The first time I took a bump I felt like my body was going to explode. Wrestling rings are a lot harder than people think, especially since I’ve had people tell me they thought it was a trampoline. It’s not. Why don’t they make it softer? Because you have to move around on it. You do a lot more running around then you do bumping, unless you’re Spike Dudley, which you are not. Trying to move around on an unstable platform is very bad for the knees and it’s easy to lose your balance – and balance is everything. Go back and watch some Arn Anderson matches, that dude was never off balance. It would have taken a wrecking ball to knock him down.
As I was laying there thinking that I might die, the guy that trained me (in wrestling, not magic) said “it’s not pain, it just feels like pain”. I’m still trying to figure out if that’s the most profound thing I’ve ever heard or the stupidest. Maybe it’s both. That guy who trained me is called Doug “Disco Biscuit” Douglas. Not “Disco” never that, always “Disco Biscuit”. I’m not sure what a disco biscuit is but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with drugs.
He claims loudly and often to have been a big star in Louisiana in the late 80’s but I’ve never meet anyone who’s even heard of him. When you first see him you think that he looks terrible, but then you find out he’s in his late fifties and you think that for his age he doesn’t look so bad. He’s got a beer belly and skinny chicken legs but he can still move around in the ring. I bet that he could still go out there and have a decent five minute match with someone. Longer if they do a lot of theatrics.
As far as I can tell there are three kinds of wrestling trainers. There’s the total frauds that take your money and teach you nothing (this seems to happen even more to women). There’s the true professionals who were great workers and are great teachers – they help you find places to stay nearby and their wife gives you a part time job in her diner and you babysit their kids and they become like a surrogate father to you or a second father depending on how your life went. Then there are people like Biscuit.
Even though no one has ever heard of him, I think he was a good solid worker. He’s not a great teacher though, and he’s certainly not above ripping someone off from time to time. He didn’t try to rip me off but I would say that I got maybe 70% effort from him at the best of times, which isn’t bad all things considered. He normally charges $1500, I know I didn’t pay him anywhere near that amount, I think he felt sorry for me. I know he felt sorry for me.
I’ve talked before about the cycle of women wrestlers not getting booked so they don’t get experience so they don’t get better so they don’t get booked and on and on, but there’s a problem even before you try to get booked. Most women get trained by men, and even a fat old man like Biscuit is a lot stronger and more solid than anyone I’m going to be working with. That doesn’t help the situation.
My first match was going to be awful no matter what, but it was made several times more awful because I was expecting my opponent to be able to pick me up as easily as Biscuit did, and even more problematic I was expecting to be able to use her as a base just like I did with Biscuit. And probably she was thinking the same thing about whoever trained her. The first three things we tried to do we both fell flat on our asses because neither of us been in the ring with someone like the other.
Which brings me to the next issue. There aren’t a lot of veterans out there to learn from for women, in fact there aren’t any. It’s sad when you see Brutus Beefcake and Marty Jennetty still out there making the rounds working for peanuts, but it serves a valuable purpose. They get to pass on their knowledge to the next generation. Colt Cabana talks about how his third match was with King Kong Bundy – you’re going to learn a couple things just by being in the ring with someone with 30 years of experience. But where are the washed up lady old-timers for me to wrestle?
That just doesn’t happen on the women’s side of things. There aren’t any crusty middle-aged ladies out there who’ve worked across the world for years and years and can give a few tips to a young up and comer like myself. Women just don’t hang around that long, which is probably smart of them, but it leaves a void because the best way to get better is by working with people better than you. Or at least more experienced which is mostly the same thing.
I’ve talked to Biscuit a couple times since I flew the nest, mostly to see if he could help me get booked. Mostly he can’t, he doesn’t have a lot of connections. Also it’s hard to determine how much he cares about helping getting me booked regardless. There’s really not a lot else for us to talk about. Maybe if I ever hit it big I’ll pay him the rest of that $1500.
Rocket Cat 