🐙 thoughts 😬🩸🩸🩸

​It’s 1:04 AM.

The tournament ended yesterday, and for the first time all day, I’m finally starting to feel sleepy.

Lying here thinking about everything that’s happened over the last few days, I realize I may have had one of my favorite weekends in a very long time.

Not long ago, I lost someone who had become very important to me. That friendship left a hole in my life that I wasn’t sure could be filled. Then somehow, through a deathmatch tournament of all things, I found myself making a new friend who reminds me of so many of the qualities I appreciated in the person who had to leave my life.

Life is funny like that.

God is good.

Sometimes a chapter ends, and before you’ve even finished grieving it, another one quietly begins.

This tournament gave me more than a deathmatch with a living legend, It gave me perspective.

For years I’ve felt there was another side of professional wrestling I hadn’t fully experienced. A different world with different values, different fans, and a different way of telling stories. This weekend gave me the opportunity to step into that world and see it for myself.

I got the chance to take risks, experiment, and present ideas that don’t always fit neatly into the places I’ve existed throughout my career. To my surprise, those ideas were welcomed.

That meant a lot to me. 🙏🏾

I was fortunate enough to spend time talking with the captain Matt Tremont. His knowledge of professional wrestling and deathmatch wrestling is incredible, and his advice helped me better understand a world I was only beginning to explore.

Before the tournament even started, Anakin Murphy took time to genuinely look out for me. He was honest about the dangers, the realities, and the opportunities that exist within deathmatch wrestling. He shared things I simply didn’t know, and those conversations helped prepare me mentally for what I was about to experience.

I’m grateful to both of them. 🙏🏾

What’s funny is that throughout the entire weekend I felt welcomed and unwelcomed at the same time.

And I mean that as a compliment.

The deathmatch community wasn’t interested in handing me anything because of what I’ve done elsewhere. They weren’t going to let me walk in and take something I hadn’t earned.

I respected that.

Truthfully, I think I needed it.

Feeling that energy from the fans and wrestlers around me gave me an edge I didn’t know I was missing. It reminded me that growth only happens when you’re willing to become a student again.

And then there’s Masashi Takeda.

By complete coincidence, he ended up being my roommate for the weekend, which still makes me laugh.

Takeda is one of my favorite opponents, but more importantly, he’s one of my favorite human beings in professional wrestling.

Watching him compete this weekend was a masterclass.

Most people obviously see the violence first.

The glass.

The blood.

The scars.

What I saw was art.

No matter how brutal things became, Takeda never lost the art. Every movement had purpose. Every decision meant something. Every moment of suffering told part of the story.

There was beauty hidden inside the chaos.

I’ve always respected deathmatch wrestling.

I’ve defended it.

I’ve tried to understood it better. 

But this weekend was different.

This weekend I felt it.

Somewhere between the uncertainty, the pain, the excitement, the lessons, the friendships, and the roar of the crowd, I discovered something about myself.

There’s a deathmatch wrestler living inside me.

He’s been there for a long time.

And after this weekend, I think he wants out!

Not because he loves violence.

Not because he has something to prove.

But because he sees another canvas.

Another language.

Another way to tell stories through professional wrestling.

For the first time, I feel ready to explore it.

With the fire and spirit of the originals,

I Am The Foundation.

PS: The shower after sucked!!!