Hello, bonjour, hola, ciao, guten tag, and namaste to all my true believers from around the world!

Many thanks as always for reading my tales about my world in the squared circle. It’s been a while since I last posted and today’s post will be a catch up edition. I won’t go into details why it’s been so long but suffice to say I’m back with a vengeance to get you all caught up.

The past four weeks have flown by at the Academy and there has been an influx of announcements. So to catch you all up and to keep this as readable as possible, I’ll give you all a rundown on what’s been happening. So if you’re ready and strapped in, let’s get this super quick in-depth recap on the road!

Sunday 4th June

This was a very special session for two reasons. I’ll let you in on the second reason a bit later, but let’s get to the session’s theme first.

The day before “The Original” Conroy and Chris Castle went to a seminar held by Savvy Sid. The seminar was about the two day’s Savvy spent at the O2 Arena with the WWE trying out for a spot on their books. What he learnt, what they were looking for, and what drills they made Sid and the rest of the other prospects do.

The whole experience struck a chord with Conroy and Castle that they asked Head Coach/SEPW Owner Matt if they could hold their own version the very next day at training.

He quickly agreed and let Castle and Conroy take control of the entire session, putting the class through it’s paces. Even though I’m on social media duty these days, I did my bit and participated as much as I could. To my detriment, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

The warm up/cardio/conditioning took up to an hour of our allotted four hours. The boys were actually being more lenient than what they had suffered the day before, but DAMN it was hard work.

Castle was in charge of the whistle and boy did we know about it! To start we all had to do sit up’s, push up’s, set go’s and squats to his count. Whistle once to go down, whistle again to go up. He loved his whistle and the amount of pain we were in so much that he kept us waiting for the up whistle for quite some time. Never in my life have I wanted to shove a whistle so far up someone’s ass……Never mind, it’s all over now. Even if it did take three days for my legs to work properly again. Seriously, I was walking up and down stairs like a crab! Sideways!

A quick drink break and it was onto the rolls and bumps part of the tryout. We all do this every week so we knew what was coming, but today was a little different. Savvy told Castle and Conroy that as you entered the WWE ring for the first time, you were allocated a number. And each and every time you entered the ring you had to bellow out your name and number and then do as Matt Bloom et al asked you to do.

Conroy walked down the lined up pupils and gave them a number, invited them in and asked them to forward roll/backward roll/bump etc.

It was great seeing the more quiet members of the class having to be louder than usual.

With that kinda simple and easy routine done and in the books, Conroy invited four of us in at a time inside the ring for the next part of the session. Here, the pupils would stand in a corner, hands on their head. When the stop watch started the four would side step around the ring at a steady pace for 90 seconds. Every time Castle blew that bloody whistle they had to change direction and the pupils outside had to do a squat. By the end of the morning, I think all the students did around 500 squats! Even though I was taking pics I still did my best to do the squats and I think I did about 300. Waaaaaay more than I usually do!

With the last ten seconds left the four in the ring had to sprint around the ring at breakneck speed. As soon as that had finished, they had to go back to their original corner to catch their breath before the second part happened.

The second part was the “stand in the corner and jog on the spot making sure your knees are above the middle rope” that we’ve practised before. Again I didn’t do any part of the session after the cardio but even I could see this was hardcore. A picture never lies….

One Fan Dan is blowing up hard there.

Pupils were flagging by this point but fair play to each and every one of them, they never gave up. According To Savvy Sid, that’s what WWE officials were looking for, cue the John Cena mantra.

Once all the pupils had completed that drill it was time for another one. But with time running out on the session it would have been our last drill. This drill is something that we had practised before but not at this length….

Two pupils enter the ring and begin two minutes of rope running. Every time the whistle blew, pupil number one would sleep (hit the deck while the other pupil runs/jumps over them), continue running. Whistle again and pupil two would sleep……so on and so forth. Normally we do one minute of this drill, but two? After what they had already done? This was going to be difficult.

But again, credit to those fantastic students. They stuck with it and they all finished the drill. It was bloody hard work, but the look of satisfaction on the students faces said it all.

Reason number two for this being a special session, well for me at least, was that my 16 year old step-daughter Tasha joined today and took part in her very first session. What a day to start but she did it, and in my words “If she can finish that session, then she can do any session”. It was a very proud day for me, seeing her take part with my SEPW family, actually taking a bump in the ring for the first time. Don’t believe me? Have a look at this….

Speaking to her afterwards, the bug has definitely bit her. She wouldn’t talk about anything else, and her mum had to ask her to change the subject later in the day, non stop wrestling talk. I was so happy that not only had she taken an interest in my major pastime, but she really enjoyed it and couldn’t wait for next week!

Just a quick break in proceedings to shill some social media bits and bobs. I actually have a page on Facebook totally dedicated to this blog. It’s cunningly called “Breaking Kayfabe – A Training Diary, and you can find it at this link right here. I’d also like to plug mine and South East Professional Wrestling social media too as I have your undivided attention. Click the links, have a gander and if you’re feeling particularly nice, maybe gives us both a like and a follow too ?

South East Professional Wrestling website – http://www.sepw.co.uk

South East Professional Wrestling Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/SouthEastPro

South East Professional Wrestling Twitter – https://twitter.com/SouthEastPro

My Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/30SomethingTrainee

My Twitter – https://twitter.com/ski101

I’ll now hand you back over to your regularly scheduled reading material….

Sunday 11th June

One week before Hustle & Heart II. Last session before the big day, and boy were we ready!

Well apart from one person…..

MeatHead had done himself a mischief a few weeks earlier. A terrible trampoline accident (rolled his ankle pretty badly) had restricted his involvement to a spectator role last week and this week too. Seeing him sit on the sidelines stewing reminded me of how I was last year. I gave him some of my sound sage-like advice and hoped for the best. I’m not the best at giving (or taking) advice but I delivered it as comically and nicely as I could. Must have worked as later on in the session he got involved with Ollie to go over their match at H&H2.

I’d like to add two more to that tally while I’m thinking about it. Lee and Dan H, fellow Posse members had jumped ship today. Instead of being at training, the pair were at the Download festival, listening to bands like Aerosmith, System Of A Down and getting up close and personal with Chris Jericho…..bastards!

With it being just one week until show day, today’s lesson was a quick brush up on some things we’ve been taught over the past month or so. Primarily more cardio work (don’t want to blow up through the match) and a little bit of strike work and rope running (the run and sleep drill) with some added reversal/bypass and shoulder tackles added for good measure.

With us all brushed up we were raring to go with the practice matches, actually they were prep matches for Hustle & Heart II. I say we, I was on videographer duty.

Going back to MeatHead, his injury and my advice. I can’t believe how well I’ve adapted to my roles. I do social media for the Academy Facebook page and I take the pictures and videos too. I announce the H&H shows, and one day I’ll be managing talent in the ring too.

I’ve adapted so much so that the pangs of wanting to get in the ring and bump like a loon are now few and far between. I even look at getting myself new camera and video equipment instead of wrestling gear. Not going to lie, I still want to get in that ring. But it’s gone from wanting and needing it, to sometimes wanting and needing it. I can definitely see how ex-wrestlers find it hard to leave the industry though, and I’ve only had a quick quick taste.

Anyway back to the session…..

Everybody had paired up into their matches and were off in little corners talking over spots and finishes. I was off getting the camera ready to record the matches (sorry folks, Academy eyes only. Want to see? Enrol!) and nosing around, seeing what juicy bits of match prep I could gather. Unfortunately I didn’t hear a single thing, they saw me coming dammit. So I went back to my position behind the camera and got ready to tape the following matches:

Will Power! v Amber
“The Original” Conroy v Luke Vega
Ax Bludfist v Alex Aces
Jack Voltage v Justin Vincible

Stood there like a fan, watching these matches unfold, I could only get more and more excited for H&H2. Yes I’m working the show, but I’ll still be watching, as a fan just like the rest of the crowd. And then it hit me! This time next week, we’ll be counting down the minutes until doors open and I’m nowhere near prepared for the show!!!

So there we go. Two sessions down with one more and a show to catch you all up. And with that in mind, here’s what I have planned:

A full blown show review of Hustle & Heart II, with added comments from my point of view as ring announcer.
Followed by a proper in depth analysis of our June 25th session a few days later.

Howza bout that then?! That enough of an apology?

Oh and before I go, I told you at the beginning about some announcements? Ok here goes…..The SEPW Academy has moved premises! We no longer train out of the Hawkinge Community Centre. We have our very own self contained unit in Folkestone…

Look at how hunky Chris Castle looks there! You too could look as good as him if you put the effort in and train at the SEPW Academy.

We moved in over last weekend (Sat 1st July) and held our first session there the very next day. Pics/videos of that session will be up in the coming days right here, at Breaking Kayfabe!

Seriously, you have no idea how proud and excited we were training there. None of us wanted to leave!

And the news doesn’t stop there, oh no no no. Kings Of Summer 2017 has it’s main event folks. And it’s personal…

Former SEPW Heavyweight Champion Eddie Ryan gets his rematch against the guy that cashed in his 24/7 briefcase and “stole” his title at Wrestival 3…..SEPW Academy graduate and reigning SEPW Heavyweight Champion, Will Power!

If I wasn’t pumped for the show already! That match could be a war, especially if Mr Wicked gets involved with some shenanigans…

Right that’s enough excitement from me, I’ll let you digest all this while I crack on with the H&H2 show review, hopefully that’ll be posted in the next few days. Thank fcuk for a job with amazing work hours.

So from me Wayne/Mark I thank you for your readership and I look forward to seeing you back here soon.

TTFN x