You might call it fake but my pain is real
If you all know me by now, you know I love professional wrestling. I watched as a kid until my cousin Five Star Frog Splashed onto my leg, and my parents ended that pro wrestling dream real quick. But I got back into it around high school, to the point where I was going to be a pro wrestler after I finished undergrad at FAU. Grad school came and I thought I’d never get the chance to try being a pro wrestler.
Until Monday.
I got to train like a pro wrestler, and it was both the most fun I ever had while also being extremely difficult. Let’s get into what happened.
4:00 pm: I am extremely nervous. Not because of what I was about to do, but mainly because I didn’t want to get in there and be a complete failure. I played sports growing up so I felt like I was a good enough athlete, but going in I knew this would be a whole lot different from anything that I’ve done before. I was told to bring in extra changes of shirts and a towel, so it would be hot too. I’m slowly trying to psych myself up, but I am terrified.
5:00 pm: I start the drive to the facility. Listening to my gym playlist to hype myself up (it’s just a bunch of anime and superhero themes).
5:40 pm: I get to the facility, House of Champions training. It looks SO COOL. The ring is a whole lot bigger than I thought it would be, a lot bigger than it looks on tv. THEY ALSO HAVE A HUGE FAN! I silently thank God for showering his blessings upon us in this dark time.
6:00 pm: It’s time to get started. The fan gets cut off. F***.
6:01 pm: We get started, and I introduce myself to everyone. It’s a really cool environment, and everyone seems so supportive. I tell them my favorite wrestler is Samoa Joe, because Samoa Joe rules and that’s who I’d want to wrestle like when I’m a wrestler. “You’re a wrestler now,” the trainer says to me. I get excited.
Lots of agility and stretching first, using an agility ladder. It’s a lot like the drills I did playing football, so I was pretty good at them. Not all of them though. I think I was going too fast, then trying to overthink it (we’ll get to that later).
6:10 pm: We step into the ring for more stretching. You’re supposed to wipe your shoes on the apron before entering the ring. It’s both a sign of respect and makes sure wherever you were before your match doesn’t get into the ring. The first thing I notice about the ring is how…bouncy it is. It’s not like a trampoline, it’s still tough, but I didn’t think it would have as much give standing on it. Trying to jog on the ring is a bit of an acquired talent though. It’s like when you bring a leg up it goes a bit higher than it normally does. Anyway, we do more stretching before we begin.
6:30 pm: After another endurance challenge that I don’t do (it’s for one person and everyone’s scheduled for one), we start to get into rolling. This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, mainly because of the process of unlearning everything you’ve learned beforehand in life. The first roll I learn is a front roll, where you put both hands on the ground, tuck your head and roll through, landing on both feet. I tried doing that at first…and just didn’t get it at all. I think I psyched myself out because going over my head is just something I’ve never willingly done. Everyone else who had gone before me made it look easy, and I was over here struggling.
But, as we kept going, I started to get the hang of it. The first time you do it, it’s a bit scary because you get up and you feel a bit dizzy, but that starts to go away when you keep doing it. I started to feel a whole lot better. Everyone in the center was also so encouraging, it made me keep going.
The next rolls we did were side rolls, on the left and right. So basically for these, your left arm is up, and as you roll through, you want to put your right leg behind your left so you land in an active position. When wrestlers do arm drags, this is how they roll through. The left side rolls were super easy and I started to get the hang of them. The right side rolls were a bit more difficult, but I started to get it.
Then we had back rolls, where you’re literally rolling from a backwards position. This one was pretty tough, but I feel like I caught the hang of it pretty quickly. The heat was starting to get to me though, and my legs started to feel like Jell-O. Nevertheless, we forge on.
Then we did diving rolls, jumping out in front of you to do a front roll, but landing like you’re doing a left side roll. For some reason I just got these easily. I’ll never know. Oh yeah and the ring? It hurts a lot more when you’re down on the ring than standing on it.
7:00 pm: This is where I take a spectator role. The next thing that more experienced trainees do is “bumping”. You’re basically learning how to fall. If you fall incorrectly, it could result in a worse match or injury to yourself. The process of bumping is a lot more complicated than I thought. There are regular bumps, “snap” bumps where you fall almost instantly, and “3/4 bumps”, where you snap bump and turn 3⁄4 of the way in the ring. It looks wild, but I wanted to do it. I didn’t though. That’s for another day.
7:15 pm: The more experienced wrestlers get in the ring and do a man in the middle training. This is four different pinning predicaments that all involve the man in the middle. Pretty simple, right?
You’d be wrong.
This was extremely complicated to me at first, but more than confusion, I was mostly in awe. I don’t remember who said it, but I thought about how the best at what they do make extremely difficult things look easy. That’s how I felt watching the more experienced wrestlers go through man in the middle. The fluidity of movement, the ability to improvise and work off schedule, it was all so cool. I had so many questions about the movement skills, but I knew I wanted to try eventually.
8:00 pm: After that, there was a lot more housekeeping and other training center things to do, but I was pretty much done for the day. My legs were on fire, but I was excited. I knew this was something that was really cool, and now I that I had the chance to try, I made 18 year old me proud.
There is one thing that I definitely learned, though: professional wrestling is SO MUCH MORE DIFFICULT than you think. “Oh it’s fake fighting, it’s not real” sure but the movement skills and the process of learning is so difficult, and actually never done. You can always learn something different or something new about pro wrestling, and that’s what makes it fun. So many different styles and ways to do it, and the training process is definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.
11:00 pm: I can’t sleep. My legs hurt so much. My neck also kinda hurts. I did it though, and that’s the best part.
9:30 am, the next day: Yeah, I’m gonna need a massage gun or something. Getting out of bed felt rough, my legs are still sore. But, spin zone: I woke up and was happy with what I did. I’m still not sure if I’m going to continue with the training. I want to, but external factors could get in the way. But hey, I’m 22 years old. I got a whole lot of runway left to go back.
