Looking around the room I was sitting in was a surreal experience after I had pinned some photos to the wall in front of me. As the next chapter of my career in Sin City Wrestling begins to dawn on me, I sat down in front of a wall I had plastered with those aforementioned photos and I had a little bit of time to reflect on my career up to this point. I remember the harsh, brutal start that it had when it first began three and a half years ago but I also remember when I started to rise from the ashes of those rough rookie days as a tag team wrestler and became an up and coming singles competitor in my own right. Having separated the photos between the good times and the bad, I briefly glance at the good times: the singles championships I had won, the top competitors at my last promotion that I had beaten, the odds that I had overcome to get to where I am today as a professional wrestler…
Then I glanced at the bad times…
Ranging from being betrayed by my tag team partner after my rookie year came and went, people cheating to beat me in various matches, the titles that had been lost and the one big opportunity that I had at a world championship. It’s that latter photo from that ladder match that brings a sigh out of me as I reflect on that match.
“I blew it” I think to myself, which may admittedly be harsh but at the same time, I knew deep down that was true. I’d been running away from that heartbreaking loss for months until this very moment when I decided that it was finally time to face it especially considering that company has now come and gone. I slump back in my chair with my upcoming SCW debut not even in my mind. My conscience is stuck on this match as I wonder how things went wrong. Only the sound of knocking on the door snaps me out of this funk.
“Andrea?”
I widen my eyes some at the familiar voice of my father followed by another knocking. Standing up from my chair and walking over to the door to open it, I stand aside to let my father walk in.
“Yeah?”
“Is there anything else I can do? Everything is packed for your trip to Aruba. Lucky you… getting to go there.”
“I’m not going there for a vacation, you know that right?”, I say with a laugh.
“I get it! It’s your big debut in Sin City Wrestling but you don’t seem to be so excited about it.”
I raise my eyebrows with concern. “What makes you say that?”
“You haven’t talked about it very much” he mentions and I feel a bit guilty knowing how true that is. “Whether it’s with me, or someone else in private, or public for that matter. Hmm, what’s all this?”
My father glances at the wall that I had placed those photos of good memories and bad memories on.
“Just… some things to reflect on…” I say with a sigh.
“I don’t know how you think that looking back on the past is going to help you” my father told me. “You’ve come such a long way when it seemed like your career wasn’t going to materialize at all and yet you’re stuck focusing on all of this?”
“Not ALL of this” I retort. “There’s one thing that’s still bothering me and it’s something that I just haven’t been able to get out of my head. I ran away from it for months and I’m trying to face it. I’ve had my heartbreaks and my ups and downs over my career but never anything like that. I can’t help but feel that I either blew it or that I was robbed of it…”
My father wasn’t even looking at me when I said those words.
“Dad, are you listening?”
“I was” he responds as he continues to look at the wall. “I’m going to guess that the one thing you’re stuck on…”
He pauses as he unpins the picture of that OCW World Championship ladder match I had pinned under the “bad times” part of the wall that was still tearing me up on the inside. He shows me the picture which brings another sigh out of me.
“It’s this, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…” I sigh and nod. “It is…”
“See what happens when you dismiss the entire experience and not allow yourself to be in the moment?”
“I certainly understand it now” I say with a slight eye roll. “The worst part of it is that OCW is gone and I can never make up for that.”
“You’re telling me that OCW closing is a bad thing, Andrea?” I raise an eyebrow at my father as I immediately grow confused at exactly what he was trying to get at. “You mean to tell me that you can’t look forward and focus on the future that you have with Sin City Wrestling because you’re stubbornly stuck on THIS?”
I feel a bit glum for a split second, but said bummed feeling gives way to surprise once my father tears the photo of that ladder match in half before letting it fall on the floor.
“It’s the best thing to ever happen to you, Andrea”
“How?”
“You ended up somewhere prestigious, right? You ended up in perhaps one of the best divisions in professional wrestling out there.”
“Right, there’s that.”
“But there’s more to it, Andrea. For everything you managed to accomplish over there with the Paradigm title, Craze title, final four during their Block Party tournament, those big names you had beaten I could tell that your heart wasn’t into it before you even fought that ladder match. That culture was getting to you”
“How would you know that?”
“I raised you as a father and trained you as a wrestler, how wouldn’t I know that?”
“Right…” I sigh with regret. “It wasn’t easy pushing on as hard as I did for so long.”
“It wasn’t the right culture for you, Andrea.”
Surprisingly, I’m not feeling all that horrible about this revelation my father just told me. I continue to listen to him make his point, not even bothering to resist.
“Sometimes in wrestling, things happen for a reason and some things weren’t meant to happen. You weren’t meant to win that ladder match so why let that continue to be a regret three months later? How many times did you go through the ringer there just to come out of it stronger? What I mean to say is… you’re better than this. You’re better than whatever toxic atmosphere you had to deal with on a day to day, week to week basis. Yes, you took on plenty of lessons from there that are going to make you stronger and better but it’s time to move on from that. You’re in a better place Andrea, believe me. You’ll look back on this at some point and realize that this was all a blessing in disguise in the end.”
I soak in my father’s words for a brief minute. Deep down inside, I always know that the culture of my last wrestling company wasn’t a fit for me. That locker room environment was at times, brutal, harsh and yes, toxic and I wasn’t going to deny myself the realization that it was beginning to wear me down toward the closure of the company. Still, I also wasn’t going to deny that every obstacle they threw at me made me stronger and that was definitely the one key, positive takeaway from all of this. Glancing back at the wall, I feel somewhat stupid at the idea of looking at the past and still being bothered by it but this stupid feeling is quickly replaced by a feeling of peace.
“You know what” I briefly pause for a split second. “You’re right. It is a blessing in disguise. It’s time to move on and put it all behind me and all things considered, I’m glad that I’m about to do that.”
“How are you going to do that?” my father asked.
“By ridding myself of the bad times” I say with a chuckle. “And you got the ball rolling for me when you tore up that picture of the ladder match. Mind giving me a hand with this?”
“I didn’t think you would ask” my father responds. At this point, one by one, we both start taking pictures off of the wall that were pinned under the “bad times” section. Tearing that picture of OCW’s Paradigm Championship being stolen from me after my opponent cheated was a glorious feeling… as was the picture of losing in the final four of the Block Party tournament… and that horrendous experience I had in that four on four match last December. Tearing down pictures of moments and even faces of haters and critics was definitely therapeutic and by the time all those memories were gone, I finally felt as if the past was behind me.
“I’ll take the experiences with me” I said as I looked down at the small pile of torn up bad memories. “But all that? It means nothing to me now”
“Good” my father said with pride. “Focus on the future from here on out.”
My father and I would walk out of the room and this departure would be very symbolic for me as it literally represented leaving the past behind. I never hated my prior wrestling company even though some of the bad times there got a bit ridiculous but I also know that in leaving the past behind, I’m moving forward to something better… a place where I know my career can definitely move up to that next level I’ve always wanted to be at.
On-Camera
On the night before I would leave to Aruba the next morning for my debut in Sin City Wrestling, I was caught in reflection again, but this time in a much more positive way with some bad vibes behind me for good. All I could think about at this point was the future and my first match in the company. My opponent was beginning to come into focus and I knew that she was going to be a bit of a scary individual to deal with on the surface but on the inside, I wasn’t feeling any fear at all. The roller coaster my career has been is on my mind as I begin to express my thoughts.
“I know that I have been a bit more on the quiet side when it comes to my signing and subsequent debut with Sin City Wrestling but believe me when I say that I am incredibly excited for it. This is a new chapter of my career for me and to be part of the prestigious bombshell division that has seen a ton of talent and many prestigious champions knowing that I have an opportunity to add my name to all of that is something that I’m really looking forward to. Of course, for those that don’t know me, my name is Andrea Hernandez. You may have heard of me from somewhere, but for those that don’t, I’m going to start off by telling you where I come from and that would be a wrestling family that goes back five generations… although I’m the first one from my own family to actually break through in the American mainstream scene considering most of my family’s success story is south of the boroder… but still… my entire run in this business, from training until now… has been defined by two succinct attributes that this division is going to have to get used to and one of those attributes is the ability that I have shown to exceed the expectations that have been put on me. For instance, I do come from a loving family but as much as I love them, my family is stuck in the 20th century. I’m actually the first woman in my family to be a wrestler and even my own family thought I’d be a failure just because of that. I’m proud to say that I’ve proved them wrong and they’ve come around on my wrestling career.”
“When my training began, I wasn’t seen as someone that would even break the mainstream. The common consensus about me was that I was going to be an Indy darling for life but that’s not what I wanted. I wanted to be good enough to come to a company like Sin City Wrestling and to show everything that I am all about. I did break the mainstream… though as a tag wrestler… and again, not much was expected out of me. I was seen as the lesser half and the one that didn’t have much of a future. I proved that wrong when I won my first singles championship. And in my old company of OCW? I can’t tell you how many times I defied the perennially low expectations of me from that locker room…”
Showing the progress I’ve made with putting the past behind me, I have a bit of a chuckle as I quickly remember every ounce of nonsense I proved wrong during my time there.
“Nobody saw me as a future star when I first went there, I can tell you that much. I wasn’t seen as someone who could hang with their best but not only did I prove that wrong by winning two championships there, I beat some of the biggest names that company had to offer. Sure, I didn’t win against them all the time, but man or woman, I gave them my best and I would make believers in the audience that watched me conquer some mountains over there even while that locker room continued to doubt me. Yes, I suffered some of my biggest heartbreaks while I was over there, but that didn’t stop me. In fact, if it wasn’t for that adversity… I wouldn’t have developed the second attribute that I’m known for… the attribute that in fact… will guide me to victory against the Iron Maiden in my debut match. That attribute? I like to call it my “Phoenix” attribute because so many times over the last year, I’ve proven to come back stronger after heartbreak…”
“What, Iron Maiden? You thought you were getting a damsel in distress? Yeah right!”
I pause to scoff at the notion.
“You know what’s scarier than your appearance? Failure. I used to be afraid of that more than anything and yeah some failures I’ve had… they’ve broken me even in the slightest but the one thing that I had ALWAYS proven through adversity and heartbreak is that I’m able to persevere and become better and stronger from it and I had to do it time and time again in OCW. For instance… when I had my first loss there in a contender’s match, I came right back the next week won another contender’s match and subsequently their Paradigm Championship. When that title was robbed from me and I was going through the worst stretch of my time there, I bounced back and became Craze Champion and it was during that reign when I was overcoming the same big names that hated me, doubted me or in some cases, both. When I lost in the final four of a tournament, I came back and became the number one contender to their world title. Yes, I get it. Different company, different environment and I have to prove myself here but that’s not something that fazes me because I know I can. So, if I’ve overcome fears WORSE than anything you can do… why should I be afraid of you?”
“I’m not… and I won’t be. I don’t give a damn if your partner has attacked people with propane torches and chainsaws and I definitely don’t give a damn if you’re some psychotic demon from the 1980’s that screams KISS ripoff more than anything else. I’m starting anew all over again and this isn’t going to be an easy task to start off with, I knew that. But, knowing what I know about my career and about myself, this new challenge of mine going forward in Sin City Wrestling isn’t something that I can’t overcome. For me, my debut here at Climax Control is going to be the start of the best chapter of my career, I know that for a fact and I know with the amazing resiliency that I bring to the table that I can overcome anyone and anything that comes my way… even if they are psychos like you Iron Maiden! This week, the phoenix rises again and she’s going to show the Bombshell division why they just acquired one of their future cornerstones for a long time to come!”
Taking a deep breath of confidence I shut the camera off and begin my final preparations for my trip to Aruba and for the journey that I am about to begin with Sin City Wrestling.
