I'm gonna wrassle! Someday...

As some of my closer friends may be aware, I'm in training to be a professional wrestler. This event is the quite possibly the reason for my being.

Bill Bitner, better known as Death Falcon Zero in wrestling circles, has taken me under his wing (hehe, he's a falcon..ya see?) and is going to impart his knowledge of the ongoings within the squared circle. This, as you surely know, is awesome.




After Bill agreed to train me, I immediately lost the ability to sleep. I lay down at night but instead of sleeping I close my eyes and see images of moonsaults, superkicks, and hammerlocks. I know...sweet isn't it? Anyway, during one of these sleepless nights I decided to keep a blog about the training/wrestling process. I know that a lot of people are into wrestling so I thought it would be cool for them to hear a bit from the inside. I also know that for every one person into wrestling, there is an entire family who folds their arms, shakes their heads, and questions the sexual preference of said person. I suppose that is the major reason for wanting to keep a blog about it. Hopefully someone skeptical may happen across this and at least gain a little respect for what these dudes put themselves through simply to entertain a couple dozen people.

I hope to keep up with this on a weekly-ish basis. Or at least after each training/wrestling event. If I fail to feel free to hate mail me. Or not notice as 6billion other people will.

Speaking of which. Bill came by the apartment yesterday to give me my first series of lessons. I was concerned that I would end up pile driven threw the coffee table but as it turns out Bill just wanted to go through some of the basics. I.E. no german suplexes or ddts.

We went through your basic lock-up, arm wrench, headlock, scissor hold, hammerlock, and the very basics of how the ring psychology works. Basically it goes like this. The bad guy, or "heel" is the dude in charge. He essentially calls the match. The good guy, or "face", follows his lead as the face is usually dominated for much of the match do to some sort of cheating on the part of the heel. There is much more involved than that, but I'm sure I'll learn things as I go.

He also went of some of the etiquette of professional wrestling. Things that seem obvious at first, until you go to an independent wrestling event and get up close and personal with some of the participants.

1.Take a shower before a match.
2.Brush your teeth before a match. Or at least pop in a mint or chew some gum.
3.Try and keep your chest, and arm pits shaved

As I said, these seem obviously but as Bill can attest to, they aren't always followed.

Now, as any fan of wrestling can tell you, finishers are a big deal. To non wrestling fans, a finisher is the trademark move of an individual that is used to "finish" off their opponent for the win. Much of my sleepless nights were spent on trying to figure out what move I could use as my finisher. As long as I have been a wrestling fan, Shawn Michaels has always been my favorite wrestler. His finisher is aptly named "sweet chin music". "Sweet chin music" is basically a standing side kick the the jaw/face of the opponent. I always thought this was a super rad finisher as it could be done anywhere, to anyone, at anytime and really sells (meaning the audience really can believe, or buy into it) to the audience. I was reluctant to use this as my finisher because, well, it's Shawn's. Other dude's do it but I would fell odd taking my idols move I guess. While talking to Bill he asked me what wrestlers I would want to mold my style from and I mentioned Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho. Bill quickly said "Well, can you do a superkick(another name for the "sweet chin music")?" I almost said "Psh, I do like 4 or 5 a day around the house when I'm bored, of course I can!" but instead I said "Yes." Bill then said, "Well, your an athletic guy, so I think that should be your finisher. I think people would believe it." That settles that. If it's good enough for DFZ, then it's good enough for me.

Tomorrow I'm going with Bill to the Ayash sports complex for an outdoor show, barring the weather, and then to somewhere that I forgot for some in ring training. Seth is stoked.

Check back for more!

SUPERKICK!