Sorry to hear about your situation. I guess the only advice i could give is to stay positive, look down every avenue (unpaid work to gain experience/open new doors?) and never, ever give up!
Also, you being an ex-wrestler interests me tons and i'd love to hear more!
In highschool I was in amateur wresting, as well as Judo, although they both kind of clash while at the same time having many similarities. After highschool, I never really pursued them, but I occasionally did some professional wrestling under several different names, but of course my favorite had to be "The Brockler".
The only video I could find on youtube was one with old clips around the time I started after highschool, it's a tribute to one of my best friends that passed away in 08 from an asthma attack.
I'm at 0:51, 1:00, 2:07 and 2:20
It's kind of ironic that the company that those events took place at, and put the video together treated both of us like garbage. When I started there, they were a bunch of kids from highschool wrestling on a trampoline. I got them to build a ring, advertise and get fans, hire entertaining wrestlers, and merged them with another group that was doing the same. I made every single show professional, streamlined and cut down on a ton of wasted time, but of course, never got any credit for it, and when I was homeless, not one of those guys that I had considered my good friends gave me any single bit of help, well except for Brandon, of course. But enough of my life story.
EDIT: No, my hair isn't anywhere near that long anymore, and I do realize these are only clips of me getting manhandled, but of course, it's a tribue to him, not me.
Edited by HorrendousGames
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That Really Hot Chick
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Is that rule just an American thing? The whole "you haven't worked enough, so you can't have your tax back?". Surely it would be the other way around? I only earned around £5000 last year (in Britain), so I got a tax refund in April of £350 because I hadn't worked enough to have my income taxed.
The amount you won (or settled on) seems pitifully low, and the tax system seems very unfair in the US.
By the way, what was your good news?
I also get really offended when people say the economic crisis was caused, or exascerbated, by people on welfare (or benefits as we call them here). I spent around six months on Jobseeker's Allowance, "earning" around £50, which is about $80 I believe, a week. Peanuts. Economic theory logically says that if you give poor people money, no matter how much they've 'earnt' it, the money always goes back into the system anyway whenever they spend that money. Rich people get taxed, taxes get given to the poor, the poor people buy the products of the rich ad infinitum. And because people on benefits cannot save, it is a lossless transfer. But there are so many people out there who think running a country's economy is like running your own household. They think money in = money out. The real cause of the whole problem is the artificial problem of debt and interest. Money cannot make more money, but the whole world acts like it can.
Just needed to get that off my chest. Good luck with the job hunt.
Originally Posted by Matt Boothman Is that rule just an American thing? The whole "you haven't worked enough, so you can't have your tax back?". Surely it would be the other way around? I only earned around £5000 last year (in Britain), so I got a tax refund in April of £350 because I hadn't worked enough to have my income taxed.
The amount you won (or settled on) seems pitifully low, and the tax system seems very unfair in the US.
By the way, what was your good news?
I also get really offended when people say the economic crisis was caused, or exascerbated, by people on welfare (or benefits as we call them here). I spent around six months on Jobseeker's Allowance, "earning" around £50, which is about $80 I believe, a week. Peanuts. Economic theory logically says that if you give poor people money, no matter how much they've 'earnt' it, the money always goes back into the system anyway whenever they spend that money. Rich people get taxed, taxes get given to the poor, the poor people buy the products of the rich ad infinitum. And because people on benefits cannot save, it is a lossless transfer. But there are so many people out there who think running a country's economy is like running your own household. They think money in = money out. The real cause of the whole problem is the artificial problem of debt and interest. Money cannot make more money, but the whole world acts like it can.
Just needed to get that off my chest. Good luck with the job hunt.
I'm not sure what you meant by what was my good news, but I'm going to interpret that as one of those "think on the bright side" kind of things. If that's the case, you're right, I do have a ton of things to be thankful for. I've got a great family that has been nice enough to take me in and give me a hand, even though they aren't technically my family, I'm still alive, and I can always keep trying with just that.
When it comes to the court case, it's been about a year or so, and I haven't been to court once. If I hadn't settled, it would've been at least another year before the case went to court. When I got thrown out of my apartment, it took the owners a weekend to get us into a courtroom. Even that aspect seems even less fair than the chump change I received. Granted, I'm thankful I at least got something out of it, but sometimes I feel like I would've gotten more out of the situation if I had just gone "fuck you" and thrown a rock through the window.
You made some fantastic points, it's always nice to see someone that doesn't look at people on welfare as "lazy black people".
And thanks for the kind words.
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I think the majority of people who attack people on benefits are actually frustrated at the benefit scroungers and those that cheat the system. That frustration gets confused and lost sometimes when the media is thrown in for good measure, especially with the tabloids in the UK!
As for you HorrendousGames, that was a pretty sweet video. The point you made about being manhandled didn't disguise the fact that you still have to sell those moves you're on the receiving end of, and in fact you have to work as hard (if not harder) than the person "doing" the move in order to pull it off without ending up hurting each other. Pro wrestling is lost on those who think it's crap - it's like taking the skill of circus acts and then chucking in a wheel-barrow's worth of physicality for good measure. I look up to pro-wrestlers and i think the effort:financial reward ratio is well screwed up!
Have you thought about using your wrestling background to get on your feet again? Some of the ideas i had were;
1. Offering your services in setting up/running a promotion, using your knowledge and experience
2. Trying to get into pro-wrestling again as a kayfabe promoter/manager? The wheelchair "gimmick" (excuse me for the choice of words, no harm intended) has not been used before as far as i can remember and can be used to either further your face character (the guy who cannot fully physically defend himself from heel wrestlers) or even more effective as a heel (imagine what you could accomplish as a heel with "hired muscle" to protect you. Being untouchable would add to the heat you could create)
3. Writing a book about pro-wrestling and you experiences? Pro-wrestlers on a national scale seem to do well out of books and memoirs, though i bet someone on the independant circuit could easily paint a more interesting story, especially with the "poor" financial gain that brings with it. The story of turning a trampoline-using wrestling show into something that got fans, a ring, promotion, etc., as well as leaving you guys with no credit (every book needs villains - your old promoters could come across pretty bad!) for the effort would make a cracking story!
4. Maybe even a ficticious book based upon the pro-wrestling industry?
In case anyone hadn't realised by now, i love pro-wrestling! And that video was genuinely very impressive, i enjoyed it and wish i knew more about Brandon Ward.
To all those who diss pro-wrestling; when you have people chanting your name whilst watching you do your thing like those guys do night after night, then you can say you have a right to talk smack about wrestling!
Originally Posted by Matt Boothman You said "After some great news today, I think I've snapped." in your OP. Just wondered what it was.
Haha, I was being sarcastic. I totally forgot about that. The "great" news was the taxes taken out of my check.
@Marko : Totally, those are some great ideas. Unfortunately, when I'm around other wrestlers, it kind of makes me feel like garbage what with my legs not letting me actually wrestle again. But that's just something to get over, and it really wouldn't be a bad idea to do some, if not all of those things.
Usually when people attack pro-wrestling, it's usually because of the soap operas that are paraded around and considered the "top of the line", which I don't have a problem with, I don't like those either. But the problem is they generalize and think that it really don't take any talent to be a pro-wrestler. When people say it's fake, I usually say it's scripted, not necessarily fake. You can't fake gravity. And if it were fake, no one would have ever died from pro-wrestling.
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The physicality and acrobatics of wrestling are sometimes amazing. I love any kind of stunts, blokes flying through windows, blokes hitting other blokes with ironing boards etc. It's funny; you get people who say "oh, wrestling, I hate it, it's all fake", but you don't get many people saying "oh, Jackie Chan, I hate his films, they're all faked". Two sides of the same coin.
Originally Posted by Don Luciano I v heard a lot of bad things about US goverment, but i guess you could be in a worse position, it's not like there are not even worse countries in the world when it comes to economic inequality, like China for example, and brazil. I am not sure if that is actually helpfull.
That's actually one of the things that keep me going. One of my old history teachers used to tell me "You could be in Cambodia with a leg blown off". Although sometimes that puts me in a situation of feeling bad for feeling bad. But that kind of feeling bad isn't as bad as feeling bad because I feel bad, which is bad. Now if that makes any sense at all, you deserve a medal.
Well, even rich kids with tons of money from their parents and whatnot can feel "bad" and go suicidal on themselves. Just because you can be in a worse or better position doesn't mean it's better or worse. It's a matter of perception. Maybe a man in Cambodia with his leg blown off, is feeling good. Sometimes you just have to go,
Because if you go somewhere anywhere, it is completely logical to assume that you will get somewhere. I hope that helps.
Originally Posted by Matt Boothman The physicality and acrobatics of wrestling are sometimes amazing. I love any kind of stunts, blokes flying through windows, blokes hitting other blokes with ironing boards etc. It's funny; you get people who say "oh, wrestling, I hate it, it's all fake", but you don't get many people saying "oh, Jackie Chan, I hate his films, they're all faked". Two sides of the same coin.
The difference is that wrestling acts like it's real. Or it's realistic enough to be assumed to be real, and everyone gets disappointed when they're not. Nobody thinks that Jackie's stunts are real, even when they are.
Anyway, on topic... I sort of assumed that you lived in the USA halfway through the post (before I remembered "Uncle Sam" was an American thing). It's really quite sad, the whole country is "I give to myself and nobody gets my money even if they can't earn it myself". I come from Malaysia, with both my parents doing most of their degrees in the USA. The USA is horrible for the people who aren't lucky.. it's got a nasty poor-rich income gap (equal or worse to most African nations), very little opportunities for skilled poor people to become rich.
Economic and social inequality is probably worse than almost every other country in the world, you can tell by the way their citizens angrily refuse the health care reforms on the grounds that they don't want to pay for anyone else to live, and that it should be a charity. Personally, I find it frustrating that a lot of the people in one of the richest, most populous countries in the world still won't spend a bit extra for their brothers in the same country.
I have no advice, other than moving to a socialist country.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
But wrestling is real, it's just "scripted real" like Jackie Chan's stunts are. In it's most basic forms, both are real stunts sold as being real yet both are done to a pre-determined script. And it's only kayfabe real - nearly all wrestling fans know this and so are not disappointed when something happens outside of the storyline (wrestlers getting sacked/injured half-way through a story, for example). People who aren't wrestling fans know it's not real either, except they somehow think it offends wrestling fans to tell them so.
Actually, i think the biggest difference is that with wrestling and film acting is that when filming you get as many takes as you like to get it right. Wrestlers have to perform live every time and only get one take to get it right.
GODDAMEDIT: It's mocking me. Just go to youtube and look up "Who Am I - Scene 15"
Edited by HorrendousGames
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I never got into wrestling, but I am not into watching Jackie Chan type films either so its just my mindset.
As Marko said there are scroungers in the UK and the public does get swayed by the papers. Personally I have no problem with "benefits" to people that need it, people that can not find work but are genuinely trying, the ill and disabled.
You have to jump through hoops to get welfare because you probably aren't black.
Sad truth, but that is how it is. My dad tried to get on disability or some shit because he had a major accident at work and couldn't work. He still suffers to this day, nearly 30 years later I believe on top of fighting in court for getting fired illegally from another job. He was a mechanical inspector and his boss didn't want him to sign off on something that wasn't up to code. If an inspector signs off on something that isn't up to code HE is liable.
Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. They wanted to give him like $20 a month and told him that its because he isn't black - which is a teeny part of the reason he kept working.
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Edited by HorrendousGames
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