Diary Of A 30-Something Trainee Wrestler: Bombs Away! by Wayne Tomkins

Hello there true believers! Welcome to another edition of my diary. And a special welcome to readers of the world famous TJRWrestling.net too! Hello guys and gals! Hopefully you’ve read my re-introduction post on TJR and some of my work here on my blog, if not don’t worry. Make this your starting point catch up whenever you want.

So to all my readers who were expecting a WrestleMania themed edition of my blog last week…..Sorry.

I did have every intention of writing up what happened, of letting you all know how myself and a few other SEPW students spent WrestleMania Sunday together. But in all actuality, we didn’t do that much that was out of the ordinary. No silly wrestling antics, just a group of friends that got together to watch an event……Although I do have one or two things to say about the night……

I had said from the moment I woke up on that Sunday and found out that the Hardy’s had dropped the RoH Tag Titles back to The Young Bucks, I proclaimed that if they showed up at Mania, I would lose my proverbial shit. Not just mark out, no no no, I would go completely bat shit crazy and probably run around the bar (we were watching Mania at a friends bar which was awesome! Beer on tap! YAY!) like a loon.

So the moment where The New Day interrupted the start of the Triple Threat Ladder match for the Raw Tag Titles, I began to feel the lunacy inside me rise. All of a sudden, all of us, the entire group of friends were linked arm in arm over the shoulders, not actually believing that The New Day were going to interject themselves into the match. Then the unthinkable happened……

The moment the first bar of the Hardys music hit, all of us lost it! We jumped around arm in arm, we screamed, we yelled……we lost our proverbial shit! We did not calm down until the ringbell rang and we all realised that there was actually a match to be contested!

The other moment is obviously the apparent retirement match of The Undertaker. I say apparent as you never quite know, but with the fact that Taker has last on the card closing the show, and the way that match finished with him leaving his MMA gloves, coat and hat in the ring and walking into the sunset like the legend he is, it definitely looks that way.

https://youtu.be/ZCaHQvi3RMs

The instant that Roman pinned Undertaker for the win, the bar where I was went deathly quiet. I mean it, you could have heard a pin drop. Everybody just sat there staring at the big screen watching the above video unfold .We had all heard the rumors about the possibility of the retirement, but when it actually happened we were stunned into silence. We all sat in silent respect for the man, not a word was said by anyone. Once again it was another moment I will forever remember.

Those moments will stay with me always and I can’t thank everyone that was there with me enough, for being part of such an amazing moment. And for the non-wrestling fans that read my blog, first of all hello and thank you, and secondly it’s moments like what I mentioned above that make wrestling so damn awesome!

Anyway, with my apology and WrestleMania moments now talked about, I think it’s time to give to you my latest entry……Enjoy! ?

With no training last weekend, it slightly threw me that there was this past weekend. I had gotten used to a lay in as I was on annual leave from work. My last actual day of leave to be honest. But I got my sorry ass out of bed at 6.30am and got myself ready to be picked up by new academy student and fellow Ashford Posse member Lee and the boys.

Bag packed, enthusiasm rising, I made my way to a local supermarket to get picked up. I had to get some money out from an ATM to pay for this month’s lessons, not to buy any chocolate unfortunately. Alas I won’t be eating any of that for a while now. And for those that know me (or those that read this blog regularly) that’s a big deal! I’ll tell you about that in my closing of the blog later.

With myself picked up the four of us made our way to Hawkinge. Now I know that I drive at a break neck speed sometime, but jeez, Lee was driving us at light speed! We arrived at the community centre earlier than ever before! Ten minutes early to be precise. So we decided to wait for Steven (Alex Aces) to be so kind as to open the side doors to the hall.

Eight minutes later and still the doors weren’t open. Begrudgingly, the four of us walked all the way around to the entrance of the centre and began to set up. Yes yes I know, that’s incredibly lazy! But when you get to my age you’ll take any shortcut possible.

This time Lee helped set up the ring and soon made himself useful, shifting metal and boards of wood around like they were as light as anything. Definitely very useful. So much so that I cheekily took a back seat and welcomed everyone as they walked in. Remember – shortcuts folks.

Soon enough Head Coach Matt and his wife Amy entered and I sauntered over to say hello like always. Except this time I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to be the first person to get their hands on a new piece of SEPW merchandise. The new SEPW trucker cap! Again you all know I’m a sucker for a piece of merch! Within minutes of paying my next months tuition, I was in possession of my prize. Here’s me mere moments after collecting my cap showing the world….

Here’s a much better look at the cap, along with a cheeky promo poster for the next SEPW event, Wrestival 3……

With my new too sweet cap adorned on the slightly thinning haired head of mine, I jumped back into helping set up the ring. Well I say help, but it was pretty much finished by the time I spoke to everyone and got my awesome merch. It’s ok, I’ll work double hard when we take the ring down I told myself.

Warm up time. Now I don’t think I’ve said this before, but I kinda dread and look forward to the warm up in equal parts. I look forward to it as it’s the beginning of the lesson and then dread it as right after the warm up is that damn cardio! You’d think for someone who has been attending this Academy for nearly 11 months, I’d be used to the cardio portion of the lesson. But nope, it still kicks my ass, week in week out! Have to say that I do think I have raised my cardio over the past few months, especially since the turn of this year, but I really don’t like doing it. I’ll blame my age again I think!

Cardio this week was more circuit based. And timed too. Yup, I’m gonna struggle today! The usual 25 each of squats, sit ups, hindu push ups, jumping jacks, mountain crawlers…..but three bloody rounds!! How in the blue hell would I last three rounds of this torture?!?! I’ll tell you how……

Lee! The newbie. One of my best friends. I can’t let him beat me! So with that mindset I jumped straight into doing my 25 jumping jacks. Slow and steady wins the race, remember! So off I set at a steady pace, with one eye watching the competition. At the end of the first round I was feeling ok. Bit winded, but better than what I thought I would be. Looking across at Lee and he looked better than what I did. Dammit! Time to up the pace!

That was the beginning of my downfall. Upping the pace with two rounds still to complete was a bit foolhardy, especially as my cardio is pretty much useless. But I had committed to it and had to follow it through. I powered on, which soon became going through the motions, closely followed with breathing out my asshole trying not to have an asthma attack.

But I got there. I did all three rounds in 10.30, a full 30 seconds more than Lee. Yes! I didn’t look like a loser this week! I quickly grabbed my inhaler and legged it outside to breathe in some air and try not to faint. While out there a thought popped into my head. Lee was only 30 seconds behind me today. He works out at home and goes on runs while I don’t do anything physical at all really (stop sniggering!). I need to remedy that ASAP…..but first more oxygen!

Cardio done, now time for some training!

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 “Diary Of A 30 Something Trainee Wrestler” and you can find it at this link right here. I’d also like to plug mine and South East 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 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…..

Last session Lee performed his first back and front bump on the big blue crash mats. This week Lee is going to do a back bump in the ring. A big thing for any trainee wrestler, the anticipation, the trepidation. Luckily enough, I caught it on camera. Shots only, but here for the first time ever, is Lee’s first back bump in the ring!

I quickly chatted to him after this and Lee was absolutely buzzing! He wanted to go again and again, but the lesson had to continue. His time will come, trust me!

With the lesson moving on with pace, H/C Matt decided it was time to work out our core and strength with a kind of trust exercise. Partnering up with another student, one gets into a wheelbarrow position while the other would grab their legs. Walking over to a corner, the one in the wheelbarrow position would then have to “climb” the turnbuckles in turn from bottom to top, and back down again. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, and if I didn’t explain it to you very well, here are some more shots I took of the exercise.

So here you have Senior Referee (and One Fan Dan) Daniel Hall holding Jacob’s (an unmasked Jack Voltage) legs while Jacob climbs the turnbuckles. As I said, a lot harder than it looks.

With that exercise done, it was time for some technical work.

This routine was as follows: You both go to lock up, but I would block the lock up by grabbing your wrist and putting you straight into a behind your back double wristlock. From there I would parade you around the ring to show off my prowess to the crowd then lead you down to your knees and move from the wristlock into a crossface. The moment I go apply the crossface you would sit out to try to escape, only to be met with a chinlock for your efforts. A few moments inside the chinlock and you would escape and reverse my hold and put me into a behind the back wristlock while forcing me chest first to the canvas.

Again that’s a bit wordy to visualise so I was lucky enough to snap the students performing this:

I joined in on this and partnered up with Rookie Matt and Jacob outside the ring to fine tune it all. Just wanna say thanks to the pair of them for being very patient with me and not having a go at me when I kept making mistakes.

Eventually I made my way into the ring and was met with Justin (The Silverrrrrback) in heel mode. Gotta say I loved it! As I stepped into the ropes, the rest of the students cheered and chanted my name (Smart Mark Blake) over and over through the exercise. Thanks for making the old guy feel great and less nervous! And Justin, thanks for making it all go seamlessly good! Loved it immensely and will be making more of an effort to participate more (when my stupid balance issue lets me).

Looking at the clock and we had roughly half an hour left of the lesson. H/C Matt decided that we could practise a few moves and spots until it was time to go.

After the last lesson, where Lee went to the top rope and performed a few moves, I’ve been insanely jealous. So I decided earlier in the week that I would do it if the chance arose. I told “The Original” Conroy and Lee about it too, so when Matt said we could practise, the blue crash mats came flying under the bottom rope ready for more top rope action!

I hung back a bit and let the more seasoned ones take their turns while I manned up. Eventually I stepped through the ropes, scaled the turnbuckles and was perched on the top turnbuckle. I’m not gonna lie, I was shitting it! Being in the ring, the top turnbuckle doesn’t look that high, but here I was sat on top of it looking down, and I feel I’m 30 foot in the air! 🙂

I’m not going to describe it as I gave my phone to Conroy to video my attempt. So here, for the first time ever, is my debut Swanton Bomb from the top rope!

Yeah it’s very sketchy, that’s why I decided to tell my wife Donna that I love her, just in case it went completely wrong! But still, I’ve got a starting point and trust me, balance issue or not, I will be nailing that move!

It took me about ten seconds to regain my bearings after that move, but as soon as I did, I knew I needed to do that again. I even saw Conroy do a tope over the top rope onto the crash mat and thought……”Yeah, I can easily dive through the middle ropes Ambrose style”…….Maybe next week though.

And again, just like that, the lesson was finished, over, kaput, finito. So I did what I said I was going to do and helped out big time with putting away the ring. No messing about!

After a quick chat to say goodbye to everyone, the Ashford Posse made their way back home, via Folkestone as we gave Nathan (MeatHead) a lift back. The car was filled with how well we all thought Lee was doing after only two lessons, with speculation on how the Wrestival card was shaping up (more of that in a minute), and how amazingly awesome my Swanton was……Ok that’s a lie but it’s my blog so ssshhh!

Closing Time

This is the part where I tidy up the loose ends and give you a quick brief snippet about next weeks blog. Well next week will be about the run up to Wrestival 3, the next big SEPW show. A few wrestlers have been announced for the event including “The Original” Conroy, Will Power!, Savvy Sid Scala who is making his SEPW debut and the SEPW Heavyweight Champion Eddie Ryan! I’m sure that in the next few days more will be announced and I’ll let you all know next week, hopefully with some match details too. It’s great to have the ear of SEPW management. 😉

Oh and my chocolate embargo? Well…..I’ve been asked by the good egg SEPW management to host and MC the next show! Yup yours truly is the official announcer for Wrestival 3 folks! So I am on a strict diet so I can once again fit into my “Smart” Mark Blake suit! Prayers and good wishes are greatly appreciated.

Not only will I talk about the lesson, the wrestlers and match card for the event, but I’ll also talk about how frickin nervous I am, announcing in front of over 300 people! I’m sure you’ll all find that very amusing!

Anyway as SCSA would say, I’m getting the cue to go home, so I’ll bid you all goodbye and…….

TTFN!