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Gut-Check
By: Dave Banks
This is a story for anyone who has ever dared to have a dream and the courage to pursue it.........
On a sticky summer night, morning by this time, I lay in my bed, sweating, rolling over to look at the clock and see that another five minutes has passed. I crawl from under the covers, frustrated by my own excitement, go downstairs and force down a glass of warm water; there is no ice in the house. I walk back up the stairs, occasionally tripping because I don’t have my contacts in, go back to bed and let the science of anticipation repeat.”Why can’t I just go to sleep? It’s not that goddamned hard,” I think to myself. I know well the reasons I can’t sleep but simply refuse to allow them to impede the task at hand. I need my sleep for the next day could mark the beginning of a journey through the darkest valleys and rockiest paths on my way to the pastures of destiny. It is 4:36 p.m.
I awake in the morning with the sensation of the sunlight on my face and the smell of burnt toast in my nostrils; my dad must be cooking. I stumble out of bed, narrowly avoiding trampling my cat in the process. I gather myself enough to go shower and shave; I cut myself on the right jaw carelessly, foreshadowing unnoticed. I make my way down the stairs to find my dad sitting in his chair, sipping his coffee and nibbling on his toast in perfect synchronization; we don’t speak. It is 11:30 a.m.
My dad and I get into the car and finally begin to talk, speaking of random things that had happened to us the day before as if this was any other trip on any other day; talk so small I can’t remember ever saying a word. All the small talk suddenly comes to a close, and there is this awkward silence that seems to stretch as wide as the Grand Canyon. Finally, my dad says, “So, you nervous?” “No, me? No!” I answer. “I would be,” he says with a sympathetic chuckle.”So you’re not nervous; are you scared?” I turn and look him in the eyes, “No way.” “Maybe you should be.” I expect to hear another chuckle and look over to see a goofy alligator smile on his face but, there isn’t one. It is 11:54 a.m.
We arrive at the Orlando Armory a few minutes early; recruiters look me over and try to enlist me. The minutes go by and soon an hour has passed; it is shaping up to be the worst hour of my life, tormenting myself with thoughts of the paralysis or other injuries I could sustain later today. “Am I crazy for even thinking I belong in the ring with these guys? What is it going to look like when I run out of the building and quit? How am I going to tell everyone how I failed? Maybe I should be scared.” All these thoughts are running through my mind. I shake them out just in time to see a red Dodge Dakota pull into the arena. It is 12:31 p.m.
I stand up to see an absolute mountain of a man avalanche out of the driver’s side of the pick-up. At this point I am completely and thoroughly terrified, grasping as hard as I can to the handles on my duffel bag. Not only is this man huge with a scar on the right side of his face that appears to go from his forehead to his neck, but now he is walking in my direction. I look at the ground and try to blend in with the wall; it doesn’t work. “Hello. You must be Dave, right? Name’s Rick; I’ve heard some things from Les about you,” he says shaking my hand with curious smile on his face. “Yes sir, I’m Dave. Les must have been talking about someone else though; I’ve never been in the ring before,” I reply, humbled by the man’s appearance. “Les says you’re real quick; you’ve got a head on your shoulders, and that is something that is big in this business. He tells me that you get along with the boys too, that’s even bigger.” He takes a drink from his super-sized Pepsi. “Kid, I’ve only got one bit of advice for you. Les tells me that you play varsity sports at school and you’re a pure athlete; take your trophies, your varsity letters...you know, whatever the hell you’ve accomplished in the past and leave it out of the ring. The boys don’t like hearing about all that, especially from a rook.” “I’ll try my best; is that the ring in your trailer over there?” “Yea, that’s it. I hope you weren’t expecting anything fancy. I’ve been traveling all over with this pile since nineteen-seventy-something. There have been some big names in this ring: Flair, Rhodes, Orton, Brisco...just about anyone who has worked the Florida circuit in the past twenty years.” “Wow, that’s incredible.” He takes the yellow tarp covered with duct tape to fix holes and rips off the trailer, exposing the guts of the ring. Steel, wood and more steel. Where are all those spring that everyone told me there were under the mat? We begin to set up the ring, and it becomes more obvious with every piece put into place that there is no protection other than an old, one-inch-thick high school wrestling mat. We place the red mat pieces, close to twenty of them, in between the wooden planks and the canvas covering. This whole process takes us close to an hour and a half. As we’re putting up the last of the turnbuckle pads, Les and four other trainees stroll into the arena with their backpacks that have the wheels and long handles on them. They take their bags to the locker room and come back out just as the ring is finished. My dad leaves to go get lunch just as the clock strikes 2:06 p.m.
I take my shirt off, placing it in a chair outside the ring and climb in to join the others. “Get out!” Les yells. “Me?” I ask. “Yea you! Get the hell out! Do I go into your house without wiping my feet off?” I get out of the ring, wipe my feet on the apron, and get back into the ring. Les looks at me seriously for a few terrifying moments and then light-heartedly cracks a smile. “Now Dave, that’s a good example of something that you are simply not expected to know because you’re new. But if you don’t pick things up in time, you will always be treated like a rookie, understand? Good, there are some things you have to know before we will train you. You are nothing to this business; you understand me? Nothing! The only way that is going to change is if you go the extra mile inside and outside the ropes. I’m talking 110% of your energy, 100% of the time. Bust your ass in here, and you will earn the respect of the workers. Second, after today you will belong to the same fraternity as all of us. This is not your college boy, mommy-and-daddy-pay-my-tuition deal. This is your hard-nosed, I-paid-my-tuition-out-of-my-hide deal. I want you to act in a way that will make us proud everywhere you go. Act in a way that will honor the name of professional wrestling. Lastly and most important, especially in these early stages, your days of fighting in the streets are over; you are a professional now-act like it. Conduct yourself in a professional manner, and you will be treated like a professional in the ring. This means no smoking outside the arena, dress nicely when coming to the arena to work and when you leave. Now let’s get started; let’s take some level ones guys.” It's too late to turn back.
Les showing me a basic ice-breaker We briefly go over the basic tie-up moves or ice-breakers as most workers call them; they are surprised to see that I already know them. We begin to take some stiff bumps, starting with level ones. For level ones you get in a crouch position, lean your Above: I take one of my first hip-tosses Below: I feel the impact of a sidewalk- slam from another traineeupper body forward and then snap backward, landing stiffly on your upper back. The first two level ones I take are silky smooth as if I had been doing them for years. The third, however, I snap too sharply, landing directly on the back of my head, sending a deafening thud through every cell in my brain and shaking every bone in my body. Small needles poking the back of my neck and shoulders. For a moment I don’t know where I am or what I am doing, hanging my chest over the bottom rope with my arms dangling outside the ring. I shake it off, getting up slowly with my eyes glazed over. My head is ringing like a church bell on a Sunday morning; I know something is wrong. I continue to take more bumps: level twos, level threes, front bumps, face bumps, hip-tosses and even some suplexes. I don’t say anything until after I take a sidewalk-slam, again striking the back of my head on the mat. I get up quickly, drop down to all fours and mutter, “I gotta throw up.” The guys quickly get me out of the ring and help me to the back where I power-puke my brains out. I get back in the ring a few minutes later and again I feel my stomach making its way up my throat. Again they help me to the back. This incident reoccurs a few more times until finally the training is over, and I can leave. I start to crawl out of the ring when I hear the trainer say,” So, you want to take them now or are you still sick?” “Take what?” “Your chops, all rookies them their first day.” “I’m a rookie, so I guess that means I’m taking them.” “Listen, if you’re still feeling sick you can take them another day. You look like you have a concussion, and I don’t want to...” “I’m taking them, ok? Don’t give me any special treatment because I’m hurt; it’s my own damn fault anyway.” “Alright son. Guys, help him.”
For those who don’t know, chops are the most brutal move in the business. Chops are the only move used to actually cause bodily harm. A chop is an open hand thrashed onto the bare chest causing a hard slapping noise echoing throughout the building. Chops are often used to keep people in line when their heads get too big or they flat out don’t know what they are doing.
The trainees help me to the corner and put my arms behind the ropes, exposing my pasty-white chest to full brunt of the brutality. One after one the workers line up like kids waiting to throw a ball at a target for a dunking booth. To add to their fun, they often play rock/paper/scissors to see who gets to go first. The conflict is resolved and a trainee steps forward, pushes my chin up, leans back and chops the white off my chest, sending my feet flying up in the air. I feel like crying out, but I refrain in fear of my head crumbling. I don’t look at my chest until after I take a fifth chop; I know then that the image will stay with me until the day that very chest doesn’t contain a beating heart. My virgin flesh had been completely torn from my body like cheese that had been stripped from a pizza. By the seventh chop, the pain really begins to set in, and I am hanging from the top rope like a doll being dried from a clothesline. Now there is only one more person left to get his chop on me, and that person is Rick. He reluctantly walks over to me in the corner with a slight reflection of compassion in his eyes. He, like the others, lifts my chin and lays into me the stiffest chop of the day, sending blood splattering all over my already bloody face and the floor outside the ring. He steps back; I withdraw my arms from the top rope and crumble to the mat, staining the navy canvas to a violet imprint of my upper body. I roll over onto my back and just lie there, thinking how much everyone must hate me to do something like this.
Five minutes pass and the trainer is now standing over me; I try not to look him in the eyes until I have swallowed the pain that has engulfed my throat. “Are you ok? You haven’t moved since we got out of the ring.” he says with a hypocritical concerned look on his face. “Yes, sir.” I say softly, my head still ringing from what the EMT later called a “close to severe” concussion. “You did the best I’ve ever seen from a rook today. You got guts kid; that’s gonna get you far in this business. I’m not going to lie; I thought for sure from one look at you that you’d quit after five minutes, but you didn’t, and you’ve earned my respect. I don’t want to see this end though, stars are not made overnight in this ring; I’d be more than happy to keep training you, if you still want to pursue a career.” I stare at him through a mask of crimson and say, “You bet your ass I do.” I slowly get to my feet, get out of the ring, and sit at ringside just as I had so many times before as a fan; I am no longer a fan.
Rick walks over to me, coming in from his smoke break and puts his hand on my back, leaving a hand print of my own blood; he hadn’t washed up since delivering the chop. “I’m going to tell you exactly what I think-that was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my ring; it was real life; it told a story. That’s what the show is all about, telling a story. You’re tougher than a two-dollar steak, kid. It was like watching one of the all-time greats work for the first time in there; I’m proud of you, kid. And I’ll tell you something else, that’s the last time I’ll ever call you ‘kid.’” He pats me on the back and walks back outside.
I sit there at ringside a little while longer, wondering if this was all a dream. The other trainees come out in their dress shirts and slacks with their bags, one by one shaking my hand and giving me compliments and other words of encouragement. After they all leave, I stand up on the shakiest of legs and crawl back into the ring, my chest still bleeding down to my boxers. I stand up with my head held high, looking at the hundreds of empty chairs, imagining the fans chanting my name. At this moment, I feel like the little kid I was a decade ago; the kid who was being filmed wrestling a stuffed animal on his couch. I feel like the kid being taped while cutting promos into bowling pins that in my mind were as good as microphones. All these years of using baseball bats as ring posts and chicken wire as ropes; who would have ever thought it would one day culminate into this? Suddenly, my knees give out, and I fall to the mat, staining the canvas once again with my grotesquely beaten chest. I roll onto my back and stare at a single ceiling tile that catches my eye; there’s something different about it, but I don’t know what it is. I close my eyes and a smile creeps to my lips; I had found my pasture.
