Our excursion back to Germany had its own twists and turns for my mother and I. Klaus, her trainer, being less than friendly with me at the start and finding out that I wasn’t all that liked in Germany like I was hoping I would be rocked me to the core. But finding out that my grandfather ‘wasn’t going to make it’ was what really shook me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle the news and in fact, my inner child was being naive and hoping that there was a way for him to get through his suffering and get nursed back to health. But by all accounts, he was on his last legs and so much of me felt that the situation was so unfair considering that I had only just reunited with my maternal grandparents. I couldn’t help but reflect on my 16th birthday knowing that it was one of the last times I’d seen my grandparents until recently
October 24, 2010
Hours before my first day of wrestling training, I was in the lobby of my father’s wrestling school going through quite a bit of emotions. My first day of training was something that I had been looking forward to for years but my mother, nor her parents, shared my enthusiasm today.
“Do you have to do this?” my grandmother asked me.
“I want to do this.”
“Does it have to be HERE, Julianna?” my grandfather asked, almost as if he was trying to warn me about something.
“Where else am I going to train? It’s not like there are hundreds of wrestling schools in San DIego that are opening their doors for someone that just turned 16. You two are supportive of me, right? I mean, you supported my mother…”
“But this is different…” my grandmother warned me. “Your mother trained with one of the best in Germany and he was able to push her and help her grow into not just a strong wrestler, but an even stronger person. Your father on the other hand, he could care l…”
“Mother, I don’t need her to hear what you were going to say…” my mother said, interrupting.
“Elisa, Julianna’s not going to be a child much longer. She’s got to learn the reality of her father and how he sees any sort of relationship with her.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Julianna, sweetheart…” my grandfather told me as he wrapped an arm around me. “Let’s go outside for a minute…”
While my mother and grandmother were having a debate regarding my father, I walked outside with my grandfather who definitely seemed like he had his own concerns.
“I support you and what you want to do with your life. Your grandmother and I always have. Would we prefer that you do something other than wrestling? To be straight with you, yes. We’ve seen it with your mother that the business is tough and definitely not for the faint of heart. You can be quite delicate sometimes, especially around your father because we know how much you care about him and how badly you want to have any sort of bond with him. I understand that you idolize him and all… and that’s what worries us about this whole thing…”
“My father will see me differently, I swear…”
“How do you know that when he’s never made any sort of effort to bond with you at all?”
“Wouldn’t this be it?”
My grandfather sighed as he continued to try and warn me for my own sake.
“Julianna, if I were your father, I wouldn’t have you training for this at all until you were 18 and I absolutely wouldn’t let you train with that man. This isn’t going to work very well. He’s the worst person that could possibly train you and I know this seeing how he has been emotionally negligent with you your entire life. You have to come to terms with the fact that he’s never going to be the man, much less the father, you want him to be. You don’t know your father the way I do…”
“I don’t know if I even want to be hearing this right now…” I said with a quiver of denial in my voice.
“It’s what you need to hear. Your father is a horrible human being…”
My eyes widened with shock and the denial definitely took over at this point.
“Grandpa, I know you never liked him but that doesn’t mean you have to lie about him.”
“I am not lying to you. He’s never cared for you and he’s never cared for your mother either. In fact, there was unproven word back in the day that he was cheating on your mother. You’re going to be completely miserable training under him. He’s going to lead you wrong. He’s going to do significant damage to your self-esteem and he’s going to stunt your growth and your dreams as a professional wrestler the way he did your mother’s…”
I was too numb in shock to really process what I was hearing at the moment.
“Your mother was about to start her own career here in the States when your father wouldn’t allow it because he didn’t think that a woman wrestling in the states back then was going to make any sort of money and he could never stand the fact that she was more successful than he was, so… let me put it to you like this… he sabotaged her and completely screwed her career.”
“How? What did he do? That doesn’t sound like him…”
My grandfather and I were suddenly caught off guard by some screaming going on from inside the school. My mother and grandmother were coming out, both with terrified expressions on their faces and my father was not far behind him.
“You don’t get to determine my daughter’s future, you fucking piece of shit!”
“Don’t you dare talk to my mother that way!”
The argument suddenly came our direction.
“Why don’t you and that sad sack of crap just go back to Germany and never come back? Fuck you both!
Neither of you have the right to interfere with my daughter and her progress to come as a professional wrestler.”
“It’d be nice to see you hanging like Mussolini you rat Italian bastard…” my grandfather said to my father.
“Julianna, say goodbye to these losers… FOR GOOD! I’m not allowing them anywhere near you!”
“Daddy, what the hell is this?”
“Your first fucking lesson in this business, kid. Don’t be anchored by losers like them.”
“But… they’re my…”
“I don’t give a FUCK! You two… get the fuck off of my school grounds now or I’ll have you both arrested. I want you both out of the state of California by tomorrow, you fucking useless people!”
“UNBELIEVABLE!” my mother said in the background. “You can’t ban my parents from seeing Julianna!”
“I just did and it’s for her own good. Now get the fuck out of her life!”
I was almost shaking and the tears were welling up in my eyes as they calmed down and gave me a hug
“This won’t be the last you’ll see of us…” my grandmother promised. “You’ll see the truth about that man someday…”
“Don’t let him change you…” my grandfather warned me. “Don’t let him win. He’ll damage you, he’ll hold you back, he’ll sabotage you the same way he did your mother… or at least he’ll try to. But you’re too strong to be broken down by his garbage. Don’t stop fighting, alright?”
“Sure…” I said as I exchanged a tearful hug with him.
It wasn’t long before they were out of my sight and, at least as I eared at that point, out of my life. I could hear my parents arguing in the background over what just happened and I was too numb to really listen in to what they were saying. What I didn’t know of course, is that as time moved along, my grandfather would be proven right and my own father would indeed, be the biggest anchor and saboteur of my career that I could ever imagine.
Present Day
I let out a sigh once I stopped reflecting on the past time I saw my grandparents prior to my recent reunion with them. My heart was definitely in some anguish and I still couldn’t fend off that horrible feeling that it was completely unfair that my grandfather had to go. I looked ahead and while th elocation I was in seemed like any other street in Berlin, I knew that it was anything but that.
“I’m in the right place…” I said with a sigh. “This is where my grandparents managed to escape over the wall. This was the spot.”
It was a surreal feeling being here and I replayed what they went through in my head based on what I was told. I could definitely feel their struggle taking the biggest risk imaginable to provide the best life for my mother that they could and this is the rare time where I wasn’t taking life for granted and where I wasn’t in the mood to tear someone down or to prove someone wrong in the wrestling ring. Considering my family’s situation at the present, I wasn’t thinking too hard about the title match coming up. How could I when my grandfather was on my mind 24/7? I was suddenly interrupted by the sound of my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket and I saw that my grandmother was video calling me. I wasn’t sure whether to dread the news I thought I was going to hear or if I should feel proud of er for being technologically “with it” for someone of her generation. I answered it, fearing for the worst.
“Hello?” I said, being nervous. My grandmother could see that worried expression on my face.
“Julianna. Good. I wasn’t sure if you were going to pick up. Are you alone?”
“I am…” I said, the tears forming in my eyes anticipating horrible news. “Was this the spot?”
I moved my phone around for a bit to show my grandmother exactly where I was at. I could hear her gasp before I brought the phone back to my face.\
“That’s the spot. Move your phone around again, will you please?”
I panned my phone around as she requested and I heard her say ‘look at where she is, honey’, shocking me in the moment because that’s when I knew he wasn’t gone yet. When I brought the phone back to my face again, both grandparents were in the shot… though my heart briefly sank seeing my grandfather in the condition that he was in.
“Julianna…” he was able to say. “Nice seeing you… one more time…”
“Don’t say that! You’ll get through this! Or otherwise… I don’t know… I know you can at least hang on until my mother and I get back over there…”
“I don’t… have much… longer…” he said, painting the reality that he was probably going to pass at any moment. “Thank you for showing me home one more time…”
“This isn’t fair…” I said through my tears. “My father tore us apart over my wrestling career and I didn’t see you for years and then once I finally do, I end up losing you for good? What the fuck kind of cruelty is this? This isn’t fair and it’s my fault! If I just trained with someone else… if I had just waited…”
“Julianna… no… don’t say that…” my grandfather said to me through a couple of wheezes. I heard my grandmother tell him not to overexert himself and she continued the conversation.
“There was nothing you could’ve done to change what happened on that horrible day, dear…” my grandmother said. “Your father had far too much control of you for the outcome of that day to be any different. I agree, this is very cruel… unfair… but in life, sometimes you have to make the best of the absolute worse and I know over your adulthood, you’ve had to do that so many times. We never fully lost contact with you. Your mother would always keep us in the loop and I know she’ll continue to do so… at least with me…”
“When I reunited with both of you, that filled my heart with joy because that’s when I knew that the last piece of my father’s control over me was gone. I am so grateful that I got to learn more about my culture and more about who I am from you two. It motivated me to be better knowing that you never gave up on me and bringing the Internet Championship back to both of you was one of the greatest joys I’ve ever experienced in my career and I am never going to forget that.”
“Don’t..” my grandfather advised me. “I’m grateful I had one last moment with you then and now. Don’t forget where your blood comes from. Don’t forget that strength with that blood. Don’t forget who you really are or where you come from. Your father doesn’t change the fact that you come from an honorable, strong willed family that makes you who you are today and there is nobody on earth that is going to say otherwise.”
My grandmother and I were both stunned that he was able to have the strength to say that. Tears were strolling down my face knowing that he was putting up at least one more incredible last stand.
“Don’t let any of those BITCHES you work with tell you who you are because now you know…”
This triggered a hell of a fire and a motivation within me more than anything.
“I won’t… I promise that. I’m not going to stop fighting. I’m not going to stop learning. I’ll do whatever it takes to reach my fullest potential, grandfather. I promise! I’m not going to let you down…”
“You’re a great kid…” my grandfather said through a couple of hacks and coughs. “...always were… and I’m at a great peace knowing your father’s poison is outta ya…”
My father’s coughing was starting to get worse.
“Stay strong kid… stay strong… goodbye Julianna…”
“Goodbye grandfather…”
There were no more words after that as my grandmother ended the call. He wasn’t gone yet, but the sorrow that I was already feeling certainly made it feel that he was. I found a bench nearby and I sat on it… for a couple of more hours… processing all of it… unable to think or move much.
Two hours later…
I suddenly felt someone else sitting on the bench with me. I looked to my right and my mother was there. Her eyes seemed bloodshot as if she had been crying for quite some time.
My heart sank at that moment.
She didn’t have to say it.
I already knew. Even then…
“He’s gone, Julianna…”
Those words were still heartbreaking to hear.
“...I know you have a title defense coming and I understand that this news is hard for you to hear right now…”
“Mother… I’ll be fine. I’ll fight through this. It’s what my grandfather would’ve wanted. I’m not going to let this break me, okay? WE are going to fight through this because that’s who we are, alright? We’ll face what we have to face with the funeral and all of that in time, but we have to push through the best that way can until then because that’s what he’d want us to do. Right?”
My mother let out a sigh and had a bit of a warm smile on her face.
“You’re exactly right, honey…”
We didn’t leave that bench overlooking the very spot my grandparents escaped the Berlin Wall for a good while there…
September 27
The camera was on and as horribly difficult as it was, I was still fighting through the heartbreak that I was experiencing with my grandfather’s passing. It was rough to leave Germany the other day and come up to London, but for the moment, the title defense was all I had to pull through and that’s exactly what I was going to do. I thought back to some of Raine’s words and that plus my grandfather gave me all the fuel I needed to at the very least verbally put that bitch in her place…
“Two months ago, when I was about to take the SCW Bombshells Internet Championship from Tempest, I went into that match knowing that I had it won because by the time the bell even rang for that, I had Tempest out of whack mentally. Her head wasn’t in the game. I didn’t MEAN to do it, but some of the words that I said got to her and she collapsed like a stack of cards against me because she was too worried about every little thing under the sun other than what was in front of her and I took advantage of that. This Sunday? I go into it feeling the exact some thing. You heard me broke down some of the things that you’ve had to say, Raine. I knew going in that I was facing someone that was giving way too much of a fuck about what others thought about her not just because she was so obsessed with focusing on what other people had to say about her, but because she was too busy taking out her obvious self-esteem issues on everyone else, throwing dirt on just about every opponent that she faced and trying to bury them under said dirt because someone that constantly feels inferior 24/7 does that sort of shit. There have been MANY in the Bombshells division over time, dating back to long before I came here, that have come in with the same attitude that you have with feeling the need to degrade someone to feel better about yourself. Oh sure, some of those bitches were successful for a time but once that success faded? So did they.
You?
If I knew that it was that easy to get under your feelings, I would’ve started throwing a bunch of shade at you prior to last week. For starters, you’re so fucking predictable! You tell me that you have no respect for me acting like I’m supposed to give a shit about that. See, that’s where you have it all wrong. Unlike you, I don’t give a fuck if other people respect me or not and I don’t give a fuck what others think about me. I don’t waste my promo time like you do bitching about how this person said this about me or how that person said this. Like, girl… get the fuck out of your own ego and see the forest for the trees. You’ve shown that you’re capable, but at the same time, you’ve shown that you’re3 this tryhard that’s acting like she’s tougher and meaner than she actually is. OH WOW, YOU BROUGHT UP KAYLA RICHARDS!
HOLY SHIT!
You use THAT as your argument for why I’m “not as good as my record indicated”. Okay, for starters, predictable. Bringing that up proves WHAT? You’re trying to use the ONLY two singles losses of my career to fortify an already weak argument? WOW! I DIDN’T see that coming! You know, your argument falls completely flat when you consider that the bitch hasn’t lost in almost a year, you know that right? This isn’t to say that I am happy with the way things went, but I’d rather go down fighting the way I did than to go down like a bitch… you know, like SO many bitches on this roster that you’ve already criticized thinking that it’s going to score you points around here? Hell, you’re one to talk about records and how someone’s not as good as their record indicates. I mean, you’ve literally beefed up your record so far beating the likes of the Steeles and Cassie Mason. Who the fuck are you to talk? In my book, the one loss you DO have against Andrea Hernandez says more about you than your wins do. Sure, you won the Proving Grounds series, but against what actual competition aside from Mercedes Vargas… when it wasn’t even one on one by the way?
But I’m the one with the “fraudulent record”, right? Okay Karen, keep bringing that basic bitch shit… like making excuses for Tempest saying that she was looking past me and that’s the only reason why I beat her.”
I rolled my eyes and had a bit of a laugh at this point.
“Because somehow Tempest saw the future and she knew a world title shot was coming her way, right? She spent her entire reign building up the importance of the championship that I held to day. She was focused squarely on me. She considered me the toughest challenge she was going to have and that’s definitely not someone that had her heads in the clouds elsewhere but you know, I get it. When I have the dominant record that I do, a dominance unlike anything that has ever been seen before in this company, then you have to pick at any scab you can find. It’s just too bad that you’re reaching with that Tempest nonsense and you aim for low hanging fruit like the Kayla thing. You MIGHT have more of an argument if you actually faced and beat either of them at some point but no… aim for the low hanging fruit. That’s all you have.
I mean, when you’re someone stuck in her own self-loathing and feels the need to bring other people down to her level… and on top of that, a giant fucking hypocrite…
Like, you can’t stand people disrespecting you. You’ve made that clear. I think you’ve cried more about being disrespected by people in the last two months than most Bombshells have in six times that long. You can’t stand it when people disrespect you, but you’re going as far as calling me a “trash human being” because why?
Why am I a trash human being? Because I tell it like it is and don’t sugar coat shit? I mean hell, if I’m a trash human being, what are you then because while I have a sharp tongue and I have criticized people for their abilities or their deservedness to have certain things like title shots that were handed to them out of nowhere, I have NEVER gone as low as calling someone a ‘trash human being’. I get that you don’t like me or respect me for whatever fucked up reason you formulated in your head, but don’t act as if you’re above me because just those three words prove that you’re not.
You don’t like how I carry myself? Tough. It’s a YOU problem all the way.
Hell, look in the mirror and ask yourself this. Who is the one trying so fucking hard to discredit the other person and bury everything they’ve done just because they don’t like the other person for… well… whatever reason. Is that me? No. That’s you all the way… like this desperate bullshit of trying to spin my Internet title chase as me ‘willingly stepping down a division because I realized I wasn’t good enough’ and even going as far as bringing up the whole ‘handicap’ thing?
Ah… but you conveniently leave out the part where none of that was my choice. OF COURSE you do! Whatever fucked up story you can conjure up on your brain about me, right? You’d make a perfect tabloid writer in Hollywood if this whole wrestling thing doesn’t work out for you. You DO realize that I was put in that situation by Victoria Lyons based on her Queen For The Day crap, right? Trust me, I didn’t LIKE that situation and if it were up to me, not to put down the championship that I have now, but I wouldn’t have gone after it. I would’ve done whatever it took to get back into the world championship picture and even with the title I have now, I’m STILL doing that! But something out of my control suddenly fell to me and I expressed constantly how I DIDN’T like that situation whatsoever. I could’ve been EXACTLY what you are trying SO FUCKING HARD to paint me as and bitched and whined my way out of that match or just not shown up for it…
That’s what you THINK I’d do, right?
But I didn’t do that.
Instead, I rolled with the punches and made the most that I could do with it because that was the only thing that I COULD do. But hey, way to show disrespect for the championship you’re challenging it for by calling it a “step down”, right? Your diatribe, honestly… is one of the most pathetic drivels of garbage I’ve ever heard in my life. You’re trying to spin my actions into what they never came close to, but you want to whine and cry about being disrespected by anyone that you come across. Don’t give me that hypocritical bullshit, Raine. You are no better than those that you fucking bitch about. I’m not saying I’m a saint, but at least when I say what I say, there’s MEANING behind what I say. You on the other hand, are just spewing bullshit out of your mouth, again, acting no better than the people you complain about, trying to FORCE a meaning behind your words when those in this company with a brain know the fucking truth. I’ve seen this shit plenty of times with people like you that can’t form an original thought. I know it’s out of desperation. You could’ve just at least TRIED to put yourself on my level. You, being all “EVERYONE DISRESPECTS ME” could’ve and SHOULD’VE done better than this by at least building yourself up as someone just as good as me but noooo… you went the low route trying to bring ME down because in your own brain, you know you’re not fucking good enough to face someone like me.
You’re resorting to low brow, slanderous bullshit and outright lies and garbage interpretations to turn them into what they’re absolutely not… against someone you’ve never even met before… someone that’s never even HEARD of you before you came here… and someone that wouldn’t have a reason to hate you… because… why?
Because I win so much? Because I rub it in people’s faces? Because I am who I am? Like what the actual fuck did I do to you to make you that jealous of me? Unless you’re friends with someone on the roster I’ve ran down previously?
I’d say the one being pathetic here is you… and OH… I haven’t even gotten to the best part…
Where I SUPPOSEDLY said that the Proving Ground series was set up for you to win.
WHAT? Bitch… are you DRUNK?”
I could only scoff at this at this point.
“WHEN and WHERE did I say that? I’ve never said a word about you on camera prior to this. I’ve only mentioned you ONE time in a tweet…
Can my production team pull up that tweet, please?”
https://x.com/JuliannaDiMaria/status/1832753115206123603“Thank you…
Now WHERE did I say this was set up for you to win? I NEVER said that. That tweet was BY FAR a slap in the face to Prudence Pierce and it was talking about ONE match… ONE… not the entire series… but ONE MATCH… where ANYONE with a FUCKING BRAIN would’ve predicted that you were going to win because EVERYONE knows that Prudence Pierce is a fucking sorry excuse of a one hit wonder wrestler in this company that didn’t deserve to be there. There’s a HUGE difference between predicting an obvious outcome and saying that an entire event was set up for you to win.
To quote one of YOUR recent promos… “It’s not that deep”...
Funny… you’re talking about how social media isn’t that deep, but you took ONE social media thread that wasn’t even DISSING YOU or DISCREDITING YOU THAT PERSONAL! There was no ‘sneak diss’ and even if there WAS… again… HYPOCRISY! You can’t whine and bitch about other people dissing you when you’ve done nothing but trash Bombshell A and Bombshell B and act as if they don’t deserve to have their roster spot and when you filled your entire promo against me with nothing but lies, slander and fucking HORRIBLE attempts to pour dirt all over my entire run here. See, that type of bullshit right there is how I know I’ve got this won.
Thank you for proving me right when I said that you’re so mentally fragile. I spewed that venom last time saying you gave far too much of a fuck about what other people thought about you and taking that ONE tweet personal when it was barely even about you as a ‘sneak diss’ not only proves that I’m right, but it tells me that psychologically? You’re fucking fragile as fuck and that even if God forbid you win on Sunday, you’re not a long haul wrestler. You’re the type of wrestler that gets all up in their ego so fucking much that once you hit a wall, you’re going to be gone!
Being the last woman standing won’t be too difficult for me knowing the adversity I’ve had to endure to become the wrestler that I am today while YOU collapse and get all up in your feelings and downward spiral over JUST a few words…
So in the context that I JUST put everything in…
Who’s TRULY the pathetic charity case here, Raine?
You are… you megalomaniacal, desperate, self-loathing, hypocritical cunt!
And with THAT type of attitude? You’re self-destructing and beating yourself long before the bell even rings…”
I chuckled a bit more before I shut off the camera…
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