I've often been asked over the years why I don't compete in competitions very often. There are a few reasons, mostly owing to the lack of time I have free to sit and do this to the level at which a competition demands. Another goes hand in hand with that and has to do with ego. I've got something of a reputation around here, be it earned or simply garnered for being the old fuck in the yard, and I've always been somewhat fearful of committing to a competition and then finding myself short on time, having to kick out something I deem subpar and thus embarrassing myself by not living up to whatever expectations said reputation garners.
Another factor is that, well, I'm a bit of a rebel. While the trappings of that have largely fallen to the wayside as I've grown older and (arguably) wiser, one thing that has always stuck around and likely always will is that I frankly don't like being told what to do. I'm happy to do something all day if I enjoy it but if someone tells me that I have to do it, that I have a deadline or something, I bristle. My brain kinda shuts down and the echoing sound of, "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me," bounces off the walls of my mind like a clarion call to buck the system and tell The Man to fuck off.
Rebellion has always been something of a part of my life. Not remotely on the level that some take it to, but more as an in general guiding force. Though not quite the same thing as rebellion, I've also always been very much into doing my own thing on my terms. I recognize, respect and largely acquiesce to the demands of societal cooperation and conformity that makes the world go 'round, but I do so with my own flavor. For instance, back in the day when I was in AP English classes in high school and we would take field trips to go see performances of Shakespeare or whatever, we were required to wear a button down shirt and tie. That wasn't remotely my style. Still, I recognized that I either needed to conform or miss out on the opportunities afforded me to learn and enjoy and experience cool shit, so I did it. But I would always wear a Metallica shirt underneath. Rebellion is still rebellion even if only you know about it, right?
You may be wondering where wrestling plays into this. You're probably thinking, "Oh, hey, here goes Steve tooting his own horn about going against the grain and being cool with Romano Rigatoni. How novel." You would, in this instance, be mistaken. I've said my piece about shit like that. I like what I like and fuck you if you're not cool with it. That said, I'm all for any and everyone forming their own opinions about shit, even if those opinions are stupid. That's their cross to bear, dig?
I digress. Wrestling comes into this via wee me. I've been a wrestling fan for my whole life. I genuinely don't remember a time in which I wasn't into this shit. I may not have always had as much access as I may have wanted, but I always loved it and followed it as best I could. In my younger days that was cool. Lots of people liked wrestling. I remember one kid bringing his WWF action figure ring for Show and Tell one time. I remember, in the heyday of the Mega Powers, many a heated argument over whether Hulk Hogan or Macho Man would win if they ever fought. I remember the one kid in my school, a transplant in 2nd grade from Georgia, who was into WCW and would sing the praises of guys like Sting. None of us knew who that was, as WCW had almost zero television presence in my area and I went to a school made up largely of kids from lower income families who couldn't afford cable, myself among them. Wrestling was the cool thing back in the day, right up there with Ninja Turtles and Pee Wee's Playhouse and shit.
That started shifting around 1991 and had completely shifted by mid 1992, largely having to do with the fact that our local Fox station had stopped running WWF Superstars every Saturday. Out of sight, out of mind, especially when it comes to kids. When school let out in May of 1992 I was surrounded by classmates who were at least marginally into wrestling. By the time school started back up in September of that same year everyone had moved on to other stuff... except for me. I was still in deep.
I mentioned before that I didn't have cable and just dropped the fact that I, as of about mid '92, didn't even have the syndicated Superstars program through which to keep up with stuff. It was lean times for your pal Lil Steve and I was left with only my toy car wrestling federation to sate my appetite. If wondering how one could have a toy car wrestling federation, allow me to briefly elaborate. There was a long hallway in the trailer we lived in, as there are in most. I would take up residence in this hallway with my little box full of cars and sit them all out along the edges of the hall. On one side were babyfaces, (though I had no knowledge whatsoever of that term at the time), and on the other were the heels. I would then grab my badass Lisa Frank dragon notebook and book "matches" between them. My champion was a cherry red Ford Mustang convertible I had named Crazy Horse. He was essentially Hulk Hogan in Hot Wheels form. My Intercontinental Champion was a Porche with a cool pink stained glass style body that I creatively named... Stained Glass. What more would you expect from a dude who has a dachshund named Weenie? Hell, my dog back then was a black chow named Blackie.
Anywho, the matches were pretty straightforward. I would take the cars and smash them into each other headlong. The first to flip and land on their back three times was the loser. One may wonder how a red Mustang convertible could possibly fare well in such a contest, seeing as how it was ostensibly flat. Well... I cheated. Crazy Horse never lost. Told you he was just like Hogan.
I'm way off point. What I'm trying to get across is that I was without wrestling for the first time and had to come up with my own shit to substitute. It was fun... but it sucked. I wanted to know what my guys were up to and nobody at school knew or cared. As such, I had nobody to even ask what was going on. No outlet whatsoever. I was a wrestling fan without wrestling.
That changed in January of 1993. We were in the grocery store and while my mom and Granny were waiting in line to check out, I went over to the magazine rack to browse. And there, in a poly bag that reflected the fluorescent lights of Kroger like a saintly neon flare, was something new. Something that hadn't been there the week before and that I frankly had no idea even existed.
I remember audibly gasping at the sight of it. It was in my hands in a heartbeat and I was running to the checkout line to beg for it. My mom was feeling charitable that day and thus began a torrid love affair with WWF Magazine that would last from that January morning all the way until about September of 2004 when I let the subscription I'd gotten in 1997 finally lapse.
I was a voracious reader and had just about the entire thing read before we had even completed the 20 minute car ride home. I loved it. Inside were the results of Survivor Series 1992 and it was through that magazine that I learned that Bret Hart had won the WWF Championiship a few months prior. The Rockers were no more and Shawn Michaels was now the Intercontinental Champion and self proclaimed "Wrestler of the '90s". The Undertaker, who I had adored from his first appearance, had become one of the most popular and successful wrestlers in the company. And the cover star, Mr. Perfect, had finally jumped over to the side of good and teamed up with Macho Man Randy Savage to take on Ric Flair and a new guy named Razor Ramon.
Man, I soaked in that shit like a hot tub. Just awash with all this fresh information, loving the vivid pictures and dreaming of owning damn near everything in the merchandise catalog that had accompanied the hallowed periodical. I took it to school with me the next Monday to show my friends, the same ones I had previously talked about wrestling with every single day just a few months before... and nobody gave a shit. At all. I was left sitting on the wall out on the playground reading my magazine for probably the 20th time as everyone else ran around. Though I wasn't exactly forcibly ostracized or picked on, it resonated with me. I was alone. I was the only one who liked this and I didn't really understand why.
It went on like that for the rest of the school year. I kept on begging for WWF Magazines on a monthly basis and, upon getting a new one, would bring it to school and try to get someone, anyone, interested in it again, always to no avail. The end of 5th grade came and then, seemingly within the blink of an eye, the beginning of 6th. I had basically given up trying to entice anyone else to return to their abandoned fandom and was happy to be on my own. It was also a really fucking weird time for me. Over that summer some really unpleasant shit had happened that, ironically enough, involved WWF Magazine.
My great uncle, who was the only real male "role model" type figure in my life and who had always showed a special interest in hanging out with me and teaching me about football and shit, came by to pick me up to go to the park and throw the ball around a bit. We hit up the grocery store afterwards and he bought me the latest issue. I babbled on about it as we drove around a bit, not noticing that we were now on some completely unfamiliar back road. He pulled over and we looked at the magazine. Then some other stuff happened. Some stuff that fucked me up in the head for a really, really long time.
So yeah, by the time school started back up a month or two later, I was in a somewhat dark place, at least for a 6th grader. I had retreated within myself to a great deal, had started investing myself deeply into music and frankly didn't give a shit if anyone liked what I liked. As mentioned up top, that hasn't really changed.
I learned, over the course of a few months, that being the quiet, reserved kid can put something of a target on your back. I started getting picked on and, due to my damaged sense of self and conflicted emotions and stuff, never fought back. I remember bringing one of my favorite issues of WWF Magazine to school once, the issue that recapped WrestleMania 9. Someone, I've no clue whom, saw fit to draw on the cover when I wasn't around. I have no idea when, no idea how, but they had taken one of my favorite things and fucked it up. That said, it was kinda funny. Below is an artist's rendering of how they defaced it.
It would not shock me if I were to one day find out that the culprit was a time traveling Uncle Joe, though I'm pretty sure he would've added a dick going into Hogan's agape mouth.
A short time later I finally got my first ever wrestling shirt. I had found an Undertaker shirt at Goodwill and my mom got it for me and man, was I proud of that thing. It was white with all over print, Taker in full grey and black garb on the front with his logo emblazoned everywhere else. Try as I might, I have never again been able to find that shirt anywhere, despite a few hours long internet searches. For all I know I owned the only fucking one. Anyways, I wore it all that weekend and then washed it before putting it on to head to school on a rainy Monday morning.
The rain had let up by recess and I headed out to play some basketball. An older kid, that one 6th grader in seemingly every school who had failed a couple times and already had a mustache and shit, stepped in front of me about halfway across the playground and asked what was on my shirt. When I sheepishly replied, "The Undertaker. He's my favorite wrestler," this kid called me a faggot and said wrestling was for queers (he was a comedic genius, that one) and then shoved me down. I've never been into conflict much so I got up, held up my hands and asked him to leave me alone. He shoved me down again, this time dangerously close to an exceptionally muddy puddle. Here in East Texas we have a predominance of red clay dirt that forms a fucking sludge when it rains. It also produces stains that no amount of washing can eliminate.
That in mind, I got up again and made the critical mistake of asking him not to mess up my shirt. It was new and it was my favorite. I guess we all know what happened next. He shoved me again, quite hard, and angled it so that I landed squarely in that small pit of mud. He then came over and placed his foot squarely on my chest, twisting it around to make sure he got a good, solid red muddy footprint right squarely over the image of the Deadman.
Thus began my first ever fight. I lost my shit, the first of what would become a disturbing series of blackout rages over the next 5 or so years, and proceeded to beat the sweet holy fuck out of the kid. I remember the recess lady pulling me off him and giving him one last kick in the face as she did so, breaking his nose in the process. All the other kids who had been around vouched for me, telling the teachers and eventually the principal that he had started the whole thing, I had tried to walk away and that he just kept on pushing me down. So I didn't get in trouble.
I also never got fucked with again.
On the contrary, I became somewhat popular. I was never really unpopular, mind you, but I started emerging from the cocoon I had wrapped around myself for the last few months. I hit a growth spurt around that time and was suddenly the biggest kid in class. I started getting pretty damn good at basketball and was always first picked to play football due to the fact that I had a good arm and could run like a motherfucker.
Those are the good things that came from that day, all slowly, over the course of a few days, weeks and months. The immediate aftermath was me, pissed and embarrassed and I would venture to say in the throes of an outright molestation induced depression, weeping in my room that night as I looked at my ruined Undertaker shit, the only wrestling shirt I had ever had because it was the only one we could afford. My mom had tried washing it three times that evening and it was still horribly stained, completely ruined with a fucking shoe print right over that badass image of Taker that I loved. I got up from bed in the middle of the night, careful not to wake my sleeping little brother, and threw it in the garbage.
I've flown a bit off course from my original intent in sitting down to write this. All apologies. My intent wasn't to paint some sob fucking story or something and I hope that isn't the case. We all have our own personal tales of having felt alone, ostracized, unpopular. That just comes along with childhood, you know? Mine just happened to involve wrestling. My overall point, as verbosely made as ever, is that I am very much familiar with being all alone in my wrestling fandom.
Fast forward a few years to high school. I was still a wrestling fan, of course, but by my freshman year the nWo had happened and wrestling was beginning to bubble as an acceptable pop culture thing to give a shit about once again. My family was no less broke, so I still didn't have cable and stuff, though I had seen a few episodes of Raw in the meantime. I remember hanging out at lunch with a couple of other guys, Edmond and Peanut, every Tuesday. They would tell me all about what had happened on Raw the night before and we would discuss all the random stuff that wrestling fans discuss. I vividly recall them telling me about the night that ECW showed up. I was enthralled, as I had incorporated Pro Wrestling Illustrated into my reading at that point and was very familiar with the promotion at a time when most in my area had no fucking clue it existed. It was only a year or two before I started buying tapes and such from wrestling fans around the country and cultivating what is still an avid love for the Extreme promotion.
Within the next few years pro wrestling became fucking massive. I was no longer the only guy in school wearing wrestling shirts by a long shot, as nWo, DX and Austin 3:16 were inescapable in the hallways of Henderson High. Eventually, around April of 1998, my girlfriend at the time started recording Raw for me every week and, on top of that, her parents would allow me to pay them to get PPVs every month. At a time when everyone around me was doing everything in their power to get laid, I was going over to my girlfriend's house to sit unattended for hours and watch pro wrestling.
And fuck. A lot. Let's not get it twisted.
This went on for the remainder of my school years, as I graduated in May of 2000 when wrestling was at its peak. I got a radio gig about a year later and started making decent money, which in turn saw me getting my own satellite, which in turn meant that I was as deep as ever. It was around that time, in January of 2002, that I attended my first televised event. It was Smackdown, the last one before the Royal Rumble. The show saw Triple H return to the ring for the first time since returning and it was, to say the least, a fucking blast. Wrestling was starting to wane at the time but was still pretty popular. This ongoing popularity had been bolstered by the widespread proliferation of the internet a few years prior and the advent of websites devoted entirely to the mat game. Among them was the first website I ever visited, WrestlingHeadlines.com.
Having been an avid LOP follower for about a year or so at that point, I wrote up a live event report for the Smackdown show and sent it off to the webmaster, Calvin. A couple hours later it was posted on the main page for the world to see, which delighted me to no end. Calvin wrote me back an email around that time saying he loved it and wanted to know if I was available to write for the site. I told him I would love to and he informed me that there wasn't an open spot for a columnist at the time, but that I should head to the newly formed Columns Forum and start there to bide by time until a spot became available. So I did.
I was immediately taken aback by what I saw. I had been surrounded by wrestling fans in my early youth and then again in my high school years but they had been fans of a more "casual" ilk. They were into it but they weren't obsessed. These guys in the CF, though? They were just as obsessed as I was.
I immediately started writing, posting my first column within a couple days. My routine became watching Raw on Monday nights and then hooking up my WebTV (look it up and laugh heartily) to head to the Forums and write my column, which I had titled All About the Game after my album/movie review column in the high school newspaper a few years before. Feedback came in and was accepted and appreciated. Acquaintances were fostered with the handful of guys who preceded me and the growing number of guys who came after. I won CotM in June of 2002 after about 5 months of writing and then got an email from Tito informing me that Calvin had asked him to find out if I was ready to take that spot on the main page that we had discussed in January. I was. Suddenly I was a columnist for Lords of Pain. I posted my first piece, which also served as my CotM "award" column, and...
My WebTV died. One column deep into my LOP main page writing career and I then disappeared like a fucking ghost. I had no computer and smartphones were still a few years off from being created so I may as well have died or some shit.
I'd lost my job by that point, so I had to save up cash from odd jobs for over a year to buy myself another WebTV. What can I say? They were fucking cheap. The first thing I did was log on not to LOP but to the Forums. I wanted to see if anyone I knew was still around, if anyone remembered me, and wanted to go back and read my old stuff. Unfortunately, the Forums had moved by that point and all my old stuff was gone. What I found instead was a CF that had grown beyond anything that I honestly ever anticipated.
A kid named Winter was working a full on gimmick, which had been virtually unheard of in 2002. A dude named doublehelix was crushing it with some of the funniest shit I'd ever read about wrestling all while also contributing to a tag team collaborative column, which had also been unheard of in 2002, along with a ridiculously well rounded writer who called himself Xanman. There was even a female writer, named Tina, who wrote a column called The XY Files with her husband. When I had left in 2002 the CF had been a fun little place to write with nice folks and a somewhat loose competitive but friendly atmosphere. When I returned in late 2003, the CF was an ultra competitive and crazy talented lot of writers who had formed a full on community.
I'm not afraid to admit that I lurked for a bit. I read what was going on, figured out who was in what clique, got the lay of the land in general. When I posted my first column back, approaching it as though I was the established columnist that I had been some year and a half before, I was met with a resounding sense of, "Who the fuck are you?". Then Valleyboy left me feedback. He was the only one still around from those earlier days and remembered me, singing my praises and all that in a manner that was entirely too kind. Everyone else saw that and I was fairly quickly accepted. Despite some friction among some of the established writers of the era, I was seen as something of a returning main eventer.
In time, genuine friendships were formed. Valleyboy and I would exchange PMs almost daily. Tina and I traded emails back and forth all the time. That Winter guy almost begrudgingly began to respect me. A young writer who called himself Randomguy#5 became my first groupie, then my outright rival, though it was the absolute definition of a friendly rivalry. Pt2 became my favorite writer, Tito sent me a genuinely touching email welcoming me back, kudos and kind words started coming my way as I gradually reestablished myself and started writing regularly, eventually becoming the first ever two time CotM winner in August in 2004. Shortly after that saw the influx of some new writers, among them names like Cavalou and Sandman who I started speaking to every night for hours on AOL Instant Messenger. They were followed by Morpheus, who became one of my best friends both online and off. Then there was 1,000,000BC, who I once spent 12 straight hours conversing with on AIM.
I was a single, issue laden stoner who loved rock and roll and only had one genuine friend in the really real world. A guy who spent a lot of time alone, who had a bad habit of wallowing in my own misery and feeling inherently lesser than everyone else for reasons I've never quite been able to explain.
Suddenly, though, I was surrounded by friends who not only understood my issues but shared some of them and actually gave a shit to explore them mutually via hours of conversation. I was surrounded by exceptionally talented writers, a skill that I have always valued very highly, who treated me with respect and sometimes, completely beyond my comprehension, as someone to be revered. As time wore on and genuine friends like Valleyboy and Random and Morpheus gave way to genuine friends like Degenerate and anonymous and sheepster, then to Uncle Joe and CoLd and Skittlez, then to Shane and mizfan and Kleckamania, I found myself entrenched. As part of the fabric of the community.
For the first time in my life I found myself surrounded by intelligent, kindhearted, talented wrestling fans. I wasn't the kid alone on the wall reading about Mr. Perfect and the Macho Man. I wasn't the young man crying over his ruined prized possession. I wasn't the passionate fan surrounded by casual bandwagon observers.
I was a part of something. Something special. And though it has evolved over these last 14 years to include the extended social media members of the crew, to include trolls and the sort of asshole "fans" who would go so far as to mock my sister's death because she was a Roman Reigns fan... it's still something special.
I've read a lot of columns these last few days, all focused upon our shared topic of "the best or worst way wrestling has changed since you first started watching it". There have been as many routes taken as there are writers, all of them exceptional in expressing their thoughts on the subject. Most, largely reflecting the climate in which we currently live here in the extended IWC, have focused moreso upon the "worst" part of the equation. I considered doing so, myself.
It dawned on me, though, that I'm in a somewhat different position than are many of you, my peers. I didn't come into this 10 or 15 or even 20 years ago. Wrestling fandom has been a part of my life for as long as I've been aware of my existence on this planet. I was in my 20s before the IWC ever even entered the equation. That doesn't make me any better or worse or any more or less equipped to discuss this topic, by any stretch of the imagination. We've all got our stories, all got our likes and dislikes, each one as valuable and worthwhile as the next.
While reading all of these columns, though, I found myself with a smile on my face. I had been struggling with what to write. I thought of doing a tribute to dead wrestlers thing but fuck, dude, a guy can only write about death and shit so many times before it becomes a gimmick. I may love The Undertaker but I've no intention of being known as "the dead wrestler column guy".
When asked over the years why I don't compete in competitions very often, I give a few reasons. The lack of time I have free to sit and do this to the level at which a competition demands, fearful of ultimately having to kick out something I deem subpar and embarrassing myself by not living up to whatever expectations may be held by those who respect what I've done before. My rebellious nature also comes into play, my tendency towards not liking being told what to do and being held to deadlines and the like.
The largest reason, though, is that I often, as mentioned, struggle with what to write. I'm very much a free form writer, as I suppose is somewhat obvious, with very little planning and virtually no set pathway in place when I sit down to literally write these things directly into the black box here on the Post New Thread page I'm currently looking at. I find it exceedingly difficult to force something to work, you know? Assignments aren't so much my bag.
But that smile crept over my face, specifically as I read Skul's excellent column in the middle of the night last night (while pooping), when I realized what the answer to my quandary was. It had been literally right in front of me the entire time.
The best thing to have changed in my lifetime as a wrestling fan is that none of us will ever again be alone in our fandom. We always have some place to turn, always have someone itching to discuss a given topic, can always find our way to a community full of like minded individuals who won't mock, berate or bring you down for loving what you love.
The best thing to have changed in my lifetime as a wrestling fan is this place and, by extension, you. You, Constant Reader, exist. And you're here. We're here. It hasn't always been that way, so that it is now? That's fucking awesome.
The Internet Wrestling Community, the LOP wing specifically and the Columns Forum subsection especially, has legitimately impacted my life for the better. So thank you. I genuinely appreciate it.
Take care of yourselves out there in the really real world, kids, and remember that nothing is trivial.
Much love.
Later.
-Steven
P.S. - That's what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were removed.
P.P.S. - The title probably doesn't make any goddamn sense to most of you. Google it and add in the word "Saxon", then read the lyrics that are generated by your search. That will likely help clear things up a little bit. I was going to leave it somewhat vague but it dawned on me, as I was just about to click Submit New Thread, that there's "vague" and then there's outright "nonsensical".