EPISODE 8 NXT

Grandma said, “I hope all your dreams come true,” and it felt like she must have been shmoozing Jesus every day she was up there to make all of this happen, because after years of questioning, stressing, wondering, What if…? I was finally in Orlando, ready to start at NXT and about to find out if I had what it takes.

The main thing for me was to not fuck it all up. Which was highly likely, as I do have a bright red self-destruct button illuminating at the front of my mind at all times.

Joe suggested I wear a “nice dress” for the big first day. Apparently all the girls wore “nice dresses.” But I didn’t have any nice dresses. I didn’t have any dresses at all. And certainly not a surplus of money to spend on “nice dresses.”

He brought me, appropriately, to Ross Dress for Less, where I bought three dresses for the grand sum of thirty dollars.

Not being well-versed in the art of nice-dress buying, I had acquired three frumpy bridesmaid-looking dresses. You know, the kind a bride buys her pals if she wants to be certain they don’t upstage her.

I picked out the best one of the lot and hung it up ready for the morning. A fine, frilly beige fucker. Who could resist me in this level of high fashion? They might send me to the main roster straightaway! I thought.

I got up extra early, hardly being able to sleep from the excitement anyway, and spent hours meticulously straightening my hair and ensuring my makeup looked as good as I was capable of.

It was all for naught. By the time I had stepped into the humid Orlando air, my hair began to frizz and my makeup ran down my face.

Great.

I was so nervous I could barely talk on the short ten-minute drive from our apartment. As we approached the warehouse, I looked out the window to see a giant sign on the building that read: “WWE PERFORMANCE CENTER.”

This was exactly how I pictured a wrestling school would look all eleven years ago when I took my first class in that tiny school hall in Bray with six padded mats on the floor.

Joe and I entered the front door, polite office staff greeting us enthusiastically, ordaining us with official badges complete with lanyards. A bald man named Ryan Katz with a colorful suit and the world’s biggest smile offered a guided tour through the building. He was part of the creative team and glowed as he led us through the building. “This is HHH’s baby,” he declared. HHH—aka Hunter Hearst Helmsley, aka Paul Levesque—was one of WWE’s biggest stars, and the reason every child and teen in the late nineties was getting in trouble in school for yelling, “Suck it!” while gesturing at their crotch. Famed for his entertaining work with his popular group, or “faction” in wrestling terms—DX—he was also one of WWE’s most versatile stars, going from comedy to badass in the blink of an eye and making it seem natural. He had recently been charged with heading talent development. The son-in-law to Vince McMahon, he was likely to one day run the whole company.

And his baby was immaculate. Freshly painted walls, unstained carpets, not a speck of dust in sight, it was like the whole place had been sprayed with new-car smell. Portraits of legends lined the walls: Dusty Rhodes, Vince McMahon Sr., Harley Race, Gorgeous George, Mae Young, Bruno Sammartino.

The facility boasted a state-of-the-art gym, a physio room, a practice area with seven wrestling rings, a promo room, a green-screen room, a kitchen, televisions, and the most beautiful locker rooms and bathrooms I had ever seen in a sporting facility.

After a long and winding pilgrimage, I had arrived at the Mecca of wrestling. The place you wanted to be if you wanted to be someone in this business.

And I felt totally out of place.

More so as I was about to get a side-by-side comparison with my direct competition. An all-talent meeting was about to happen on the gym floor led by the head coach, Bill DeMott, whom I had watched tear people to shreds on Tough Enough years earlier.

As I joined the congregation, any amount of pseudo-confidence I had had during my tryout had completely washed away. I began comparing my frumpy, awkward self against the other female newcomers, who happened to be the most beautiful and glamorous collection of women I had ever seen, coming complete with bubbly, captivating personalities.

The new influx of men were built like giant stone statues and had to turn sideways to fit through the doors.

When I was feeling like I couldn’t get more insecure, the veteran trainees joined us. All equally as impressive and beaming as if their blood were made entirely of charisma.

If you looked around on that day in July 2013 and had to pick one person who 10 million percent was not going to make it, I would have been that person.

It didn’t help that at the very introduction of the meeting DeMott kicked it off with an ominous warning.

“Look to the people beside you. It’s very likely they won’t make it.”

It felt like the whole group just turned to look directly at the weirdo in the bridesmaid’s dress.

When the group reverted their attention to the front, Bill, who was friendly in that “I will slit your throat and not think twice about it but also tell you a joke while I do it” kind of way, introduced us to the remainder of the coaching staff. To even regard these humans as my future coaches made my head want to explode in awe.

There was the legendary Dusty Rhodes, who would be our promo (promotional interview in wrestle-speak) coach. Himself a mold breaker and one of the greatest promos of all time, he now dressed like the sweet yet sassy old man he had become. He wore ill-fitting blue jeans tucked into work boots, a baseball cap, glasses, and a baggy T-shirt not quite long enough to cover his elbows, which sagged after years of bumping and elbowing people on the top of the head. I immediately wanted his approval.

There was the “Red Rooster” Terry Taylor, who informed me that before I quit, TNA (where he previously worked) thought about bringing me in. Which was a reassurance and made me question the last seven years as a whole.

There was Billy Gunn of the famed tag team The New Age Outlaws, who was even bigger in person. He shook my hand like he wanted to break it.

There was Joey Mercury, most notably known for being half of the tag team MNM or J&J Security, the underlings to a hot boy named Seth Rollins. Joey was also one of the best minds in wrestling. A savant almost. And he was as serious as a stroke. Despite being the smallest of the crew, he was the most intimidating. I was too scared to say hi.

There was Nick Dinsmore, formally known as Eugene—the intellectually stunted wrestling sensation. He was dry in tone and subtly welcoming.

There was Norman Smiley, whom I had already met at my tryout and already loved.

Then there was Sara Amato, the head coach for the women and the person I had been dreading seeing the most. Fuck. She was on the first tour of Japan I did. That time I was the main event, getting treated like royalty and still acting like a moany bitch. Hell, she was probably on both of the SHIMMER shows I no-showed.

What if she holds a grudge? What if she thinks I thought I was above learning from her? What if she hates me?

I imagined her inner monologue being a diatribe about how awful I am and wondering how I managed to slip through the cracks. How the hell did this bitch even make it here? She hasn’t wrestled in years and still gets to be in WWE? That’s bullshit! She wasn’t even that good back then!

She would have been right to feel like that too.

I shook her hand, wary of acting too familiar with any of the coaches.

“Oh, hey, it’s been a while,” she said calmly with what I’m certain was a side eye.

It’s official: she thinks I shouldn’t be here.

The guilt was overwhelming. Who was I to leave the thing that afforded me so much for so long and waltz in here and get the keys to the kingdom when everyone else has suffered for years?

I was the Prodigal Son. And I fucking hate the Prodigal Son story. Bitch gets to blow all his money, live frivolously, do whatever the hell he wants, then struts back in like nothing happened while his brother stayed working and being loyal the whole time. And the dad is just, like, “No worries, fam—we good,” and gives him whatever else he wants! Shit, if I’m that good brother, I’d be pissed. And if I’m those good wrestlers who stayed loyal and true to the grind, I’m superpissed.

The wrestling community really is a small village, so I already knew a lot of the people who had made it this far.

I first ran into my ol’ pal Rami, whom I hadn’t seen since Italy. I gave him the biggest, most enthusiastic hug, hoping he would be a temporary reprieve from my social discomfort. But his returning hug felt a little limp on the squeeze. Does he hate me too?!

I was sure I could feel his judgement. Or was it my judgement?

“Holy shit. What are you doing here?” he asked, less excited than I was hoping for.

I could ask myself the same dang thing, pal.

“I thought you left the business.”

Yep. Judgement. That was definitely judgement.

I overexplained the many years of confusion: a potpourri of guilt, fear, approval seeking, and desperation.

As soon as I finished my spiel to Rami, I rounded a corner to meet another face from the past. This time, it so happened to be someone I went to college with in Chicago. He went by the wrestling name of Aiden English and was nothing but nice to me in the time we were in school, but now I feared he was also wondering how on earth I had managed to get here.

Ugh.

To break up the repetition of my perceived disapproval, Saraya, now known as Paige, ran up and hugged me. “I’m so happy you’re here. I’ve told everyone how good you are,” she practically sang in her musically British accent.

Oh no, no no no, why?! I’m not good. Not anymore. I haven’t had a match in near seven years! I’m a blank canvas, remember? I don’t know anything!

Fuck. The last thing I wanted was for people to have high expectations of me. It’s one thing to prove people wrong. It’s entirely another to have people think you’re great and fail miserably. Fuck.

In an attempt to recalibrate, I slunk away to the locker room, closing my eyes and sighing in relief as I shut the door behind me.

Only when I opened my eyes, I noticed that the women’s champion (or, as they so awfully named it, the divas champion) AJ Lee was standing to the left of me, typing furiously into her phone.

Without picking up on social cues, I enthusiastically greeted her—“Hello!”—four octaves higher than normal with the underlying desperation of Please like me. “I’m Rebecca.” She looked up as I stretched out my hand to shake hers, grunted what may have been a “Hi” before going back to finger-punching her phone, leaving me with my arm outstretched, fondling the air.

This is going horribly, I thought as I sat in the bathroom stall, scared to pee too loudly lest I offend.

When I was done doing bathroom things, I washed my hands, not taking the time to dry them preventing I linger in the awkwardness any longer than I had to, I came out to find Big E sitting in a squishy armchair, looking blankly at his phone. The man had the physique of a well-chiseled cube, and if his current on-air persona was anything to go by, this was not a man who enjoyed things.

You cannot be deterred, Quin. You must shake everyone’s hand!

So with the same gusto and desperation, I walked over chirpily. “Hello! I’m Rebecca!” Here’s my hand; please shake it.

He looked up, a modicum of warmth on his stoic face. “Ettore,” he said plainly, and unlike my last encounter went for the shake. However, just as he was about to engage in full clasp I realized, in my haste, that my hands were still wet! But by now, my arm had reached maximum extension.

Quickly and nervously I blurted out, “My hands are wet!!”

Too late to turn back now, he courteously shook my hand as his face curdled in disgust, the sound of moisture squelching between our skin.

Great. Now he hates me too.…

I walked down the stairs and back towards the practice area, anguished and embarrassed, when I noticed an old road-tripping buddy, TJ Wilson, sitting on the ring. TJ and I would road-trip from Vancouver to Seattle and Portland when we were both on the independent circuit. He had now deservedly made it to the main roster with his soon-to-be wife, Nattie Neidhart.

He was smiling and laughing in his unique TJ way, loud and charmingly obnoxious.

TJ is a special cat. For one, he is an absolute genius with a photographic memory and a charisma that draws people to him, with his ability to tell stories in a way that makes you lose track of time. As soon as you hear his signature voice and cackle, you want to find him so you don’t miss out on the fun.

The other thing about TJ is he doesn’t take shit from anyone. He’s a straight shooter and will tell you, with no qualms, what he thinks about you or any given situation. He also has a deep love for the business and respects people based on the respect they show our industry.

Because of that, I was hesitant to approach him, figuring he’d hate me for giving up too.

He was polite yet apprehensive, or at least that’s how I perceived, well, just about everyone I met that day.

After quick pleasantries, I worked up the courage to ask him, “Do you have any advice for me?”

“Yeah, listen to HHH’s entrance music.” He laughed.

Meaning, “It’s all about the game and how you play it.” Sure is, buddy.