EPISODE 10 THE HOPE SPOT

There was a term “black Friday” around the Performance Center. No, it wasn’t cuts on merchandise prices; it was cuts on contracts.

Every so often, on a random Friday, those who had been on the chopping block got pulled into the office and told their dream was over. It never got less depressing. Not only would you lose the people who had become like family to you in this crazy circus, but it reminded you of the fragility of the dream. That it could be over in a second on the whim of someone else.

I was mid–training session Friday after my big live event debut when one of my friends, Frenchy, aka Tom La Ruffa, approached me.

“What are you going to do?” he said in his thick French accent

“About what?”

“I’m so sorry, Becky. You didn’t hear? Joe’s been released.”

Joe had become a brother to me. He was my shoulder to cry on every night after training. He was the pick-me-up I needed when I was down; he was my reminder that at the end of the day, no matter how bad it is, if you have a friend to come home to who can make you smile it might all be all right.

He was also remarkably talented, with something special to offer. He’d stand up for what he believed in and what he thought was right. As a result, he pissed off the wrong people at the wrong time.

I came back to our dingy apartment to see him sitting in the brown recliner he had just bought a week previous. He smiled at me with his patent Joe smile, warm and mischievous at the same time.

“How are you feeling?”

“Relieved, to be honest.”

At least that made one of us. I burst into tears as I hugged him.

It was a cruel end for foreigners like Joe and me. We had uprooted our lives, spent all of our earnings on setting up shop, paying off our visas to live here, and it could be all gone in an instant and you’d return home with the heaviness of rejection and no money in your pocket. It’s the price you pay for the chance to live your dreams.

Now I was alone. I was broke. I had no idea how I would survive; I only knew that I would. Against all odds, I would make it.

In the quiet of the night I’d dream of better days ahead. Of days that felt easy and like my job wasn’t on the line. Days when I got to the main roster. Days when I was the main event of WrestleMania. It did all seem so unrealistic, but I was the only one living in my head, and it was nice to give it some positivity between long bouts of self-doubt and loathing.

And then I’d return to work and be reminded of how far I had to go.

Norman Smiley, the nicest, most patient human on the planet, who had a hand in hiring my underachieving ass, pulled me aside in an attempt to motivate me: “You should be much better than you are. None of the other girls have been to Japan or wrestled the places you have.”

I didn’t need reminding that I was falling below everyone’s expectations, and it was agonizing to hear coming from someone I respected as much as Norman. I knew he only had good intentions, but it wasn’t motivation I was lacking. It was confidence. I was so scared of this slipping from my grasp that I couldn’t get out of my own way.

I managed to get through that conversation without crying and it was perhaps my biggest accomplishment to date.

I even tried to reason that that was a test, like Joe had said, but really, it was just honest feedback from an honest man. I should have been better.

I was aware that I wasn’t being primed to be a star for this company. And was reminded at every turn.

Bill would throw various tests my way, such as asking me, along with several others who were likely on the chopping block, to come in on our rare days off and “roll around.” If you didn’t respond to the invite, it was likely your days were numbered. If you did respond, you’d come in and do nonsensical drills that were borderline dangerous. Poor Frenchy even tore his ACL on one of these “tests.”

Often I was the only one left out of photo shoots or video shoots or special events. It made me feel like the kid who wasn’t invited to the party. All of the anxiety, being told I wasn’t good enough, and not-so-subtle reminders like being left out led to Frenchy and me bonding over our shared anguish—his physical, mine mental. I broke down to him, crying from the bottom of my soul.

“I try so hard, and I just feel like I can’t get anywhere! I’m so scared to lose this. I don’t want to go back and be without it again. I can’t!”

Frenchy comforted me, despite his own peril, wrapping an arm around me while my tears soaked his shirt.

In the midst of my distress, I had a strange realization: I wasn’t a bad person; I was just a bad wrestler. It might sound silly, but differentiating between the two seemed to take the pressure off. I had been beating myself up so much for not getting the hang of things that I was starting to hate myself. But I didn’t need to. I could be proud of myself for trying and forgive myself for messing up. And it could be worse; I could be out with a torn ACL for nine months.

Giving myself that leeway allowed me to start believing in myself. Finally, I was doubting myself less and changing my perspective as a whole. In a weird way, being left out and underestimated became my biggest blessing. Because I was given nothing, I was above nothing. Therefore, I could make the most of any morsel of an opportunity that came my way. Sure, I’d likely have to beg for said morsel of opportunity, but because I wasn’t getting anything otherwise, who cared?!

But everything was changing in the wrestling business. WWE had just created its own network, in one of Vince McMahon’s genius business moves, leading the charge in streaming apps. NXT’s TV show became a huge part of its selling point. More so, NXT was becoming the cool, edgy thing in wrestling.

Historically, WWE has always thrived when opposed to a major competitor. In the late nineties it was WCW, nowadays it’s AEW, but back then NXT, in a way, became WWE’s own alternative to their main shows of Raw and SmackDown.

HHH was in charge, and he had turned NXT into what ECW was back in the midnineties. Not in terms of its gore and hard-core mindset but the fact that it was a subculture of the wrestling scene where the wrestlers didn’t necessarily fit into the traditional pristine mold that the main roster had. The brand’s goal was to accentuate the assets and hide the flaws.

NXT was the underground, where the craft and art of wrestling were revered more than biceps and triceps. While the main roster was the land of the giants, with most of its marquee names being over six feet and close to 250 pounds, in NXT it didn’t matter if you were five-six, 140 pounds; if you could go in the ring, you could still be a huge star, and the audience responded in kind.

What was even more special was that it didn’t even matter if you were a woman.

Women were getting time to tell stories and have the type of matches that men were. Whereas on the main roster the divas, as they were called, were getting three minutes for their matches. If a match was to lose time or get cut completely, the ladies would be first on the chopping block. Not in NXT, though.

Women being treated equally was groundbreaking. And I wanted to be part of it. This was what I came for. This was what I felt called and compelled to do. This was my unfinished business.

Even though we were being told at the Performance Center women don’t do this or can’t do that, as an edict that likely came from an old-school view on how the audience wants to see their women. Hunter was different. He didn’t enforce any of these outdated restrictions and he let women wrestle like the competitors we were.

Or rather the competitors the other girls were. I was still nowhere close to getting on TV.

But I saw an opportunity. One of the male wrestlers created a new character called Adam Rose. He was a rock-star type who had an entourage of wacky-looking groupies dressed in ridiculous costumes whom he called Rosebuds.

And I still couldn’t even make the cut for that human bouquet!

With no shame, I once again went to Bill DeMott.

“Please, just let me be involved in some way; I promise, I’ll be a great Rosebud!”

If I had to beg to be an extra, so be it. It wasn’t like they were positioning me to be the future of the business, and it wasn’t like I had any reason to expect that they ever would or should. But what I lacked in talent I made up for in enthusiasm.

My plea was granted.

I was going to rock the shit out of this extra role. I was going to parade on TV in a bright blue tutu with a light-up wig on my head and act like a complete psychopath like my life depended on it. In a weird way, it did.

I decided to take any opportunity as if it was my big break. When you are given so little you must make every moment count. I even had whims of becoming a lead Rosebud. Maybe turning it into a story line where they would put me on TV and I could actually wrestle!

As I stood backstage eagerly awaiting the tomfoolery I was about to bestow upon the world, I became befuddled as I listened to my fellow Rosebuds bitch about how they weren’t being taken seriously as wrestlers and performers. Most had never even wrestled before getting signed to WWE and somehow felt entitled to a push, while I had to grovel to get this much.

I was taking nothing for granted. Happily, it paid off. I had done my job with such glee that when Adam Rose was called up to the main roster I was picked as one of the Rosebuds to go on the road and show future extras how it was done!

Important enough to be brought to television, yet not important enough to be flown, five of us misfit Rosebuds packed into a minivan and drove eight hours to Greenville, South Carolina, for an episode of Raw.

I was making progress with my nagging bulimic tendencies and sticking to a more well-rounded diet and bingeing less, which meant my nice dresses were getting tighter and shorter, all in good time to make a good impression in front of the bigwigs on the main roster. Because that is all I thought I was being judged on (which may or may not have been the case).

With my high heels that I couldn’t properly walk in on and my dress that was so snug that one wrong move might mean I would moon all of Catering, I felt so unnatural and unlike myself as I stood around awkwardly making sure I introduced myself to everyone, with dry hands this time.

To my shock, someone actually came up to me and started a conversation.

And not just anyone: he was Seth Rollins (real name Colby Lopez), one of WWE’s biggest stars, one-third of its hottest faction, The Shield, i.e., the Backstreet Boys of wrestling, along with Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose.

Colby had a plate of food in one hand and a sheet of paper in another.

“Hey, I’m Colby.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Rebecca.”

“What’s your story? Why are you here?” he asked, genuinely interested.

An avalanche of words fell out of my mouth, and I divulged my whole life story up until that very moment, with my very short dress and my poorly done hair. By the time I was finished, his plate of food was gone.

He had an ease about him. A familiar feeling, like we had been friends for years. As if I could tell him anything and everything and he’d understand.

He was a megastar and held himself as such but was also personable and down-to-earth.

We talked for forty-five minutes until he was summoned to work.

“Good talk,” he said calmly and coolly as he walked away.

“You too!” I yelled after him, nearly falling over in my high heels, not at all calm. Or cool.

I liked it up here. I had even just made a new friend.

With all this socializing and networking, the time to work snuck up on me. I donned my blue tutu and silly wig and made my way to gorilla (the position behind the curtain before you go in front of a crowd—so called after Gorilla Monsoon, the iconic backstage interviewer) with the rest of the Rosebuds. No one was going to be paying the slightest bit of attention to me, but that didn’t stop me from getting nervous like this was my time to shine!

It was my first time experiencing a crowd of that magnitude.

Stepping through the curtain, I became intoxicated with the most potent, euphoric drug. It was invigorating, energizing, addictive, and I wanted more. I didn’t know how anyone could want to do anything else.