Gettin' shirty :)
I thought I’d take account of my growing wrestling t-shirt collection and so have gathered them all together below. I also own two wrestling-themed jackets by they are not pictured :)
There’s one official WWE t-shirt - the black one with the cerebus dog on it, which is for the stable The Shield. They got me interested in the WWE again and I hate that they split the group up. I continue to wear the shirt with pride.
The rest are shirts supporting independent wrestlers - ie those not exclusively signed to an enormous company like WWE. Independent wrestlers don’t make a great deal of money, travelling the world to wrestle shows, and selling merchandise is actually a big way they can make money for themselves so you can support your favourite wrestler and help them make a living in a really impactful way by buying their stuff. The white one with the girl and guy on it is for one of my very favourite tag teams, The World’s Cutest Tag Team, Candice LeRae and Joey Ryan. They’re an amazing team; Candice is hugely talented and wrestles guys in such an exciting way. They also have a YouTube show called The Candice & Joey Show that really needs to be checked out.
The white t-shirt with the angry face on is a Mark Andrews & Eddie Dennis t-shirt, made to commemorate them wrestling each other for Mark’s final Progress match before he heads off to America. I was so sad watching that match but I wanted to support them both and have a great memento of that day.
I love the pink shirt. It always gets commented on because it’s a pink shirt with a rainbow and a unicorn on and says Hardcore Wrestling. I wore this shirt to church and really unnerved our vicar; he walked past me, did a literal double-take and then came over to ask what my t-shirt said. Poor man. This is definitely one of my favourite t-shirts.
My most recent purchase - the dragon t-shirt, an Eddie Dennis shirt as Eddie’s nickname is ‘The Pride of Wales.’ He recently posted on Facebook that at last he was going to release his own shirts and I replied that if there were any at Monday’s show, I’d do my best to buy one so I did J
Yes, I actually talked to Mark and Eddie at Monday’s show. We didn’t know they were going to be there, they wrestled a match, then during an intermission, they, like most of the wrestlers at the show, were selling merchandise. Anthony told me I was going to talk to them - he was pretty sick of how I couldn’t talk to them at any of the shows we’ve seen them at and then how much I complain about my own cowardice afterwards. It’s odd, I’m actually really confident talking to new people now; I was always terrified of that for years, huge social anxiety that was horrible. Thinking about talking to wrestlers I really admire sends me right back to that place. So Anthony took my hand and marched me over and told Mark I was keen to meet him - I could have died, honestly! But Mark was lovely and shook my hand and chatted to us and I felt all flustered and wished I could have given a better account of myself. But honestly, I think it was good I wasn’t expecting to see them, I didn’t have time to overthink things. I thanked Mark on Twitter afterwards and he said it was lovely to meet me. I may have favourited that tweet.
Eddie I was able to be a lot more casual with, I have briefly spoken to him before so maybe that helped. I bought a shirt and had a pic taken with him later, feeling like a proper dork seeing as I could have asked for that when I’d bought the shirt. I really wanted just to hang out beside them the whole time, chatting, but realistically, there’s other people who wanted to buy shirts and stuff so I ducked away. I keep feeling like oh I should have said this or mentioned what we’ve talked about on Twitter or Facebook before so they’d realise who I am but I’m doing my best not to drive myself crazy with it. We can’t change the past, they probably don’t even remember each fan they talked to that day, how could they? They’re busy guys who meet a lot of fans. They were both lovely and I really hope I get to talk to them again at some point. I just...they’re really nice cool guys and I just want to hang out with them and be their friend, which I realise is kinda peculiar and I feel really weird about it. I don’t wanna be a weird fan, you know?
The show itself was a complete delight. The atmosphere was so friendly and wonderful, we chatted to so many complete strangers in the queue and inside the venue. There was this gorgeous girl all dressed up and sat on the front row, wearing a low cut black dress with a very high hemline. Wrestling crowds are generally jeans and t-shirt people so she really stood out. I felt so underdressed by comparison! Well I bumped into her in the ladies and she immediately told me that she and her group were admiring me and Anthony’s wrestling shirts, she called them the coolest wrestling shirts she’d seen. It was her first wrestling show ever and she was so excited and later on told me she was having such a good time. I admit I sort of judged her by appearance when I first saw her - girls often get dragged to this kind of thing by their partners or are interested only in dating the wrestlers, yep groupies - but she was a breath of fresh air and a sharp lesson to me that I shouldn’t judge so quickly.
We got to meet loads of amazing wrestlers who we’ve admired and watched on DVDs for years. Anthony got to meet his favourite, UltraMantis Black, and thank Mantis for getting Anthony excited and interested in wrestling again after years of not being and Mantis recognised his name from Twitter, which blew Anthony’s mind. Anthony talked to more wrestlers than me, he’s so cool in these situations, able to chat easily and thank them for being awesome and tell them he likes their work without looking like a sycophant or a dork. I wish I’d talked to more of them. I’m determined to next time. It was the company’s first UK tour and so many of them were blown away by how their shows had sold out and how well they’d been received. We got to watch an evening full of astonishing matches and even got to witness the Grand Championship change hands for only the third time in its history, an amazing moment that we just didn’t expect. Anthony and I couldn’t believe it. After the show, Mike Quakenbush, the company’s owner, and many of the wrestlers lined up outside to shake everyone’s hand - a classy touch which was a really lovely moment. Come back to us soon, Chikara, we love you.