My antlers hurt.

Today, we filmed a commercial. We have a local ice hockey team here called the Jackalopes. If I'm remembering correctly, they've been shooting a series of commericals where the mascot goes out and does various things unrelated to hockey. In this case, getting beat up by wrestlers. The guy who typically wears the suit was not a part of it. So guess who got to put it on and get beat up? (Editor's note: insert picture of me holding up two thumbs at myself later.)

It was hot as hell, but this is not the first mascot costume I've worn. Third, actually. The idea was for me to take big moves from everyone, that will be cut and spliced together into a series. The first move I took was a corner splash. When he did a trial run to show the cameraman how it would look, I immediately knew the mascot head was going to hurt me. The place to see out of was his mouth. There was no padding; straight up hard plastic grating. I was gonna bust my nose and mouth if I took the move, so I asked for padding. They cut a small piece of ring padding and shoved it up the front. It was great for protection, but limited my visibility to roughly 0%. I was hit by a blind splash. The only indication I had that it was coming was "action!" and then footsteps. I basically had to guess when impact was coming. The padding helped, but not knowing exactly when it hit was the worst. And, since this wasn't exactly live and in real-time, we did several takes for everything. Kinda glad to get the worst part out of the way.

Second spot was the spear. As always, I took it like a champ...so well, in fact, my head flew the fuck off. On every take except the last. If they can cut it so you don't see my face, I bet they'll keep it that way. It looked great. I also took: Vader Bomb, top rope frog splash (first take ended with Cash's knee in my gut,) cattle mutilation submission, being choked on the ropes, a chairshot to the back (the mascot's padding really helped out here,) and ending with the champ standing over me with the belt and turning my head 180 degrees to face up at him. Now, I wanted to be in this thing too, so I got out of the costume and Cash put it on. He whipped me off the ropes and I came back with a flying cross body. I laid on top of him and gave the old Rick Rude pin while a ref counted to 3. Cash ended up taking quite a few other moves: a top rope elbow drop, a big kick from a spring board, a side slam, a body slam, and a clothesline. I may have missed a move or two in all this; but when the commercial is fully finished we've all been promised copies. I will make sure to get it posted.

The ending to the commercial is all of us in the ring, standing around the downed Jackalope, stomping the shit out of him. In the foreground is an announcer, grinning in a tie while he talks about the team or something; I don't know for sure, couldn't hear him. A lot of the guys got some footage on their phones of me and Cash taking these hits, and I gotta say they look pretty brutal. I cannot wait to see the finished product. We all had a lot of fun doing it. Me being the bump bitch and taking all these hits is kind of a way of breaking me into the business. We all gotta pay our dues. Some people work a squash match where the opponent intentionally breaks a nose or makes them bleed. Some people don't get to use a locker room. Some people have to carry the vets' equipment for them. Some people sleep on the floor in the hotel room, or just get embarassed in some way. I apparently get to wear a costume and get fucked up on camera. Personally, I'll take it.

Next practice is Sunday, and then we're taking Tuesday and Thursday off for the holiday. Then there's the next Sunday practice after that; which I will likely miss. That's my birthday weekend so I expect to be in Abilene for it. I think they might be watching footage of last Sunday's matches and critiquing it, and possibly getting the raw, uncut footage of this commerical, so I may need to get my ass back here regardless. Those are both things I need to see.

Breaking news

Today, we were told to show up in full gear. A photographer from the newspaper was going to be at practice taking pictures of our workout. It seems they want to do a story on us. And so, he was there snapping pictures as we went through our regular routine. We started putting some spots together, such as corner splash - bulldog - belly to back suplex, or shoulder tackle - clothesline - back elbow, and also hip toss - body slam - Japanese arm drag. Still a little beat up from the match, and feeling cottonmouth, but I kept up. We had a trainee there who hadn't been in a while, so eventually the whole thing kinda devolved into him taking moves from everyone as a sort of punishment; and also just for fun. Mike and David kept hitting him with really big moves that looked pretty heinous. Mike even gave him a powerbomb from the second rope. Poor guy's head almost hit the ceiling beam. Order was somewhat restored and I also learned how to take a powerslam. Fred sat us all down after the photographer had left and told us that it seems the article will be a lot bigger than expected. He's going to come back for more shots, maybe do some light training to see what it's like (well, I guess the writer is the one who will be doing that) and maybe going with some of the workers out of town when they do matches elsewhere, to see life in the locker room and the ride there and back. It's going to be a pretty in depth story, perhaps. I'll make sure to get a scan of it when it happens; but don't know when it will yet. It's going to be great exposure when it does happen. After we locked up and started leaving, the head trainer and I started to talk about his new diet plan, which ended up jumping subjects a lot. We talked for a good hour. Apparently he used to be pretty into DDR and fighting games. It's scary how much we have in common. He's like an older, blacker version of me. I know what you're thinking, "who could be blacker than you," but I'm referring to skin tone. He used to do full band plays of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and now be knows the secrets behind how certain arcade machines, such as cranes and pushers, are rigged. Next practice is on Thursday. There's big exposure to be had then as well, but I save that entry for that day.

The legend begins!

I had a match yesterday. I was not scheduled to perform, and it was essentially thrown at me at the last minute. I'm totally glad that happened.

Yesterday we had a cookout, and put on a couple matches for family and friends. The match has been recorded and here's the link to view it:  http://youtu.be/wh3YXG8GR9Q

Before you judge too harshly, remember a few things:

-  I knew about this match roughly 30 minutes before it happened
-  My name was announced wrong! And my music started playing for my opponent before his did
-  This was Bridgette's first time recording anything

I'm probably my own worst critic, so I'm trying not to be too harsh on myself. On one side, it's something to be proud of. I did a match after only two months of training, and it wasn't a total train wreck. On the other, I really wish I'd gotten more offense in. This is essentially a squash match. But this is the first of many, and I gotta start somewhere. That being said, I'm proud of that spear I took. Clearly, I should've died.

Good to be back

It's been a while, so it was good to get the rust off. Today I took some more back body drops, and learned flapjacks as well. I also did an up-and-over maneuver, where you run to the turnbuckle, bounce off the bottom rope and throw your legs up and jump over as your opponent runs under you. Only a few of us are agile enough to do it. It's a real fun move! After it all we moved some stuff around to make a makeshift locker room. As we all were standing around, David grabbed me by the back of the head, led me to the ring, and threw me in. He picked me up, put me in suplex position, and called out a series of spots. He gave me a vertical suplex, a clothesline, pushed me to one corner and threw me into another, gave me a splash, took me down with a bulldog, and then locked me into a submission. Only afterwards did he explain he was finding a way to set up his finisher. He switched it up a bit and found a nice way to transition it more smoothly. I think it would look pretty devastating. This brings home the fact that I need to think of a finisher too. I have a couple of moves I really like, such as corner splashes and cross bodies, but those aren't really finishers. More like signature moves. I'd like to try a curb stomp too; but again, not a typical finisher. The theory of a flying elbow drop is nice; the practice is a little nerve wracking. I guess I need to be booked in a match before I worry too much about it. There's a cookout on Sunday. I'll definitely enjoy that!

Not much to speak of...

I missed Sunday, but not intentionally. I went to the facility at 2, not realizing practice was at 3. I headed back home for an hour to test some game systems I had bought to resell. At about 2:45 all my power went out. I was stuck at home dealing with the electric company and trying to find out why. It came back on at 3:30 for about 5 minutes, then went back down. It stayed out until at least 5:30. We left the house to run errands and it was on by the time we got back. Still though, very hot and very irritating. Fred sent a text today requesting everyone's presence for announcements. I won't Gogol far into that, but the short version is our numbers are dwindling, and a lot of people have broken their promises as far as showing up and paying dues. I hope we can resolve that. I damn sure don't want this to end before I get to do anything with it. We only spent 30 minutes or do working out, and a lot of time talking. Then most of us went to Denny's and ate and talked more. Looks like today was more about bonding than working out; which is fine now and again. But my ass needs the workout. I've been lazy lately. No update until next Thursday. This Thursday I'll be stuck at work, no practice on Sunday due to father's day, and I'll be out of town on the Tuesday session. I believe Thursday is another cookout, so that's a good time to come back for sure.

Brokeback got fingered by a midget

Fred requested that I put that statement in this post. I will explain nothing. It's funnier out of context.

There was no training last Tuesday, and I was out of town Thursday and Sunday. Today began with some good exercises. We all laid in the ring with our head off the mat, and held it as long as we could. This makes you tired a lot more than you'd think it would. We were told that the first one to drop his head had to clean the bathroom. After 25 minutes with no one doing so, Fred let us up. I kinda wanted to keep doing that. I wanted to see exactly how long we could all last.

New moves from today include sunset flips, Russian leg sweeps, school boy roll ups, a couple of other pins I forget the names of. There's going to be cookout in a couple of weeks, and Fred wants us to put on a few matches. Currently, the plan is to have 4 singles matches and 1 tag match. The 4 matches would have a trainee going up against a vet, and the tag match of 2 trainees versus 2 vets. That means everyone who is green has somebody to help carry them. It's under evaluation who gets to wrestle. Only the people who have been showing up and training are eligible, obviously; and there's not a whole lot of us. I'd say that statistically I've got a decent shot of having a match in a couple weeks. Isn't that some exciting shit? I'm not trying to get ahead of myself here. I just have to bust my ass to prove to the trainers that I am a good pick. Here's to hoping. It wouldn't be a show or anything; just a little exhibition for family and friends. I'm sure Bridgette will be bringing her video camera. I'll see if we can't get some matches put up on YouTube.

I bit the inside of my lip and make it bleed. My left ankle is a bit swollen. My neck is sore. That means it was a good day.