What was your process of seeking wrestling training like?
I approached wrestling training very unconventionally. Put under a readmore since this one turned out long.
My mother is friends with someone who used to work in the business. She put me in contact with this guy, who, in turn, put me in contact with a few active wrestlers he knew. One of them offered to let me attend his promotion’s weekly training events. I jumped at the chance - wrestling schools can be very expensive, and this was free. You don’t get an opportunity like that often. However, in the end, it turned out that there were way too many cons for it to be worth it. I stopped training there only a few months later.
1. No one there was really fit to train. Wrestling trainers should be in good shape, and experienced + talented enough to give a solid skillset to their pupils. I had two trainers; an older fellow (B) who had been wrestling since the 90s, and a younger guy (J) who’d been wrestling for 6 years. B had some real credentials; he’d done dark matches for WWE before. J, well.. 6 years really isn’t that long in the grand scheme of wrestling. That’s not to say people can’t be very good at that point in their career, but personally, I don’t think it’s nearly long enough for them to be able to train others.
The worst part was that J was the main person giving me instruction. And then other people helping me later would directly contradict him! He'd tell me to run the ropes a certain way, and the next week another guy would tell me to run them differently. He told me to do a lockup a certain way, and other people told me to do the opposite. That’s not to say J was the one in the wrong 100% of the time - but obviously, no matter who was wrong or right, this isn’t okay. It’s not only imperative, but absolutely essential, to be trained properly in wrestling, for two reasons. Firstly, so your in-ring work looks good, entertaining, and impactful; you’re not going to make it very far otherwise. Secondly, and more importantly, you NEED to execute things properly for the safety of both you and your opponent.
2. The social environment was... less than stellar. God, the people there were the worst to be around.
The wrestling business has always had issues with bigotry and mistreatment, but as a whole, it’s a lot better today than it used to be. There are lots of progressive people around now and it’s more difficult to hide if you’re a shitty person. However, those pre-existing problems were kinda amplified because of the fact that I live in south Georgia, because nearly everyone there was conservative.
I’m a closeted trans guy; I’m only out to people close to me. The amount of transphobic rhetoric I heard in just those few months made me feel incredibly unsafe and uncomfortable. There were homophobic and racist jokes/comments made too. That stuff’s already bad enough, but since I’m AFAB (and the only AFAB who was training there, for that matter) I had to deal with CONSTANT misogynistic jokes/comments. There were things said to me that made me want to cry. I couldn’t bear to repeat them here. Truly disgusting things, that they’d excuse away with,” Oh, we mess with everyone. It means we like you.” But it’s not the same. It never made me feel liked or ‘apart of the family’. It made me feel alienated and objectified.
3. Unprofessionalism!! Since I was training with a promotion, I joined a stable (faction) early in, as a manager. But it was impossible to keep up with plans. Things were constantly changing. No one would work together. Decisions were made with no thought put into them. It was really stressful to try and stay up-to-date on everything. I’m sure this was mostly due to the way this specific promotion was run, but it was definitely a problem that contributed to me leaving.
Now, this isn’t to say that I think it’s impossible to train with indie promotions/ outside of official schools. I just think that it’s a decision you need to put thought into. Ask yourself, are the people who are going to be training me qualified to do so? Will I be in an encouraging and safe environment that won’t wear on my mental health? Do the people here act professional and treat their peers well? Scope it out before agreeing to anything. A bad experience (like mine) could easily deter someone previously passionate about wrestling away from it. Fortunately, I do still love wrestling, and I’d love to try again one day when I’m in the position to.
Still, I’d say that if you can, FIND A GOOD SCHOOL! It’s a much better way to ensure that 1. all of those questions have the proper answers, and 2. you have impressive credentials when you’re trying to get booked afterwards (especially in the early years of your career.) It’s much easier for a promotion to believe you’re a good investment when you’re trained by the big-name veterans that run these schools, rather than some backwoods hillbillies. Of course, it’s not impossible to start out small and have a good career; going to a school just opens the door for a lot more opportunities right out the gate.
I hope this is helpful to someone out there! If anyone has any other questions about searching for training, I’d love to answer (if I can.) :)
