectly average lady with zero experience beyond her college degree—somehow, I hadn’t anticipated this. Still, I pounded the pavement delivering my résumé and headshot to every game and gig in town.

In the meantime, in a shitty turn of events, Rachel tore her ACL, which is about the worst knee injury one can have, mere weeks before she was to report to NXT.

I was devastated for her, but I think part of her was relieved to delay her departure to Florida. She wasn’t looking forward to leaving her family, and the added time in Ireland made it more likely that she and Joe could start NXT at the same time. And in the meantime, we got plenty of time to hang, train, and talk about future plans.

With precisely zero acting work coming my way, I decided it was time to pull the trigger on my New York plans and booked my flights.

But as fate works, weeks before being New York–bound, I got a phone call from a new show that had started filming in Ireland called Vikings. It was one of the largest TV productions that Ireland had ever facilitated and they wanted ME to be a part of it!

Not in any role I was prepared for, however. I was called to be part of the stunt team. My résumé listed so much random physical experience I had amassed over the years in search of a hobby to replace wrestling—I listed my ability to horse ride, sword fight, snowboard, and scuba dive, plus my experience with Muay Thai and bodybuilding. They assumed this physical jack-of-all-trades was a stuntwoman.

“We might have a bit of work for you on set here,” Paul Burke, the stunt coordinator, offered. “Would you be interested?”

“Absolutely I would be!” I accepted as the realization that I am not actually a stuntwoman came to me.

Sure, it wasn’t acting. But it was acting adjacent and I could not afford to fuck this one up.

Okay, brain, think! How are you going to pull this one off? You were good at wrestling. Go down to Joe’s school and brush up. Then apply that confidence to the stunt work! Bing bang boom! No one will notice a thing!

I showed up at a beginner’s class, less nervous than I usually was in these situations. I was no longer wrestling and it was no longer the goal, so if I messed up, who cared?

Any remnants of nerves that I did have were put to rest by Joe’s ease of coaching. He is a leader by nature, an alpha who is communicative, kind, and thoughtful, but you dare not cross him.

We began to lock up and move around, running drills with tackles and headlocks.

“You still got it,” Joe started a mock chant for me.

I lit up like a New York Christmas tree.

After class Joe pulled me aside. “Would you ever think about going for a WWE tryout? You clearly still love it.”

I felt transported to another dimension. My body screamed at me with an intuition so strong it couldn’t be silenced. YES! I yelled in the confines of my own mind.

Externally, I still couldn’t admit that was what I wanted to do. So after staring at him for what felt like several hours, I responded, “Ah, thanks, Joe, but I have my plan now; I’m going to New York, visa’s booked, so are flights, and I wanna pursue this acting thing. And I guess this stunt thing now.”

“Well, think about it, ’cause I think you’d get it.”

I didn’t need to think about it. I knew this was right. After all the pushing I had done in the last six years, it finally felt like I was being pulled.

A few days later, after much self-talk, coming to Jesus, and finally being honest with myself, I knew I had to postpone all plans I had made for the future.

I called Joe. “I think I might take you up on getting that tryout.”

“Excellent, I’ll give Robbie Brookside a call.”

Robbie Brookside?! I loved Robbie Brookside. I only met him one time, but he was someone you only need to meet once to feel like you’ve been friends forever. And now Robbie was part of WWE’s recruiting team.

“Knoxy giiiiirl!” he called me with his thick Liverpool accent ringing like an angelic siren in my ear.

“Hey, Robbie! So good to hear from you!”

“I was wondering what ’appened to ya. I remember that young girl that was goin’ toe-to-toe with Sweet Saraya. What have you been up to?”

“Oh, everything, Robbie, but I was never able to get wrestling out of my system.”

“Well, I’d love you to come and give this a go. We’re holding a three-day tryout in Birmingham in five weeks. If you can send me over some pictures and a résumé, I’ll pass it on to the higher-ups.”

“Absolutely! I’ll send that over right away,” I responded giddily.

Finally, I was determined I was going to get that contract.

With Rachel down with her injured ACL, I didn’t want to be insensitive and act overly excited. But there was a strong possibility that if I got it, we might start at the same time, the three amigos, all off on an adventure to take over WWE!

My training picked up and my diet got tighter as I prepared for not just one big opportunity, but two.

I still had my stint on Vikings. With 4:00 am wake-up calls and twelve-hour days, long drives to and from set, and a stop at the gym on the way home, I was in my element.

The production was huge. The actors were cool and the stuntpeople were sound. If I wanted, I could keep doing this stunt thing. But I had to know what life was like in WWE, and if it really was my calling.

During a lunch break, one of the lead actors, Clive Standen, took a seat opposite me and struck up a conversation. Though it wasn’t your usual small talk.

“What’s your deal?” he dove straight in.

“Well, I just finished my acting degree, so I’ve been looking for work, but I also just got a WWE tryout!”

“A what?” His eyebrows rose.

“You know WWE? Hulk Hogan, The Rock. Wrestling.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

“Well, I used to wrestle when I was younger, but I gave up six years ago, and I just got a tryout,” I detailed.

“Wow, that’s interesting. That’s probably pretty all-encompassing, eh?”

“Yeah, it’s a full-time gig.”

“What about acting?” he pressed.

“Yeah, I’m a little torn on what to do, ’cause I love this, but I’ve never been able to let go of wrestling,” I confessed.

“How old are you now?”

“Twenty-five.”

“How long do you imagine you’d be wrestling for?”

“I don’t know, really.”

“You’re at that prime age to make things happen in the acting world now; you wait much longer and it might not happen for you. I think you really need to consider that too,” Clive advised.

He was making valid points in a valiant attempt to be helpful, and, if anything, he confirmed what I knew for certain: I would not be able to move ahead in any aspect of my life if I didn’t give wrestling my best shot.

I spent the next few weeks training with whoever might be free to help scrape the ring rust off. Fergal, recommencing his role as coach, made sure my back bumps and lock-ups were snappier and tighter than ever, reminding me that “they’re really just looking for the basics.”

I made sure to avail myself of every contact in my Rolodex, and reached out to Sheamus, who had now become one of WWE’s biggest stars.

“Work on your conditioning and your promo. The wrestling will be the easy part for you,” Sheamus advised me as though I were still the eighteen-year-old who had once impressed him in a training session.

“Keep it simple” was the main message.

One thing that wasn’t going to be simple, however, was the daunting task of telling my mother that I was getting back into wrestling.

“They heard about me and reached out and asked if I wanted a tryout. I’d like to at least give it a shot,” I told her. It was more of a misdirection of the truth than a blatant lie, really.

She was shockingly not upset. The idea that I was being recruited by the biggest and most reputable wrestling organization in the world was more palatable than “Hey, Mom, I’m going to Luxembourg for the weekend to wrestle in a field for free.”

Besides, I had proved to her that I could do the things I put my mind to. I got my college degree. Maybe I could show her that I could have an impact on the wrestling business. Change the way women’s wrestling was viewed, usher in a new era. Sure, it was ambitious, but it wasn’t impossible, and what is life if not for taking big, bold risks, especially when it can change the outlook of a generation?

I packed my bags, brought my nicest workout attire, got gear specifically made for the occasion, and showed up at Dublin Airport ready to earn my way into the world’s biggest wrestling promotion.

I found the nearest ATM and took out a few euro to get me through the next few days. When I looked at my account, there was only thirty-five euro left. Welp. I had a little laugh to myself, because I really had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I better make this work.