In the hour following the end of that four way number one contender’s match, I was incredibly pissed off. I really didn’t care so much that the person that everyone hated won because my mission wasn’t to stop her to fulfill some false promise of altruism. That’s not something I base my career on.
“Three times now…” I said to myself as I leaned against the wall at the arena entrance gripping the handle of my bags with intense anger. “...that’s three times that I’ve had a chance to get to the next level and it just hasn’t happened.”
I sighed with anger remembering not just that four way, but also December 2 Dismember and not finishing where I wanted and the match with Alicia Lukas a little farther back.
“For whatever reason, putting in that extra hard work just doesn’t seem to cut it. I never leave any room on the schedule to have any sort of stupid fun, I put all my energy, all my focus and all of my heart into this and when it seems to matter most, there’s always something missing. What the hell is it?”
My anger within me was only beginning to grow.
“Is Chelsea right? Am I really trying too hard? I don’t know how that can be possible. My father always told me that there’s no such thing as ‘trying too hard’...”
That anger would dissipate for a bit once I realized that maybe Chelsea had a point and that maybe my father really did push me too hard. But I knew deep down that it was a lot more complex than that. All I wanted at this moment was answers. Why was it that when it came time to move up to the next level, I hadn’t been able to pull through at this point? I understood that someone in my spot… someone at my age… yet to win a world championship and yet to experience any main event success… that it would take some time and a few tries before they finally broke the ceiling. But this still didn’t stop the pain inside of me.
“Chelsea’s right…” I sighed with regret. “I’m trying to force it just because of my dad. But he wouldn’t know anything… he never won a world championship. Hell, he never wrestled in mainstream America. Even if I WANTED his help, he could never show me what I’m missing at this point in my career because he’s never been where I’m at. I don’t have any friends that would be able to help me. I literally have only two friends…”
Just saying this made me feel quite sad deep down.
“And neither one… they’d know. There is only one person with any sort of significance in my career that would know because she’s been there… oh GOD… am I REALLY about to reach out to HER?”
The idea certainly brought a sick feeling to my stomach as I went into flashback mode in the back of my mind…
December 31, 2016
New Year’s Eve a few years ago wasn’t so kind to me when I was coming off of a main event tag team loss. No championships of any sort were on the line which, as far as the GCW Tag Team Championship I had at the time, that was a good thing. I wanted to get the hell out of the building as soon as possible just to go to some New Year’s Eve celebration, but just when I was beginning to leave… I ran into “HER”... that being my abusive mentor, Myra Lynwood… who at this moment was a very disappointed GCW Global Champion.
“Where are you going?” she asked me.
“It’s New Year’s Eve… Chels and I are just going to have fun…”
“You don’t get it, do you?” she asked me. “Last I checked… we weren’t winners tonight because YOU dragged us down… as usual. And you respond to that by partying? Really? It’s just what I thought. You don’t have the killer instinct that I do to be successful.”
“Right, because winning world championships off of someone else’s interference is a REAL killer instinct…”
As per usual, I was dealt with with a slap across the face.
“My point is… when you’re the loser that you are… you’re not allowed to have any fun. No, you get to stay behind and you need to make sure that our luggage is NEATLY organized… to PERFECTION… that way, you can actually develop the ability to even have a MEDIOCRE attention to detail so you can FOCUS during your matches.”
“You NEVER allow me to do anything… it’s just WORK, WORK, WORK with you!” I said as my frustration grew. “You’re just like my dad!”
“Well maybe daddy should have beat you a little harder when you were his princess then…” those words made me feel completely disgusted. “I have an eye for talent better than anyone you’ll ever meet, Andrea… and I gotta tell you… looking at you? I already know you’ll never amount to anything. Now… get our luggage organized… PERFECTLY… or else I should… I don’t know… cuff you and beat you down with a cane in front of the whole world? Again?”
“So… I’m not going to that New Year’s ball downtown…”
“NO! YOU’RE NOT!” Myra snapped at me. “ALL WORK! NO PLAY! That’s how things are in this business and the sooner you get that… oh who am I kidding… you NEVER will… and even if you DID… you wouldn’t have what it took to be a star anyway! God, you’re the biggest waste of my time I’ve EVER had in my career!”
Just for kicks, Myra shoved me right to the floor and for good measure she threw a bag of luggage right in my face.
“Now get to work…”
END FLASHBACK
“Myra was like my wrestling mom…” I reflected “...in a fucked up sort of way. But that was years ago and if I’m going to move past that, then maybe I should talk to her… willingly… which would be a first…”
I left the building that night still feeling that disappointment but at the same time, knowing that I was doing what I had to do to learn and grow further… and to heal from the past.
January 29, 2020
Down the road from Orlando, I found myself in Miami staring at the front door of a home that was so familiar to me considering I used to come here all the time. It was incredibly weird to be here knowing the past that I was about to face but I still had to be brave enough to ring the doorbell. I didn’t have to wait a second before the door opened up and I saw Myra right in front of me.
“I never thought I’d see the day you’d actually WANT to talk to me…” she stated. “Then again, considering how I treated you before, I don’t exactly blame you.”
“Yeah… but you know something that I want to know…”
Myra stepped aside and the moment I walked in and she closed the door, I began to let it all out.
“You know, I am SO sick of being JUST on the brink of the main event stardom that I want only to fall short!” Myra was caught by surprise at my sudden outburst but I nevertheless continued it. “I don’t know WHY this keeps happening to me! I don’t know WHAT I’m missing! But I’m SO fucking tired of this already! The first time I ever had a world title shot was against you and that was a massive flop…”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, you weren’t even close to what you are now when that happened… and you did beat me later on long after that world title came and went for me…”
“Sure… I can beat this hall of fame name and that legendary figure on any given week… but when it counts… when it FUCKING MATTERS…”
“It’s frustrating when you can’t get over the hump, isn’t it?”
“Essentially… yes. I don’t know how the hell you did it four times over…”
I sat down just trying to keep myself composed.
“For starters, we’re not going to talk about the 4th time considering you were there and all the bullshit circumstances that happened…” Myra reminded me. “...but the other three times…”
“How?” I asked her. “What did you do?”
“Each world title win was different for me…” Myra reflected. “Each was special in its own way. However, there has always been one constant… and that constant? Every single time, I lived in the moment. I wasn’t focusing on my past failures. I wasn’t focusing on the future. I was focused on NOW… I was focused on the moment…
“What does this mean?” I asked my former mentor.
“I’ll show you…”
Myra walked toward the direction of the kitchen and instinctively, I followed her there and into a door next to the kitchen that led us both straight into the basement which was a “What’s What?” of all the accolades and accomplishments Myra had accrued in her career.
“Figures you’d have a trophy room…” I said. Myra said nothing as she directed me to a wall that had four pictures on it. It didn’t take me long to see that the pictures were snapshots of every single world championship Myra had ever accomplished. She pointed to the top left corner which featured her winning a four way in Atlanta back in the summer of 2008.
“I was the underdog in Atlanta that night, when so few gave me a chance in WXWF because I was the punching bag in NSWA for a long time that never got it done when it mattered. I wasn’t thinking ahead to a future as world champion. I wasn’t reflecting on the past and trying to prove everyone wrong…”
“Shit… I already see ONE thing I am doing wrong. I was focused far too much on trying to numb that survival challenge…”
“And going into that match, you were trying to numb that Alicia Lukas stinger, weren’t you? You held onto OCW for quite some time too…” Myra let out a sigh as she continued with her memory lane trip. “San Diego. 2009. Hell in a Cell match… which I wasn’t even supposed to be in at all. Injury replacement. Screw it. I tuned out the doubters saying that I didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t thinking about what my own father put me through. I wasn’t thinking about proving him wrong or sticking it to NSWA. I was focused on taking advantage of a sudden opportunity… and that’s exactly what I did.”
“You kept yourself… in the moment…”
“I did… and I wasn’t thinking too hard about what a future as world champion would be like.”
“I was looking far too ahead to Roxi largely because I had beaten two of the three women in that match before. I figured ‘just beat Sam and you’re good’. I think the picture is becoming a little clearer now…”
“New York. 2010.” Myra said as she looked at a picture of her third world championship win that happened to take place in Madison Square Garden. “Triple threat. The champion… overhyped to all hell. One of the most overrated flashes in the pan in PRW history. The hype train was real. Many people defeated themselves before they even began because they fell victim to the hype. Not me. I treated it as just another match. I knew I was destined to silence that hype and put an end to the madness. The other challenger… sadly… the moment was too big for him. You turn off all the noise… you win matches like this…”
“I’m focusing on the wrong things here…”
“Like trying to prove your father wrong? You’ve already accomplished so much more than him. Like trying to prove UWA and OCW wrong? They’re gone, Andrea. They don’t mean anything anymore. Let go of the past. Don’t get caught up in the future. You want to focus on NOW… today… what’s in front of you… of course, as you know, I didn’t always follow that advice.”
Myra walks away from me, staying in the room, but the vibe I was picking up from her was one of regret.
“God Andrea… I know you don’t like to hear this, but I see a lot of myself in you…”
“I’m not a stranger to the comparisons… no…”
“I was wrong about you. I thought you’d never amount to anything and it turns out, I had a successor right under my nose the whole time. I’ve mentored quite a few wrestlers during my time Andrea… and you’re the closest to what I’m all about of all of them… for better and worse…”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got the heart and the passion that I do… the ability that I do… but you also have the same stubbornness and the same out of whack work-life balance. When I was your age, a decade ago, I used to be such a fun person. I lived my life. I wasn’t so caught up in my glory and my reputation but as the years went on… that changed. I forgot to have fun. Almost seven years ago, I had the most devastating loss I’ll ever have and I tried so hard to make up for that and to tune out all the noise that I wanted nothing more than to shut them up and prove them wrong. It consumed me… it turned me into who I became when I abused you the way I did…”
“Because you took this business to heart too much?” I asked.
“Basically” Myra said. “I may have snapped out of the darkness and recovered from it all but that doesn’t erase the damage I’ve done… to myself… to Chelsea… to you. I did so many horrible things that I’m not redeemable anymore. It’s too late for me. I know I have another world title or two in me and I’ll be so happy when they happen but they could never match that same joy of the first three. It’s not too late for you… I know you went through so much… I know how responsible I was for plenty of it… but don’t let it define you. You need to slow down and quit pushing yourself too hard. You need to quit thinking forward and backward. Extra training doesn’t win you world championships Andrea… learning to live in the moment does. You do that… and hey, maybe you’ll lighten up and have a much better work-life balance.
“I never thought I’d say this Myra… but thanks… thanks a lot. It means the world to me that you were finally a mentor to me…” I paused as I began to walk up the stairs. “It means more to me than you would ever realize or imagine.”
Having left the basement and subsequently her home, I could feel whatever pain and damage that Myra had caused me during our time in GCW finally begin to heal. My resentment toward Myra began to melt away as I pulled out my phone and sent Chelsea LeClair a text message:
“You were right. I’m sorry. Let’s do something fun…”
With a brand new perspective instilled into me by the least likely of people it sure felt like “fun” was the direction that my life and career was about to start going in.
“I’ve got Christina Rose coming up and that’s going to be a hell of a match for me. However, I can’t focus on that right now. I can’t train to compete against her just yet. No, I need to focus on what’s in front of me and that’s Bea Barnhart. If I look past her, I’m setting myself up for failure just like I did in that four way when I looked ahead to Roxi. Unfortunately for Bill Barnhart’s bitch?
I don’t make the same mistake two times in a row…”
January 31, 2020
I was sitting in an empty bar in Orlando which wasn’t the norm for filming a promo but nevertheless, I felt like now was the time to experiment with something a bit different rather than just sitting in front of the camera and talking about my match. I was feeling a bit more lighthearted than usual, especially with the knowledge that while Bea Barnhart was going to bring it, I knew I was going to have her right where I wanted her. Christina Rose was nowhere near my mind when I began to express my thoughts.
“Hello Sin City Wrestling and welcome to the first… and maybe the last… who knows, who cares… edition of… “Bar Talk”... it’s… a LAME title but WHATEVER, I’m trying to expand my comfort zone here. In this episode, we are going to have two brief interviews with TWO SCW bombshells and we’ll get to the first in a bit but first… I admit it. That four way? I’m not going to dive into it too much. I’ll own up to that and admit that I was looking far too ahead. My mentality going into that match was just to dismiss Keira Fisher and Bobbie Dahl just because I had already beaten them before and focus on beating Sam Marlowe and adding another big name to my list. I admit that this was the wrong way to approach it because I looked too far ahead. I figured that all I had to do was beat Sam and I’d be facing Roxi. I recognize that it was a mistake on my part and now I know better than to look past ANY opponent just because I had beaten them before… or just because… well… they had a bad year… or because they’re new to the business or because they haven’t wrestled much…
Hey, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it Bea? That last part I meant…
I know what you’re thinking… that I’ll make the same mistake against you? That I’m not going to take you seriously because of your lack of experience? That I’m going to see you as nothing more than Bill Barnhart’s wife and suddenly you’re going to have this massive advantage because I’m going to be looking ahead to My Bloody Valentine? I made the mistake in the four way but unfortunately for you, I learned my lesson. There really isn’t THAT much to say about you because you don’t have the experience that I do but that doesn’t mean I am going to treat you any differently than I would any other opponent because I’ve been where you’re at before Bea… with nobody taking me seriously… with everyone thinking that I’m a joke… with everyone thinking I was just some easy win because I’d never amount to anything… and often times, I’d embarrass them by proving them wrong.
Oh I bet you’d LOVE that story, wouldn’t you? Except… well… against me… it doesn’t just work that way… from BOTH angles…
Suddenly, my mother walks into the shot bringing some buffalo wings over. She sits next to me but her appearance is certainly younger than her actual age and her clothing is definitely exaggerated as it looks like she’s REALLY trying hard to be in her mid 30’s again.
“MERCEDES!” I told my mother, revealing that my mother was playing the role of Mercedes Vargas.
“Hi.”
“Remember the time that you overlooked me SO much that you couldn’t speak your mind against me?”
“I was scared… I didn’t want to look like a fool…”
“You always do anyway…” I scoffed as I bit into one of the wings. “UGH! These are cold! Get out of here, Mercy! These wings are as cold as your career these days!”
“SORRY!” my mother dressed as Mercedes left the shot.
“Point being, Bea? I’m not Mercedes. I don’t overlook people like you. But hey, Mercedes isn’t the ONLY Bombshell that’s part of this show… like I said… you can learn SO much from Bella Madison and Jessie Salco… and… here’s a special clip of me interviewing Bella Madison…”
*CUT TO PRE-RECORDED SHOT*
“Hi, Sin City Wrestling. I, Andrea Hernandez, have the honor of talking to my High Stakes opponent… the second generation wonder herself… Bella Madison!”
The scene pans revealing not Bella Madison… but my best friend Chelsea LeClair dressed up as Bella Madison… her weird, unorthodox attire and all…
“HIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!” Chelsea responded in an exaggerated, Valley girl type voice. “Thanks for having me!”
“So… you faced me at High Stakes… remember that?”
Chelsea nods.
“Did you learn anything? You had just come off a loss to Sam Marlowe and you were facing me after that. What was your mindset going in?”
“UGGGGGH! Like… I felt like a total FAIL… but you know, you’re great and all hon…” Chelsea as Bella said. “I went into our match thinking that you were on this BIG HIGH beating Mercedes and Bobbie and I was REALLY hoping to take advantage of that. I was thinkin’ that you were gonna overlook me. I was HOPING you would. But you didn’t. You treated me like anyone else. I was so caught up in my loss to Sam that I wasn’t concentrating enough and instead of focusing on my own skills, I was banking it all on hoping you’d look past me just because you were on this high. Lesson learned…”
“Good luck to you in your future, Bella!”
“Thank you… you too…” Chelsea breaks character at this point. “Can I take off this ridiculous outfit now? God, Bella has no fashion sense…”
“Chels…”
“Sorry…”
*CUT BACK TO LIVE PROMO SHOT*
“See what I’m getting at, Bea?” I said with a chuckle. “No? Not quite? Darn, I was hoping you’d be smarter than your husband on that one. But NO WORRIES… I think you’ll get it after this… because… my best friend Chelsea LeClair happened to get an interview with none other than Jessie Salco! You know… the other opponent that was banking on me looking past her just because I had been in a world championship match… have a look…
*CUT TO PRE-RECORDED SHOT*
This time, it’s Chelsea doing the interviewing and me doing the acting. It definitely felt awkward wearing a wig to match Jessie’s hairstyle while wearing clothes I normally wouldn’t wear but I knew that in order to have fun, this was the sort of thing I needed to do.
“So… you faced Andrea recently…” Chelsea said.
“I DID! ROCK ON, GIRLFRIEND!”
“Unfortunately, while you were the one preaching it… you were the one that… crashed and burned…”
“Don’t remind me girlfriend interviewer chickie…” I said, trying so hard to emulate the voice of a rock star. “I thought I was going to get Andrea while she was down and whining like a little bitch over the world title match… and I was thinking that she was going to look past me because I had such a horrible year in 2019… BUT… I had my one hit wonder moment when I beat Christina Rose…. ROCK ON, GIRLFRIEND!!!!”
I flashed an exaggerated “rock on” hand symbol.
“We’re talking about Andrea… not Christina…” Chelsea reminded me.
“Riiiiiiiight…” I sighed. “...yeah, that didn’t work too well for me because I was too focused on making her crash and burn and too focused on hoping she’d look past me when in reality, I’m kinda past my prime and I’m not what I used to be. BUT ROCK ON GIRLFRIEND ANYWAY!”
“Um…”
“ROCK ON!” I fist pumped in the air. “ROCK ON!” I fist pumped to myself. “OH YEAH! ROCK ON”
I fist bumped in front of me, accidentally decking Chelsea in the jaw and causing her to fall off the chair and onto the floor.
“Oops…” I broke character at this point. “...Chels, you’re okay right?”
*CUT BACK TO LIVE SHOT*
“I THINK you get it now, Bea…” I said. “And unfortunately for you… just like those two, the hope and the prayer that I am going to overlook you just because I had something bigger behind me or something better ahead of me is literally all you have. Sure, your husband has trained you well, I’m sure he did. But, considering the fact that the only “world championship” he’s ever won is in some cheap, 50 peso wrestling flea market I’ve never heard of, I’m not entirely sure how him being your trainer is a good thing… especially since… between us girls? He treats this business like a joke. Are you the type of person that will do the same thing? Sure, you won your debut match and that’s great but with all due respect, I’m on a higher plane than Violet Amelia Holt. You’ve got that pressure on you of living up to your husband’s name. You’re going to make the rookie mistake of clinging on to that faint hope that I’m going to let my guard down just because I was SO disappointed with my last match and because Christina Rose is coming up.
It’s the proverbial “trap match”... a trap that Christina fell into when she lost to Jessie Salco… a trap I was able to avoid with Bella, with Jessie and this weekend, with you. I’m not going to focus on that disappointing four way, Bea… no matter how BADLY you wanted me to… no matter how much you DESPERATELY wanted to take advantage of a downtrodden, woe-is-me Andrea Hernandez that just doesn’t exist. I’m not going to focus on Christina Rose… no matter how much you want me to… no matter how you REALLY, REALLY want to take advantage of me being off guard because my head’s in the clouds over Christina.
Sorry Bea… it’s not going to happen the way you want it to. You’re going to have to earn it when I’m on the top of my game and not when I’m distracted by other things. Because this Sunday? I’m living in the moment… what’s in front of me… right here… right now… and that happens to be YOU. You on the other hand? Have fun looking ahead to a victory that’s not going to happen… you’ll be so sidetracked by the possibility while I’m focused on what’s in front of me that Sunday might be an incredibly miserable experience for you.
Welcome to the business, Bea…
Unfortunately for you, you’re about to experience for yourself what the bitter taste of defeat truly feels like. And that was “Bar Talk”... or whatever the HELL you want to call it. I would like to thank ‘Mercedes’, ‘Bella’ and ‘Jessie’ for being part of the show… and Bea? Thank you for being such a fucking idiot just like your husband. It’ll make my victory over you feel THAT much sweeter!
Good night folks…”
I scoffed with a lighthearted confidence as the production faded out for good.
