June 2014
“I can’t say I’m surprised…”
I remember the words from my father as I was in a bit of a good mood holding a championship over my shoulder. I had just won this championship minutes ago but I was already thinking about bigger things. Such was the norm for a 20 year old me, wanting to jump at the chance to go mainstream.
“It didn’t take you too long to become the Arizona Pro Wrestling Women’s Champion…” my father said with a bit of a smirk on his face. “I’m not congratulating you, though. This is just the start.”
“I know, right?” I responded. “This is the start of me being noticed and making my way to the mainstream scene.”
“Andrea, take this seriously…” my father reminded me with a stern voice, admittedly annoying me as it seemed like he was just being on my case like he had always been. “...it’s your first championship. Maybe it’s the Independent scene and it’s not going to count toward your ultimate accolades, but being at this point in your career teaches you valuable skills you’ll take forward for years.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“For you? It’s how to be a champion. You’re the top women’s wrestler in AZPW and I don’t care if it’s just an Indy company that nobody outside of the state of Arizona will ever hear from, the other ladies in the locker room are going to take this extremely seriously. All eyes are going to be on you. Everyone is going to be targeting you. You’re going to be dealing with so many bitter women that are jealous of your success and that are going to knock you down. Eventually, one of them will. But that’s the nature of the beast… you’re going to be on both sides of it while it’s all said and done. So for your sake… take this seriously. Worry about the mainstream if you wind up getting there…”
I was quite annoyed that my father didn’t even congratulate me and treated my one and only Indy championship victory was just sheer business instead of a celebration. Of course, little did I know how much of a harbinger and a precursor it’d be to the situation I’d find myself in more than six years later…
May 4, 2020
“This is fucking BULLSHIT!”
This wasn’t the first time that I had heard my father act so angry over the phone, but on the night that I was to defend my world championship for the first time against Christina Rose. I can only sit down on my Saxon hotel room bed and listen to him vent his anger.
“You just won the championship three weeks ago! Now they’re throwing you into the fire again? Against that BITCH? She shouldn’t be the one getting the shot! You should be preparing for Evie Jordan right now! God, I hate this!”
“Dad, how much of this anger is due to how much you can’t stand Christina’s family?” I asked him. “Because Lord knows that the grudge you have against them is deeper than Marianas trench…”
“They’re bastards! All of them! I couldn’t stand the bitch’s father and I can’t stand that bitch either! If she ends your title reign tonight at three weeks, I’m going to be so fucking livid you have no idea! I’m TIRED of that family having superiority over ours and the moment WE… at LAST… prove that WE’RE superior… THIS happens? I don’t even understand why your company has such a big boner over Christina Rose anyway!”
I sighed in annoyance. A part of me wanted to understand my father’s anger, but at the same time, I didn’t want to get myself involved in any grudge between families that I not only wanted no part of, but I didn’t even have any awareness of this grudge between families until just a few months ago when Christina mentioned it to begin with.
“Dad, you’re making this far bigger of a deal than it needs to be. I don’t care about the whole family feuding crap! I only care about beating her and putting her behind me.”
“It still pisses me off that they’re handing her another shot. If you lose this, you’re going to be seen as a one hit wonder. You’re going to be seen as nothing short of a fluke. Everyone else is going to see you as just some Cinderella story that got lucky one time.”
“Are you saying this because you think that’s how they’re really going to feel about me or are you going off of how you may be feeling about me? I’m not losing tonight…”
I heard some silence on the other end for a few seconds, almost as if my father was in shock at what I just heard.
“I’m not sweating it, Dad! I know I can beat her again.”
“You’ve got a lot of confidence and a lot of nerve for someone that’s about to defend a world title for the first time…”
“There comes a time where you just need to let your little girl go…”
I sighed, realizing that my father was just being overprotective of me as he always was.
“This is that time, you do realize that right? You taught me everything that you could… and even though your methods may have been highly questionable at times, you were able to toughen me up for the mainstream business. You pushed me and I hated it… but I realize the method to your madness now. It was so that what I was able to accomplish three weeks ago could become possible even though many considered it impossible. Listen… I’m not the biggest fan of this curveball either…”
I paused, remembering how much I was strongly disliking Christina Rose in recent weeks. Still, unlike my father, I was maintaining my composure.
“...but I’m doing what I have to do. Admittedly, a few years ago, if I were in this situation, I’d be scared to death. I wouldn’t know what to do. But now? I know I’m ready and I know it was something you taught me back in the Indies… about how everyone is wanting to hunt me down and target me. I say bring it on. I didn’t get here to the top by being scared. I know a world championship is a completely different level than the championships I’ve had in the past… but I know I can do this. So quit being scared for me, alright? I’ve got this! I’m putting that bitch in the rearview mirror when this is over.”
“Good…” my father said, breathing a sigh of relief now that he knew that I wasn’t sweating the night’s championship defense. “...don’t forget what’s gotten you this far. Just remember that no matter what, I’m proud of you for what you’ve accomplished. You’ve proven me wrong in so many ways throughout all these years… it’s an honor to know that I’m the one in the family that raised and trained a world champion…”
“Thanks…” I told my father with a smile. “It surely has been one hell of a ride… and it’s not going to be one that I am going to forget anytime soon…”
“And not one that’s going to be a three week long reign… right?”
“No…” I said with a scoff. “Especially not to HER…”
We both had a bit of a laugh to ourselves as we said our goodbyes. I took a deep breath and made my preparations to leave the Saxon… the title defense against a woman I knew I could never respect or be friends with drawing closer by the hour. I could feel my anger toward her pouring through my veins, but I managed to keep that anger in check as I walked through the hotel hallway, keeping myself as composed as I could and not forgetting what brought me here to begin with.
“I know how to defend a championship…” remembering some of the brightest title defenses of my career up to this point…
March 2019…
“How in the HELL did you do it?” I was asked by a stunned Chelsea LeClair as I beamed with pride, sitting on the trainer’s table, the OCW Craze Championship still in my hands.
“Surprised?” I asked her.
“You just beat a legend… you were widely expected to lose the Craze Championship to that asshole Grenier…”
“I wasn’t going to give up just because of who my opponent is on the other side of the ring. I have learned not to be intimidated by the name of the person that I’m defending my championship against. The last time I defended a title… I admit that I did fight a little scared… but I learned my lesson now and who knows… maybe I’ll be a world champion someday…”
“I hope not…” an embittered Chelsea would say during a time when we weren’t getting along, leaving me alone with a chuckle to myself, enjoying the moment as it was happening.
“It’s not just defending a championship either…” I reflected as I got into my rental car to go to the arena. “It’s beating big names on the big stage…”
April 2019
“And so…” I bragged to a proud Clarissa Vega as she met me outside the OCW arena after the show was over… “I handed EMPIRE its first loss AND I beat another Hall of Fame member in Mario Maurako!”
“I have to say, I’m impressed…” Clarissa said. “You’re starting to learn how to win on a big stage. In two years, you’ve gone from afterthought to being in the quarterfinals of OCW’s massive Block Party tournament.”
“I honestly think that I’m going to wind up taking this tournament. Can you imagine? I feel like I am truly a rising star in this business now and it may be a matter of time before OCW has no choice but to show me some respect…”
“Some Cinderella story, right?”
“I’m not calling it that…” I said, with a bit of confidence.
Two weeks later…
“God, I was hoping you’d go all the way…” Clarissa would later tell me as we left OCW’s Block Party event. Yet, I wasn’t in a downtrodden or discouraged mood at all. “...but it wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”
“I made it to the final four…” I reminded her. “I beat two Hall of Fame members along the way. You know what this means? You know how I’m seeing this? I’m seeing this as my breakthrough. I’m a main eventer in the making now and I can say this with confidence. I know that the old me would let the old obstacles and the setbacks drag her down… but I’m not like that anymore. I’m just starting this breakthrough… and I know it’s going to take me places…
May 4, 2020
Arriving at the arena, I greeted some people along the way but I could feel the tension in the hallway as various members of the Bombshells roster looked at me along the way to my locker room. I knew that they were looking at me, wanting the opportunity to take my championship from me. I could feel that weight in that locker room, all eyes being on me, knowing that they were going to watch with so much interest and in the cases of some, so much anger. Yet, I never let it faze me as I entered the locker room and set down my stuff.
“I also know that I’m going to retain tonight…” I thought to myself “...because I have a history of ending rivalries MY way and my way alone! When it comes to the grandest stages of them all, when it comes to the brightest lights, when it comes to stepping up in the first defense… I have that in spades.”
I sat down and continued thinking to myself… reflecting some more…
“It was two years ago, when I became a singles champion for the first time in the mainstream: the GCW North American Champion, when I ended a personal, bruising rivalry with one of their greatest ever in Jenni Anderson…
Once more, I was reflecting and finding myself in flashback mode…
May 2018
It was GCW’s Resurrection event. For Global Championship Wrestling, this was the grandest stage of them all… the equivalent of SCW’s High Stakes event. I remember stepping into that ring with Jenni… seeing my North American Championship raised in the air as the Last Woman Standing match was about to begin.
“I’m going to end this my way… on the biggest stage. This is going to be my biggest moment yet…”
I remember going through hell with Jenni… a part of me wondering if I was really about to lose the North American Championship on my first defense. Sound familiar? As the match went along though, I kept my willpower going. I stayed strong. Even in a situation that was unfamiliar to me at the time, I poured everything on the table and did everything I could to make sure that I retained my first major singles championship… and this included a moonsault through a table that took place from a second story balcony. I remember making that leap, crashing through the table and just barely getting up at the count of 9. I remember collapsing through the curtain and not waking up until I was in a hospital bed the next morning. When I woke up and I saw the GCW North American Championship lying next to me I beamed with pride, knowing it was worth it.
“I’ve arrived…” I thought to myself. “This is the match where it truly begins for me…”
In the years since, I had no idea how true this would become.
May 4, 2020
I was out of reflection mode as I had dressed to compete. Pacing the locker room, remembering that I became what I am today by retaining championships against big names on big stages, coming up clutch when it mattered most, ending a rivalry on my terms and learning how to be a champion even in defeat, any nervousness I had about defending my championship against Christina Rose was dead and gone.
“I’ve got this…” I told myself. “They’re about to see how much of a ‘fluke’ I am…”
After the show…
Beaming with pride back at the hotel as the 4th became the 5th, I lied on my hotel bed, the world championship I had retained earlier lying there with me, and I was incredibly floored in a positive way by everything that was surrounding me. I wasn’t surprised at all by the outcome considering that I had expected to win and overcome the curveball that was thrown at me. I was feeling relief that Christina Rose was a thing of the past… even if I knew it would only be temporary for the time being…
“No way I was letting her beat me…” I told myself. “No way!”
My determination flowed through me along with pride. It was one hell of a feeling when I retained my world title for the first time and I had proven, yet again, that I can be thrown into the fire and overcome anything in my path no matter how daunting that may be. I looked at a nearby clock and I saw “12:01”, causing me to chuckle for a bit.
“It’s past midnight… and I’m still world champion! I guess I’m no fluke after all…”
I clutched the championship, still taking pride in what I had accomplished so far. I slept well that night, all things considered. But deep down, I knew that this was just the beginning. I knew for a fact that the moment I woke up eight hours later, that it was right back to work… and it was then time to focus on Into the Void and Evie Jordan…
May 22, 2020
Finding myself in the studio and with the cameras in front of me, I stood front and center with the title slung over my shoulder. I was a confident SCW Bombshells World Champion on this particular evening and there was no reason why I wouldn’t be considering the title defense that I had three weeks ago. Yet, there was still some stubborn anger going through me considering the recent words of Evie Jordan. I wasn’t thrilled that she was calling this whole thing a fluke, a “Cinderella run”, a “fairy tale” among other things but I knew that in this particular moment, I had to put it out of my mind. It was the go home show prior to Into the Void after all and once again, I found myself wrestling on a go home show. Still, it wasn’t something that I was afraid of especially when I began to express my thoughts.
“Am I a fairy tale now?” I asked in a mocking tone. “Let’s be real here. How many of you thought that I was going to make it through that first title defense? How many of you thought that I was going to be a three week ‘one hit wonder’ champion? I bet most of you did but guess what, that didn’t matter to me because I went out there and proved that I wasn't. I proved that I was no fluke at all when I became the champion at Blaze of Glory. When I turned back the challenge of Christina Rose… which by the way, it was one HELL of a feeling personally considering how I feel about her… I showed that I was here to stay. I don’t do this to get famous, that has never been my M.O…. but I do in fact, do this to be the best that I can be! I know every single one of you in this division want a piece of me, some of you more vocal than others, yes. I know there’s a handful of you out there that don’t respect me as a champion and think that this is all some sort of fluke fairy tale as if I’m Electra Styles or Polly Playtime.
I know for a fact Evie is one of them… but she’s got her own battle to fight on Sunday just as much as I do. She did earn that Blast from the Past tournament crown, of that I won’t deny. But if she hadn’t? Well… Into the Void would be a completely different story. I wouldn’t be facing Evie at that pay-per-view in my next defense. No… I’d be facing YOU, Kate Steele…
Saying her name was something that brought a little more anger out of me considering that I’ve never been a fan of the woman at all.
“...but of course, that’s not possible, is it? What was it that I said during the Blast from the Past tournament when Javi beat Bill Barnhart so you could move on to the semifinals? Something about… oh I don’t know… how you’ve never been one that’s known how to finish the job? You may have won that round, Kate. But the fact of the matter is… who won out in the end? Was it you? Was that one battle worth it? Because it wasn’t you that won the Blast from the Past tournament, further proving that when it comes to the big matches on the big stage under the brightest lights in Sin City Wrestling, one again, you choked and you couldn’t get the job done. The only thing that went right for you was that you were extremely fortunate that you weren’t the one that was pinned, otherwise it would be Evie Jordan and not you that would be the Internet champion right now. So there you are, at Blaze of Glory… with a chance to take that next step… that one next step you have always failed to take and once again, you failed to do it. And yet… that same night… in the main event… I got it done! I did in seven months what you haven’t done in… how long have you been involved with this company now? Four years? Five? Even longer than that? I rose up to the challenge, I rose up to the spotlight, I faced the odds that I had to face and I did what YOU could never do and that’s become a world champion in this company. It makes you sick, doesn’t it? Don’t lie to me… I know it does.
You’ve wanted what I have now for YEARS and you’ve never come close to winning the big one here. I already know you want to use this mixed tag team match to try to beat me and to prove that you’re deserving of a world title shot because THAT’s the title you REALLY want and hell, I wouldn’t be shocked of Keira Fisher beat your ass and took that title from you because you’re too distracted by wanting something else. Wrestlers like you… the ones that can never be consistent when it comes to their successes… the Jessie Salcos of the world… you know… the ones that don’t win the big one… you have your streaks where everything is going so well for you and there’s no denying you’re on one considering you just defended the title against Roxi… but then you have your streaks where nothing goes right. See… you’re on what you would call a ‘hot streak’ right? You know… when you bragged about beating me during the build up to the BTFP finals and saying that you beat me… being on a hot streak and all…
Here’s the thing Kate… and I want you to REALLY get it since you have a brain made out of… not diamonds… hell, not even a brain made out of coal… but a brain made out of what you TRULY are when the bright lights shine upon you and you choke and you gag and you blow yet another big opportunity: a Bobbie Dahl sized pile of SHIT! Think back to EVERYTHING you ever said about Evie… and how you failed to live up to any of it…
Talking about how you were going to beat the unholy hell out of her…
Bragging about a time a few years ago when you made her “your bitch”...
Talking about how you know that you’re better than her… which… I beg to differ because unlike YOU, Evie actually has BEEN to the top of the Bombshells mountain before.
Talking about how Mark Cross is a scrub…
Let’s recap…
Did you beat the unholy hell out of Evie that night? No.
Did you make her your bitch? No… in fact, I’d say Evie flipped the tables around and made you HERS.
And that man that you called a scrub? Yeah, he went on to get the winning pinfall in this tournament. You REALLY know how to stick your foot in your mouth and come across like a fucking dumbass, don’t you Kate? Hey, did you ever wonder just WHY you’ve never won the big one here? In fact… I know exactly what Roxi Johnson was talking about when she was beginning to throw around the idea that had I lost at Blaze of Glory, I’d be looked at as a bridesmaid of the division… that people were going to start questioning whether or not I was ever going to win the big one. She wasn’t wrong. That didn’t scare me a bit or anything, but that’s not a reputation I would ever want to have. She was referring to people like you, Kate. I know this. You’ve got to be perhaps the biggest bridesmaid in SCW history. Hell, I think you’re even more of a bridesmaid than Jessie Salco is and when the lights turned on, when you had Evie in that ring for the Blast from the Past finals, you further solidified yourself as the Bridesmaid of Sin City Wrestling when once again, you could NOT get it done when it mattered.
But not me…
I’m the complete antithesis of someone like you. I not only got it done when it mattered, but I beat two of the biggest names in the division’s history to do so. On top of that, I would up retaining against one of those two women. You had a chance to do the same against Evie. You didn’t do it. I settled a rivalry over someone that I had proven to be heads and shoulders above in Christina Rose on MY terms! Not only had I shown that I had Christina’s number, I fucking solidified it once and for all when I shoved her third attempt at being better than me and her second attempt at being the best right up her ass! Sorry Christy, third time wasn’t the charm for you! I settled a rivalry on my own terms and proved my dominance over Christina. You had the chance to do the same against Evie… and you blew it of course.
But hey, you get to brag about beating me in the tournament, right?
I’m pretty damn confident that this time around, I’m evening the score… and no bitch… it’s not because I’m on some “hot streak”. I’m not a “hot streak” wrestler… I’m LEGIT! I’m consistent. I’m one of the best wrestlers in the world and this championship right here proves that for a fact. I’m pretty damn confident that I’ve got this main event right before my title defense against Evie Jordan because for one… I actually HAVE a partner worth a damn this time in Austin James Mercer. From the other side of this match, I’m certain that there’s an advantage there considering that Jack Russow falls more on the inexperienced side of things when it comes to being in the spotlight and being involved in main events. Sure, he may have ended the forever reign of Griffin Hawkins… but he still needs to prove that it wasn’t a fluke and this is an opportunity for him to prove such a thing. Can he handle it? I’m not sure he can. But he IS a champion in his own right, so I can’t completely discount him.
So sure… go ahead and brag… brag some more… brag about that win you got over me even though neither of us were even involved in the decision. Seriously, go ahead and brag about something that is honestly not as impressive as you’re trying SO FUCKING HARD to make it out to be. In the end, did it really matter for you? You didn’t win that tournament. Neither did I… but I won the big one… and I won when it mattered the most. You?
Well… you’re just like the Jets…
Your mouth cashes checks that your ass can’t cash and you have all this hype surrounding you only to fail when it matters.
Sunday night, I’m going to do it again because I’ve grown into a big match wrestler. I became one by rising to the occasion, by taking on big names, by beating big names, by learning how to win in the clutch… every single step of the way, every single title defense that I had prior to Christina… it taught me how to defend and retain as a champion, further proving that I’m no flash in the pan, I’m the real deal. I understand if you’re bitter Kate… for the fact that I’ve done something you’ve never done in 15 percent of the time you’ve been here.
Well come Sunday…
I’m going to give you something else to be bitter about! Once again, the Bridesmaid of Sin City Wrestling will prove herself completely incapable of handling the spotlight… and I’m matching what Evie did at Blaze of Glory… only… I may just do it a little bit better just to shove it up her ass too!
I maintained a confident smirk as I walked out of the studio, championship in hand, ready to step up into the spotlight once again and once more, come up with a big momentum builder of a win on the “go home” show.
