It’s after midnight as I’m writing this. I’m ready for a nap, bur wanted to share the last two weeks of my life with you.
I packed my belongings into a storage unit at the end of April before beginning my 5 day trip to New England. My friend and I stopped along the way. Each picking up some wrestling sessions in South Carolina, Virginia, Philadelphia & New York City. 1500 miles is a long drive, but we did a manageable 4-7 hours per day.
The trip seemed to work out perfectly. We took enough time to explore the areas and see some cool sights AND made sure we got in some fun wrestling action. I think we spent the most time in Richmond (Virginia), where I ran into an old wrestling buddy on the street near a local restaurant and Philadelphia. I’ve been to both places a few times, but wanted to explore a bit more. Some great street art in both places. I was surprised at the weather in the Northeast, as I was expecting it to be in the high 60’s or low 70’s…and maybe even colder in New England. When we reached Virginia is was in the mid-80’s. That’s Florida weather and it was only the very beginning of May. It has since cold down significantly. It was in the 30’s last night and I’m thinking I’ve got to run back south to warm up. So in the the next few weeks, I will be returning to Florida for a little bit.
I spent a few days relaxing at home before venturing back south to Boston and Providence to focus on a big double shoot. Jonny Firestorm ran one location with my other buddy, while I managed the other location 20 minutes away.
The shoot started off terribly. On Monday I got a call from Buff former WCW/WWE wrestler saying he just had to have shoulder surgery. He was willing to come up from Atlanta to do what you could, but I thought it was best to let him heal and try again after the summer. On Tuesday, I heard back from Tyler Royce stating his boss wasn’t going to give him the day off, so that was a big loss as far as wrestling ability and looks.
My friend, Kevin and I went to wrestling practice Tuesday night to horse around with some rookies. It was a fun time and was great to finally be back in the ring after a couple weeks away. Did I mention that I wrestled on a live event against Chase Sinn in Orlando back in April? Of course, I lost. It was fun being back in front of a live audience. I think I’ll do more random shows this summer.
After practice, Kevin and I went to my hotel room to plan out the next days schedule. I’m always doing things last minute, but I think if I didn’t wait to do things like this last minute then I’d be doing a lot of shuffling of matches, which is what happened anyway.
Wednesday was a day of prep. I had to go shopping for some handcuffs and other supplies for the shoot. I also had to pick up Christian Thorn from the airport in Boston then make the drive down to Providence. We stopped in at a local restaurant to grab a snack and a drink with Jonny Firestorm. We went back to Jonny’s to play some video games and relax then Christian and I left to check-in at the hotel and catch a little nap before the shoot. I think I finally fell asleep at 4am, only to be woken up at 6am when Teddy Trouble arrived at the hotel to check-in. I didn’t go back to bed. Instead I stayed up and shot a text message to Cal Bennett, whom lives close to Providence. I figured I’d see if he wanted to come do a bit of wrestling…and guess what? He did.
The shoots went well. We started bright and early (9 am) at location #1 then I sprinted up to location #2 (18 miles away) to start shooting there. We were a bit behind schedule (an hour or so), but we got things rolling. At one point, I realized I was missing one wrestler, so I called him and he didn’t answer two times. In fact, he hit the ignore button both times AND still hasn’t responded to my text messages. Hopefully he’s not dead.
The first location finished up about 3pm, which is an awful time to travel on a work day. The crew showed up to the second location in 3 or 4 cars and even my cousin stopped by to say hey and play around in the ring with the wrestlers. My cousin also brought some liquor…as did another friend of mine. I think we timed it out perfectly as we were losing steam and the guys were hungry, tired and worn. The last 3 hours of the shoot was more like a fun party than a work day.
Finally the day was done and we began our trip back to the hotel, where we had some shenanigans before grabbing some drinks in the area and passing out cold.
I didn’t take a lot of photos with my camera phone, but I definitely have a ton of pics from the matches. I’m very proud of my Johnny Jobber costume and wanted to share that. So the last image I’ll see before bed is this….
