The Perfect 10

It's often stated that we all love an underdog - and we do - but there's no cliche in place to describe the amazement, or awe, we feel from the perfect record. Underdogs don't score the perfect ten, geniuses do. Dan Gable won an Olympic gold, in freestyle wrestling, without conceding a single point the entire time; Cael Sanderson is undefeated in college wrestling; Dock Ellis (baseball, sorry grapple fans) threw a no-hitter, whilst under the influence of LSD; Rickson Gracie never loses, ever.

Yesterday was the first time I've ever lost in a grappling competition - ruining any future hope I might've had at building that perfect record. I didn't loose out on a major championship, nor was my future welfare, in anyway, compromised, but, for some reason, it really got to me. After the match, I put Kurt Cobain to shame. And it's at a time like that you want to blame everyone else: "if so-and-so would've stopped talking to me beforehand, I could've focused more"; "that person being there made me too tense"; "that girl's my bad luck charm, I never do well with her here". The truth of the matter, though, is that I made mistakes and the other guy was good enough to capitalise on them. That's all. I would've really liked to have blamed someone else, or luck, but I don't believe in luck, or fate, or destiny; the only people you can count on, is yourself and your opponent (and maybe the ref).

The worst part was realising how stupid my approach was, later. I had a few other matches, after the loss, to settle on who'd win the bronze. It's a ridiculous mentality, but I'm a "first or last" sort of guy - there's first place, and there's last place, and nothing inbetween. So, I approached these other matches thinking "what's the point?" Which meant I was loose and limber, seeing the openings, and going to work, properly. I won the bronze. And all I could think of was how tense I'd been approaching the other matches. I hadn't switched off and relaxed. ("Be like water, my friend.") It was a learning experience - which is, really, what competing is supposed to be - but that doesn't make that smudge on my record any more tolerable, right now.

One of the people I beat, on the way to the bronze, blamed the mats for his loss: if he hadn't tripped on the mats, then there's no way I would have submitted him. He was nice enough to find me and tell me this, in a very matter of fact sort of way, after the match. Some people can't accept the loss, and some people can; thankfully, I'm the latter.

P.S.
I actually had an entirely different post half written, before writing this, but putting that up felt like ignoring what I really wanted to talk about. Somedays you need to put your hands up and shout "I fucked up!"

Little boy lost

Before a match, grappling competitions, and even just training, I sort of stop thinking. I say sort of, because I am thinking, I just try to make myself unaware of it - does that make any sense? I hope it does. It's characterised by a stone-faced expression, which some people interpret as boredom, and others as a borderline psychopathic tendency; I've adopted the term "switching off" to describe it. (I suppose it's as close as I get to the "don't think, feel", philosophy of Bruce Lee.)

When I switch off, I don't like talking to people, I just find somewhere to myself, and do my thing. Sometimes I just put a towel on my head, other times I pace up and down, and every now and again I try listening to music.

Lately, I've been listening to music, and there's one track in particular, that's been on loop, these last few weeks: "Fucking in the Bushes" by Oasis. It's a quality song. If anything, most people associate it with Guy Ritchie's film, Snatch, but I don't.

***

Oasis starts shouting out the speakers and the lights start flashing in time with the beat. At this moment I'm fine; it's when I stop to stare at the entrance video that everything changes. It's highlights of all those matches I used to watch, and then, out he comes. Suddenly, I switch on.

"What the fuck am I doing here? Why is Nigel McGuinness walking to the ring?" I start thinking.

I'm here [at New Generation Wrestling, in Hull] because I'm their go-to, if they need someone to wrestle on the mat; Nigel McGuinness is walking to the ring, because I'm booked to face him. I'm having a surreal moment in the ring, to myself, where I feel completely out of place. I start trying to stare off into the middle distance and shut that voice off that's telling me to hop the railing and run. Fucking in the Bushes is playing, and to the ring, walks the man I will always associate with it.

***

In 2004, when I was at the tender age of fourteen, I discovered a company named "Ring of Honor" [sic]. I remember my overabundance of joy, at discovering a completely new roster of styles and characters to obsess over, and Nigel McGuinness was one of those guys. I remember the first match I saw him in: he was in blue trunks, with the Union Flag on the back, and he was facing off against a little wildman man named Jimmy Jacobs (in a weird twist of fate, I vaguely recall the commentators talking about the Wigan Snake Pit, during the match, too). I liked Nigel, because here was a British guy doing, a British-esque style - yes, the sharing of nationality was enough for me to like the guy. It didn't matter that he'd been trained by an American, damn it! He was British! (What a strange mentality I had.)

As time went on, I continued to watch, and eventually started to train. Nigel switched from blue to black, started flicking the V's, and became money with a microphone. Time continued to pass -

***

I'm stood in the ring and I've managed to shut the nagging little voice off, again. The lights are up and Nigel's in the opposite corner to me. This is the only chance I'll get to do this; this is all part of the McGuinness retirement tour. You want to come across as professional, but you want to tell this guy how much you enjoyed everything he's done. He stands in the middle of the ring, with his hand outstretched - that'll always be the "Code of Honor" handsake, to me. The audience doesn't think I'll shake it, but I do. There's this pause, where they don't know what to expect. I sneer and, as clearly as possible with a gumshield in, say "bye-bye Nigel". People actually get angry - this is too easy.

***

This post probably comes as a little late, but it's only recently that I actually knew how to say all this. Self expression is like most things: easy to do, just hard to do well. I've settled for saying this quite well: cheers Nigel, for everything.



(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/307482471/the-last-of-mcguinness)

Just a wrestler

Okay, so I'm going to start this one with a little section of bragging, but bear with me and, hopefully, this actually becomes readable.

People seem to enjoy my matches. (Whoa! Huge brag, I know.) After doing a post that denounced criticism, why is this even important? Well, it's because wrestlers - people who have actual experience and skill in the act of wrestling - often compliment me on my matches. I hold out no hopes for universal admiration, but appreciation from peers seems to be an attainable goal.

The crux of all this: I don't believe any of it.

I know I'm not incompetent at my part-time, passtime, but I don't think I'm good at it. There was a phrase that I often uttered after matches, so much so that it became a running joke between a few friends: "could've been better." I eventually had to change this habit, because people hear "could've been better" as entirely negative. Implicity, I was saying "it was alright, but it could've been better", but that's not what people hear. (Now I just say "it was alright" as the stock response.)

I don't dwell on negative aspects, in life in general, but I'm still aware of faults and imprecisions, on my own part. So when someone has something positive to say about my work, I'm more amazed they didn't notice all the mistakes I made - which ultimately leads me to conclude they didn't watch the match properly, or they're just lying to be kind.

One day, I come across a speech gave by Neil Gaiman to the graduates of an arts university (if you don't know who Neil Gaiman is, stop reading this now, and, instead, read something by him). He spoke of his own experience creating and progressing through art. It's a great speech, and I found it inspirational, not because there was an amazing writer laying out the metaphor he lived by, but because he spoke of the imposter syndrome:

"The first problem of any kind, of even limited success, is the unshakable conviction that you're getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you."

It's when someone says something like that, that you breath a sign of relief, that you didn't even know you had pent up in your chest; you answer the question you'd never even internalised: "Oh, I'm not the only one."

Your friends are too kind and no matter how hard they try to convince you that you're too hard on yourself, you'll always believe they say that because they're you're friends; your enemies are too malign, so you'll never believe them either, really. It's hard to find opinions to trust, with this cognitive conviction.

Where am I now, then? Am I accepting any and all praise I can lay my ears on? No. Am I a manic depressive, who believes every negative I stumble across? No. But there was something I heard about myself, that I actually agree with:

"I don't get the hype about Jack Gallagher, he's just a wrestler."

Yes, that is a quote from another wrestler, and he has no idea I heard it. I'm just a wrestler, and I'm happy with that.

P.S.

I don't get the hype, either.

P.P.S.

For those interested, here's the speech gave by Neil Gaiman: https://vimeo.com/42372767

"Opinions are like arseholes"

There's something I need to come clean about: when I first started wrestling, I would go online and read reviews of my matches -

I hang my head at my naivety.

Before I continue, I want to make it clear, I'm going to try and write this in the most positive and least preachy way possible; people get angry when you question their opinions.

That's probably the best place to begin: opinions. Some people like to say "opinons are like arseholes, everyone's got one." Now, that's a perfectly valid statement, if not also a backhanded way of insulting people with an opinion you don't approve of. (It's also incredibly overused by people who're trying to be witty.) If you expose yourself to people's opinions of you, or your work, or even the work of others, that you enjoy, then you open yourself up to the experiencing of the negative opinion - the most feared of all opinions. However, you're also potentially going to run into the positive opinion - that oh, so friendly form. The reading of reviews is the game risk, reward that a lot of people play. It also gives rise to the artistic double standard.

Without trying to sound too pretentious, I like to think of what I do as an art form. There is skill involved, but that's not why it's art. To me, art is an expression of being. That's a very basic definition, but it's also going to be the one I'm sticking with for this post; any further elaboration of art and there are the equal dangers of turning this into a dissertation and becoming far more pretentious than a part-time pro wrestler has the right to be. Back to the matter at hand, I think that there is some art in what I do. As an artist, I have an audience, and audiences respond to the art. How people deal with that response, typically, is the double standard: if someone thinks you're good, then you consent to their opinion being valid, and receive an ego boost; if someone thinks you're bad, then they don't know what they're talking about, and you'll probably say something along the lines of "opinions are like arseholes-".

There's a horrible double standard in wrestling where people pick and choose whose opinions are valid, and whose are not, based solely upon how pleasant that person is, with regards to them. I was very guilty of this for quite a few years. Luckily, I'm weird, and my pondering time is spent with such vital questions like "what is a critic and why are they valid?" You can get into long and labourious lines of questioning regarding aesthetics, but really it's a question of skill.

Like I said, skill, alone, does not constitute an art form, but wrestling does require certain skills, regardless. If you are unfamiliar with the skills required, then you are in no position to judge them. You take your car to a mechanic for his opinion on how to fix it, because he has the skills to properly assess the situation; why are artistic forms, which take skill, any different? To me, they aren't. My favourite analogy is this:

"Imagine you're arguing against someone in a foreign language, when all you have is a basic phrase book and the other person is a native speaker."

So I don't read reviews, good or bad, because - and this is the part where you  must remember, I'm just being honest - their opinions don't matter. I care if people are entertained, I care if people feel they got their money's worth, but I can tell these things by the immediate reactions at the shows. I don't care how people theorise that I could improve my skills, nor do I believe them when they try to explain my positive attributes. I probably sound like a right moody git, but you've got to concede, I have a consistent approach.

An Eternal Pessimist

That title is misleading, and deliberately so; I realised that the topics of insomnia and quiting wrestling were sort of downers; they weren't intended to be, but they're personal, and self-reflection can easily read as negative. So, in this post, I'm endeavouring to write about something positive. Or, at least, something that doesn't sound like it was penned by Eeyore.

Think positive, hmmm.

I'm positive I've made some friends in wrestling. I mean actual arrange-to-meet-outside-of-a-wrestling-environment-and-not-just-have-to-talk-about-wrestling-whilst-we're-there-friends. Sometimes it can be hard to find friends like this, because the easy topic of discussion is wrestling - it's a known, shared interest, so why not, right? Because we all do other things in life! Yes, even me.

Wrestling has been a valuable social experience for me, though. I started training when I was 15; being in high school, you're probably at your most neurotic and uncomfortable stage of development, you're surrounded by hundreds of people who're going through the same thing, and you're all imprisioned. Now imagine, on top of all that, you're expected to appear semi-naked, in front of strangers, on a regular basis. That helps you overcome alot of the inherent shyness you might possess. And it did, for me anyway. I was a stooge in brightly coloured spandex and vinyl clothing, with long, shaggy hair, and a tan that'd give Casper the friendly ghost a run for his money; it's hard to take life too seriously when a good portion of your formative years are spent as a harlequin. Don't read me wrong, I'm not an icon of self-confidence and zen-like approach, now, but I definitely overcame alot of those stupid things that can hold you back during adolescence, because of the situations I was finding myself in.

I'm not a club and pub person - I've tried my best, but it's not for me. Some people are, and those social situations probably contributed to their maturation (or, in some cases, the lack thereof). Wrestling was my equivalent. And when I say wrestling, I mean everything that contributes to, and includes, what happens in the ring. In the middle of matches I've cried, swore (too much), laughed, and even had full conversations. Outside the ring, I've made friends, enemies (too many), acquaintances, and even girlfriends.

And you're not limited to the wrestlers you meet through the years; you'll most likely meet their friends and their family, too. You'll meet people who have no interest in wrestling whatsoever, and you'll only have met them through the fact you are a wrestler. A friend of mine, probably through a fear of social stigma, makes sure none of his "real life friends" know he has an interest in wrestling, and when asked, we're to say we met him playing in the local dodgeball league.

Wrestling attracts a whole variety of characters, who'll equip you with stories to tell for the rest of your life. But, really, it's no different - socially - from any other gathering. Some people talk over a game of cards, some get drunk together, some people put on a pair of trunks and boots and bodyslam one another. It's all gay, and I mean that in a totally archaic way.

A Crisis of Faith

So, in my last post I talked about how a culture, or community, breeds familiar experiences amongst its members. This is sort of a continuation of that theme, I guess.

Somedays, I wake up ready to take on the whole world; other days I can't be bothered making the effort of getting up again. It's on those latter days, which are brought about by physical fatigue or ego depletion, I become stoic (or, as an ex-girlfriend used to call it, "being a moody arse"). When you can't be bothered doing anything, nothing is too small an excuse to reframe.

Somedays, I just can't be bothered with wrestling.

Now, everyone will experience that day - probably multiple times - when they just aren't arsed. What I'm talking about are those days you wake up wanting to quit. At least twice a year, since I started wrestling, six years ago, I've seriously considered stopping; usually the feeling stems from frustration at a lack of personal progress, or just a perceived stagnation (I've been told I'm too hard on myself). I can't say this is a universal experience amongst wrestlers, but, as time has gone by, interviews read, and podcasts listened to, I can say that there is a good number of people who have a similar low point.

Imagine putting your hours in, traveling the roads, and even the world, with a constant nag playing in the back of your brain: "Where is the next booking coming from?"; " Do we have enough for the month, yet?"; "What if you get hurt, tonight?" Imagine traveling, full-time, for years on end, and the nag doesn't cease. Instead, a new voice starts; you listen to it and it says "What if this is all you'll ever do? What if you're going to do this routine until the day your body gives out? What're you gonna do as a almost-made-it wrestler?"

Naming no names and looking at no one in particular, I've heard this fear expressed by a number of full-time, professional wrestlers. I'm a part-time wrestler. Due to always being in some form of education (whether higher, middle, or an intermediate stage) I've never been able to fully commit myself to the premise of full-time, professional wrestling employment. I earn money, but enough for food and training costs, I don't live off it. This crisis of faith hasn't occured for me yet, but, I will admit, the precursor to it has been playing about in my psyche: "What if you become that forty something, who never made it? What if all you get out of this is a growing list of injuries? What if you don't even get that far?"

I don't have an answer to these concerns, yet; I'm twenty-two years old, I don't really know anything. I suppose I'll wake up tomorrow morning, feeling a little better, training, and exercising the demons out of the system. They'll be gone for awhile, and when they return, I'll rinse and repeat.

And then the glass shattered...

Cultures breed universal experiences amongst the population. Within hobbies, interests, and jobs, you find yourself integrated into another culture. Amongst some of the professional wrestlers I know, there's the nightmare of being at a show, your music is playing, and you've not got your gear (the equivalent of the turning up to school naked dream, I suppose). Amongst the fans, everyone has their own individual moment that sparked their interest and sent them off to pursue a passion, for as far and wide a scope as they we were willing, or wanting, to take. I still remember the first full wrestling show I watched, because that first show was all it took to hook me.

The people I have to thank - and whom my mum "blames" - is my older sister, and her friends. We'd just gotten Sky. The ability to surf channels and still find nothing worth watching - amazing to an eight-year-old. This rabble of teenage girls came round one Friday, insisting that we watch Sky Sports. There was nothing else worth watching, so we acquiesced to the request.

*click* *click*

 "RAW IS WAR" is on the screen; all red and black with rock music playing.

Over the course of two hours, we're introduced to characters and storylines through a combination of ringside and couchside commentary; most significantly, we were learning who we should be cheering for and who we should be booing. I only really remember the main event, or, more truthfully, I only remember how it ended: an arrogant, corporate sell-out, in a tracksuit, by the name of The Rock (I'm supposed to be booing him), is out in the ring. Next to him, lays a man in a mask that reminds me of a horror film I wasn't allowed to watch at that age; this man is called Mankind (I'm supposed to be cheering him). There's a group brawl at ringside (I'm supposed to be booing and cheering these men in equal measure). The camera shot is pulled back, framing both the men in the ring, and the men fighting on the outside; all of this backgrounded by a sea of people. But only for an instant. Then the glass shattered. And the mass of humanity, that was nothing more than background a few seconds ago, erupts into life. A man I'd never seen before walks to the ring, hits The Rock with a steel chair, puts Mankind on top of him, and walks out. "1! 2!" - that last second always seems to hang in the air - "3!" Everyone on the television is jumping up and down with joy. Everyone in a little living room in England is doing the same.

It's one of those moments I still play over in my head sometimes. And, reflecting on it, it's such a strange starting point for everything that followed. The three main players in this were: an over-the-top sports entertainer, who'd taken cockiness to the level of abandoning the first-person pronoun; a hardcore icon, who'd gained infamy in Japanese deathmatches; and a beer swilling, finger flipping, brawler, redneck. This trinity sent me off into the wild world occupied by Tiger Mask's and Dynamite Kid's; the New Japan Strong Style and the All Japan King's Road Style; the graceful El Santo and the technical Johnny Saint; the amazing joshi and the serious shoot style. It's a wonderful world out there, if you're willing to take a look around.

Sleepless in the Second City

I have a little more free time now, so I'm endeavoring to actually start writing things in this damned blog. That being said, I previously was held back by two things: time and inspiration; I say inspiration, what I actually mean is that I was running out of interesting things to say (this is, of course, assuming I had something interesting to say in the first place). I'm not claiming to have suddenly been struck by the muse of blogging, again. Rather, I'm going to brute force ideas from my memory and try my best to make them read, at least somewhat, stimulating.

[Suggested background music for this post: "I wish I was skinny" by The Boo Radleys]

"Wishin’ I was skinny
Wishin’ that the whole world knew my name
Wishin’ I was thrillin’..."

There was a point in time when I weighed two and a half stone heavier than I do now - for a short time, it was three. I was a chubby kid. I grew up as a chubby kid, into a chubby teen. As a chubby teen, I debuted as a pro 'rassler. I remained chubby for sometime after that. Then, apparently overnight, I dropped to a single digit body fat percentage, and lost, somewhere in the region of, six inches, from my waist. How? Very unhealthily.

Now, I never thought this would need stating, but I have never taken steroids, growth hormone, fat burners, or any other substance. Some people will've just read that and said "of course you've not, you skinny pillock". But I've been accused enough times now, to know that there is a percentage of people who don't believe me, too.

The boy on the left is more-to-love-version of Jack Gallagher; the boy on the right is the Jack Gallagher that people're more familiar with, these days.

The picture on the left is where this story begins. That kneepadded, badly beardly, vision, was captured around the time I was dealing with insomnia. When that picture was taken, I'd come off an entire hour of sleep, from the night before; the day before that, I'd probably slept around three hours - maximum. Now, I've been quite fortunate, in that, I don't have to deal with bad things very often, in life. However, when something serious turns up, my body's reaction is to not switch off. There came a time when I could not sleep properly. I tried everything, with the exception of sleeping medication; I could not sleep more than five hours, for many months on end. My reaction? "If it won't turn off, I'll make it crash". And I began to exercise like a madman.

I would be awake around sunrise, and immediately go for a thirty, to forty minute run; I'd eat; I'd go to the gym; I'd do an hour to an hour and a half at the gym; I'd eat again; I'd have a few hours of university or wrestling, depending on the day, and then I'd be back in the gym for another session; I'd go home, and eat; then I'd do bodyweight exercises until I couldn't. This was my daily schedule, for many months (yes, when possible, I worked seven days a week, three to four times a day). Over those months, I would begin to actively seek out new routines, and exercise advice, in an attempt to find better, and faster ways to exhaust myself. This lead me to rediscovering my childhood hero worship of Bruce Lee. I read up on how he developed exercise routines, which lead me to see how he evolved his diet to match the needs of his body. I changed the way I ate, and began thinking about why I was doing certain exercises, rather than mindless following a template, that I can't even remember how I came across, now.

Through all this, I never looked up the importance of resting, because I couldn't rest; or, I didn't think I could. People I was training with remarked how much I was changing, physically, and I felt good. I'd like to say that the spirit was willing, and that the body was weak, but the truth was, the spirit was stubborn. The moment of realisation came when I was training at the Snake Pit and I was being tossed around - easily. If you laid a hand on my head or neck, and applied a little strength, then I would drop, and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. My movement was slow and my reaction time was lagging by about a week. I was shaking, walking off the mat, at the end of the session.

The exercising had become a suicide attempt. I was trying so hard to put myself to sleep, I almost completely burnt myself out. I began training less. I began resting more. I eased up on my dieting. I didn't suddenly gain all the weight again and loose all the muscle. I relaxed.

I'd like to believe I'm still a hard worker, just a much smarter one, now. Despite not killing myself with training, I am, without a doubt, stronger, and faster, and the most energised, that I have ever been in my life. What's more, it's maintainable. I'm still toying with things, and changing routines, and switching food choices, because there's always something new to be done, or old, to be revisited. Only now, there's sleep to be had, too.

Cast No Shadow

So it's been awhile since my last blog. I'm not going to lie, it's going to be awhile til my next one. Today though, I need to vent. Not anger or sadness or frustration; if anything, I'm sort of numb - it's surreal. I haven't blogged in sometime now because I haven't had anything to say. I'm not sure if I even do now, but I want to share a story with you.


It was just another wrestling event in Macclesfield. It was FutureShock Wrestling #25 (retro-actively named, as this was prior to us having numbers on the shows) and we were trying out a one time tournament concept: the FutureShock Lotto-Thunder! What a name. Essentially, it worked like this: there were eight wrestlers, there was to be a series of single elimination, one-on-one matches, and the winner of which was to become number one contender to the title. Doesn't sound too unique until you factor in that the tournament brackets would be drawn up at random, and on the spot. There was no magic trick to this. There was no plant in the crowd who knew what name to pick, or any other shenanigans. We were playing this one straight. Pieces of paper - each with a single name of a wrestler - were in a box, a fan would draw one name from this box, that wrestler would make his entrance, a second name would be drawn, that wrestler would make his entrance, and thus the match is made. Both the first and second rounds were done this way.

This was one of the first times I was put in a major(ish) singles match role. Previously all my work had been tag team orientated. However, in the lead up to the tournament, someone couldn't make it (I honestly don't even remember who now) and I was selected to fill in. This was like trial by fire: prove your worth without that tag partner carrying you with little to no time to prepare - shit.

The first match. I didn't envy those guys. The first two out in a brand new concept. They were litmus test for if this idea was going to work or not. A name is drawn - it's the champ, the former champ. He's just lost his title, he's just come off the longest multi-company winning streak (still to be matched) in British wrestling, and he's the first one out there. A pause - what're they waiting for? They're bloody faffing about with the box. Just pick a name!

"Jack Toxic!" -

Shit.

At FutureShock's training school I was trained by two people. I'm now looking at one of them from across the ring and the bell's about to sound. Neither of us are fan favourites; double thumb to the eye - we're both blind; chop exchange - he hits harder; forearm smashes - I'm actually seeing spots now; I'm on my back and he's punching me square in the face - alot; the bell sounds again; DQ'd for illegal strikes; I survive. I think I won too.


That's the only time I got to go one-on-one with the champ, the leader of the den. It wasn't an epic, it probably wasn't even that good, it was probably the closest I've come to leaving the ring with a black eye, and was the closest I've come to being knocked out. It's not a bad memory though.


It's weird how some people create this identity in your head and, no matter what changes, there's always this recurring idea of the who and what they are to you. Champs wear suits, announce when they leave & arrive, they take their god damn time on their entrance if they deem it so, and always have the choicest ring jackets.

I don't have anything else to say. No poignant sentences to wrap it all up nicely and leave you with a smile on your face. I'm sorry; I'm sorry about all of this. They're playing my music -

Shit.