{Current Mood: Antsy}
For those of you who are too lazy to watch the five-minute video at the end of this thing, I’ll make those points that I made in the video to begin this little piece.
I know it’s been a while since everyone has heard from me. In my involuntary time away from this website due to st00pid natural disasters, I’ve had some time to think.
Specifically, I’ve had time to think about my three and a half-plus year professional wrestling career and how I can make it meaningful.
Eight nights ago, our power went out and stayed out for the next day and a half. As I was lying in my bed, I grabbed my video camera and my battery-operated candle and spoke of how it was time to inspire change in a professional wrestling business, specifically the independent circuit, that’s in dire need of a new folk hero in the mold of a CM Punk in his indy days.
After seeing the damage that the hurricane inflicted upon NJ, I grabbed the camera again on the morning my power came back and I filmed the video posted at the end of this blog.
It only took a day and a half without power to realize that I will forever be known as a statistic of Hurricane Sandy.
Sure I escaped without incurring a whole lot of physical damage while others have lost everything but, for the rest of my wrestling career and for the rest of my life, I’m going to receive involuntary sympathy when people hear that I hail from New Jersey. You know the feeling that you may get when you hear that somebody hails from New Orleans or were living there in the time that Katrina hit? This is the same involuntary feeling that I, or anyone else that lives/lived in New Jersey during this dark time, will evoke.
Not to sound like a dick but if I didn’t need sympathy when I began my pro wrestling training and everyone, including the people who ran the school I trained at and were training me, thought I was going to quit before I accomplished anything in this business, I don’t need sympathy now after I was lucky enough to escape from Sandy unharmed. But that won’t stop everyone from associating me with all the lasting images that will be burned into their brains from the last couple of days. It’s an unwanted cross I’ll have to bear for the rest of my life and career.
It also gives me a built-in excuse for failure to make an impact in a business where so few will be remembered once they decide to call it a career. As someone who has never relied on excuses to explain any of his successes or failures in his wrestling career, I assume you can understand where I’m coming from when I tell you that failure to make the impact I plan on making in the wrestling industry is not an option.
I may forever be a statistic of Hurricane Sandy but I refuse to become a statistic of professional wrestling.
I know I’m still a baby in the wrestling business but I’ve been spending my entire career traveling everywhere I can to learn as much as I can from as many people as I can. I was lucky enough to be trained by Little Guido (aka Nunzio): a guy who experienced lots of success in both the original ECW and the WWE and who understands what it takes to be successful in the wrestling business even after your time under the largest of spotlights comes and goes.
I’ve accumulated a ton of experience over the last few years having wrestled, at last count, 131 career matches (including a few battle royals) for 19 different promotions in eight different states with eight total championship reigns between the three championship belts I’ve won… and yes, I do keep track of all this stuff.
And yet, I sit back and watch myself get overlooked and passed over in favor of guys who don’t work as hard as I do to get better, who haven’t wrestled, traveled, or learned nearly as much as I have even though some have been wrestling a lot longer than me, and who quite honestly and candidly don’t deserve to be in the spotlight that they’ve been thrust into.
I don’t say this to sound like an egotistical prick. I say this because nobody knows how to inspire the type change that I do. Nobody else knows how to inspire this once-in-a-generation type of change that can bring pro wrestling back into an age where it’s cool and socially acceptable to be a wrestling fan.
And I’m not trying to make excuses as to why I haven’t had more success to this point in my career. I’m simply pointing out that it hasn’t happened yet because, until recently, I was just like all of the other weekend warriors that will one day inevitably become a statistic in the story of the professional wrestling business.
I was thinking inside of the figurative box and focusing solely on how I can make myself better. And everyone who hopes to have even a shred of success in this business needs to do that. But lying in the dark while wondering exactly how much of an impact this hurricane would have on me and my ability to be able to inspire the type of change that I hope to inspire made me realize that my purpose in the wrestling business is to bring it out of the doldrums and into a new and exciting Golden Age.
And how exactly do I plan on accomplishing that?
The way I’ve accomplished all that I have already in my short time in this business: unconventionally.
Something that’s crippling modern day professional wrestling is the flat out stubborn refusal of a lot of people to stand out in the way that they need to stand out in order to make people want to see them again.
Take a moment and think about the guys who are considered by many to be among the greatest and most memorable of all time. Take a moment and think about the guys that will live on in professional wrestling folklore long after they’re gone. They all had one thing in common. They were unlike anybody you’ve ever seen before and unlike anyone you’ll ever see again. They all made themselves stand out from the pack whether it was something they wore, the moves they did, their catchphrases, all of the above, etc. And they all made people want to see them night in and night out.
They were different. Being different is considered unconventional.
I’ve been fortunate enough to meet a lot of innovative people over the course of my career. I’ve met people with innovative moves, innovative ideas, innovative personalities and looks, etc. I feel like these individuals are different but they’re not different in the way that they need to be in order to make the kind of impact that I plan on making on the wrestling industry.
I don’t want to look like anyone else. I don’t want to be like anyone else. Some of the changes I plan on making and implementing in my look, wrestling style, etc. will be looked at as being unconventional. Just the way I like it.
Beyond Wrestling is a place that gives you an opportunity to embrace your unconventionality and really stand out from anybody else out there on the indy circuit today. Beyond is also one of those places where you have no choice but to do that because the fans will eat you alive if you don’t. These are fans that want to see this type of change that I plan on inspiring.
I had one goal when I made my debut for Beyond this past Sunday in Bridgewater, MA: to do just enough so that the people would remember who I was. My match was short, probably about five to six minutes, but even if it was good enough for the fans to remember in the days or weeks following the show, if and when there comes a time when the fans don’t remember the match, I wanted to be sure they at least remembered me.
To be 1,000% honest, I had a lot on my mind heading into this show between everything I’ve gone through emotionally following Hurricane Sandy, the nerves that were brought on by my desire to make a lasting enough impression for the fans to remember me and for me to be booked to wrestle for Beyond in the future, the physical pain I’ve been experiencing in my back, knee, etc. over the past few months, among other things and I feel like it caused me to hold back just enough that I wasn’t truly satisfied with my overall performance even though I emerged victorious. This was my chance to bring everything I had to the table and begin my journey to lead wrestling back to prominence. I had to be more on my A-game than I ever have in my career.
And while I feel that I did show the unconventionality that I pride myself on, I feel like I could’ve done much more to make myself stand out even further from a stacked roster consisting of some of the best indy talent from across the country. The fact that I was deemed good enough to be able to wrestle on the same show as these guys should be a victory in itself. But, as the hardest critic of my own self that I’ve ever known, this wasn’t good enough for me.
Being afraid to do the things to better yourself and make yourself stand out will never get you anywhere in any walk of life. Regardless of everything that was racing through my mind, I didn’t execute the way I wanted to and there is no excuse for that. All I can do is overcome everything that kept me from making the kind of impact that I want to make regardless of whether my performance was good enough to get me booked for Beyond in the future.
All I’ve ever needed was a chance to show the world how I can inspire the kind of change that can make professional wrestling better. Debuting for Beyond was a big step in the right direction. Now I need to expand on that if given the chance and continue to give people more reasons to talk about Ray Ray Marz as pro wrestling’s next folk hero.
I plan on taking everything I’ve learned from all my experiences, acting on it, continuing to learn and think of new ways as to how I can not only better myself but professional wrestling in general, and I plan on doing all of this no matter where I wrestle in the future, whether it be for a local television taping, a show for 500-plus, a show for 20 in a bingo hall, or anywhere I get the chance to do it.
Failure is not an option.
When it’s all said and done, everyone that’s helped me out along the way, given me an opportunity, opposed me, told me I could, told me I couldn’t, or taught me anything, will all be a part of my story of how I became pro wrestling’s next greatest discovery.
When it’s all said and done, you will all become a part of my reality: the reality of pro wrestling’s favorite #RockStarRevolution.
You want to know what it means to be pro wrestling’s favorite #RockStarRevolution?
I think you already know.
Thank you and good night.
Deuces,
-Ray Ray Marz-
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