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Open Mic 26: Black Dahlia
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On this episode of Open Mic, The MVP gets candid with up and coming pro wrestler Paige Collett aka "Black Dahlia". We talk about her beginnings in wrestling as a manager, training with Rikishi & Bobby Blaze, and the sacrifices she has made to become a professional wrestler. We also speak in depth about the injury that would forever change the course of her path to becoming a professional wrestler; an injury that would become a life threatening diagnosis that she would overcome and use to influence and to educate others.
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Transcript
Introduction to Pod Foundation
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Open Mic with the MVP Marco. I am, of course, your host, the MVP Marco. Who else would it be? We're back. I mean, this is kind of like a recurring theme. I told myself at the beginning it wasn't going to be like a weekly type of podcast.
00:00:53
Speaker
Who the hell told you tonight was open mic night
00:01:02
Speaker
I don't know, I just fooled myself into thinking it was going to be something like biweekly or monthly, but I'm back again. Before we get into my next guest, we're going to obviously take you through the Pod Foundation, which is the reason why I'm here actually doing the show.
00:01:20
Speaker
And if you don't know by now, the Pod Foundation, it's a group of content creators, mainly wrestling, but, you know, we try to cover the gamut of everything. We have the Turnbuckle Tavern, which I am also on. I'm on their feed on their show called The Raw Down. It's a WWE-based show. It's the number one source, actually, for all WWE news with my co-host, J-Bone, who's also part of the Pod Foundation. And he has a show called Coming Down the aisle with J-Bone. Definitely check him out.
00:01:50
Speaker
We also have the Extra Cooler show with Nick and team. Nick is a great artist. Definitely go to Extra Cooler on Instagram just to see his artwork. He's done a lot of fantastic artwork and he's worked with your favorite wrestlers and designed some gear in the past year. So definitely check him out.
Marco's Flagship Show: The Chick Foley Show
00:02:09
Speaker
And last but not least,
00:02:10
Speaker
My flagship, the reason why I'm actually doing the show is the Chick Foley show, along with Sheena, aka Chick Foley, her husband, Seth, and good friend, good old friend, the bestest of friends, Jordan Wells. We all get together and talk everything. We talk wrestling, we talk figures.
00:02:29
Speaker
We talk life. We talk family, kids, whatever it is. That's what pops up with that. So I mean, if you've been listening for the last five years, you know how we do it. But let's get into my guess.
Introducing Black Dahlia: A Unique Wrestling Journey
00:02:42
Speaker
So this is a person I've been following for a while now. A very, very interesting story. Can't wait to share it with you, the Pod Foundation audience, the Chick Foley audience.
00:02:57
Speaker
I think she's pretty remarkable in the sense where she's making her way into the wrestling business. And she's trying to go with some hurdles and stuff like that. But I think her sharing her story and telling it here is definitely going to shed some light on what she's going through.
00:03:19
Speaker
You know, she's she's like I said, she's pretty amazing. I think anyway, hopefully she doesn't. You know, when I bring her in, she's she's not crying or anything because of my my kind words.
Black Dahlia's Wrestling Origin and Persona Creation
00:03:28
Speaker
But I'm going to bring on right now the she's called the chainsaw queen.
00:03:34
Speaker
Black Dahlia, how are you doing? You like me. You really, really like me. I didn't want to disappoint you. Well, thank you. Thank you for thank you for the the acting. That was very, very nice of you. Oh, no, no, I really appreciate the intro. That was for you putting me over like that. That was pretty cool, man. I really appreciate the support and thank you for bringing me on. Hello.
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I try to, you know, every time I have a guess, I try to, I don't write any like, it throws out. I just try kind of like free salad or whatever. And however it comes out, most people love it. So that's like, that's a good thing. There's nothing wrong with being organic and on the spot.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, we were talking a little bit before this, but I just definitely want to say it's been, it's definitely an honor having you on here for me anyway. Like I, like I said, I've been following your account for like, I don't know how long and just like, you know, following your journey and stuff like that. And we'll definitely get to get to that part of it, but like, not
00:04:37
Speaker
I'm always interested in different stories. You know, like I said, like I told you before, this is a, you know, the podcast, the show is kind of based in wrestling, but.
00:04:47
Speaker
It's it's more than that. It's it's like it kind of grew a little bit because I was interviewing people then I was like, you know, I follow a lot of different accounts on Instagram, TikTok, whatever. And I see a lot of interesting people, you know, different things that they're into. It could be like a collector or, you know, a cosplayer. And like I get intrigued by that if I'm following them. So like I reach out and see if they want to do an interview.
00:05:10
Speaker
Sometimes, you know, I don't get answers back, but you know, that's a given. But if I find someone interested, I want to find out more about him. And you're definitely one of those people that I followed. So Oh, thank you, man. I hope I don't disappoint you. I hope
00:05:29
Speaker
I hope I don't disappoint you or your audience. Turns out this is the podcast. There's nothing to say. Goodbye. Yeah, exactly. If anyone doesn't like this episode, you can definitely blame her this way over here. If you're watching the video anyway, just anyway. He has no personality.
00:05:51
Speaker
Let's start at the beginning. The name always intrigued me. Where did that name come about? Black Dahlia. How did that pop into your head?
00:06:05
Speaker
So I get asked this question a lot, actually. And I love that with time, people are actually educated on the Black Dahlia and where that comes from, especially now with pop culture, because the Black Dahlia was an American horror story. Yes.
00:06:24
Speaker
Also, the Black Dahlia reference was in one of the recent Spider-Man movies. So with MJ, yeah, she was obsessed with the Black Dahlia, but not the flower, but the murder. So, but he ended up getting her the Black Dahlia necklace and almost like, oh my God, that's so cute. But anywho, so now he has a pop culture, everyone's like seeming to get it. But
00:06:49
Speaker
when i got involved with professional wrestling uh i just kind of ages myself but i uh it was 2011 and i was just 18 years old and i was a theater nerd i was the theater kid going to college for theater like that whole sounding and yeah and
00:07:11
Speaker
uh i stumbled upon pro wrestling like on the like an indie company and i was like yeah okay so as a side hustle as a gig i was gonna be as a valet and i ended up uh
00:07:28
Speaker
being disrespected a lot you know it was 2011 women the women's revolution hadn't happened yet and uh you know like me being introduced with wrestling at that time period was uh the women's matches were called the bathroom breaks
00:07:47
Speaker
And I remember studying WWE for the first time when I got involved with wrestling and the women's entrances were longer than their matches. And that was so disappointing. And that's why I focused on the role of a manager. And as a valet, because I was like, oh, the person with the mic, they're the ones that set the stage. I studied like Paul Heyman and stuff. So then Lana started coming on the scene at that time. So I was like, okay, I really want to do this.
00:08:16
Speaker
Excuse me. So, so how did I get the name The Black Dahlia? Well, at that time, it was like, I'll never forget, the Bella twins were body shaming. It was a storyline, you know, but they were body shaming one of the other wrestlers. And I just remember seeing that whole setup and I was just like, this is not,
00:08:45
Speaker
how I want my character to be. I want to be more than the looks. I want an in-depth character and I want a storyline. So when I introduced it to like the indie people that I was at, the company, like I see I was very naive.
00:09:01
Speaker
And I thought that people would respect that I was like, so into the business and and taking it seriously and studying. Yeah. And studying things. So I was like, I don't want like a porn star name or strippers name because those things they were throwing at me, they were throwing at me these absurd names. And I'm like, no, I want to be taken serious. And and by saying that, they were just like, it's like they're like, shut up. Just need just be the boobs and yeah. And I had
00:09:31
Speaker
I had a little too much of a mouth, and so I actually created the Black Dahlia gimmick, and it's the first ever in pro wrestling, and I did get it from the Black Dahlia murder. Oh, okay. The Unsolved Murder in American History, Elizabeth Short from 1947. That's actually where I got it from. Oh, wow. Yeah, so are you familiar with the story of what happened to Elizabeth Short?
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I mean, if you want to explain to as well, it's very, very interesting. Well, if you want to tell your audience what you know of Elizabeth short and then I can fill in the gaps. I'm not sure I'll like in depth. We can get with the.
00:10:17
Speaker
What the? Honestly, trigger warning. Yeah, it's an unsolved murder. And the young woman, she was like, what, 21, 22. And it was in 1947. And she was just a young woman that wanted to be an actress. And unfortunately, she was
00:10:40
Speaker
murdered and yeah so if you guys google the black dalia or elizabeth uh short uh her body photos will be shown and everyone thinks that the permanent smile is from the joker it was actually from elizabeth uh her her face was found with the permanent cuts up her mouth and then of course her nipples were slit
00:11:08
Speaker
and then she was sold in half and she was completely nude when she was found and it was like when it was so traumatic like the way her body was staged and to this day no one knows who did it and of course there's the different people that think it was this dentist or this doctor or this person i personally think it was the luminati doing a snuff film but you know
00:11:30
Speaker
Oh yeah, like I think, but so I love horror. I love the idea of unsolved murders. Like that is so fascinating to me, like a killer's mind. I can't imagine taking someone's life. And so that's the route. I went instead of being like, I don't want to be sugar
Experiences and Evolution in Women's Wrestling
00:11:51
Speaker
tits. I want to be a murder case. Take me seriously.
00:11:58
Speaker
I mean, it's definitely a different take on a wrestling gimmick anyway. That's how I got the Black Dahlia gimmick in 2011 and up until recently, even with Black Dahlia popping up in pop culture, like we already discussed,
00:12:21
Speaker
Besides that, I would have to explain this to almost everyone I came across because they're like, Delilah, Delulah. No one knew how to say Dalia, which is a flower, but I would always have to explain it because no one knew of Black Dahlia, but the cool thing is, thanks to technology and TikTok and YouTube and stuff, it seems like a lot more people know where my name comes from, so that's pretty cool.
00:12:51
Speaker
No, definitely. The yeah, the other like crazy thing about that case too was the I remember I remember like the the original one of the women that found her originally thought it was like a mannequin or something like that. She didn't think it was like an actual like
00:13:07
Speaker
The whole setup was it was now it's a subdivision. It's actually someone's yard, front yard, and it's like literally lined up houses. I actually, when I lived in LA and was training under Rikishi, I actually found, you can Google the spot where her body was found. And I actually went there and laid in the exact location and recreated out of respect, of course. I mean, God rest her soul. That was a traumatic incident. And I feel like,
00:13:34
Speaker
Out of respect to what happened to Elizabeth where I'm an actress and that was my original trait before I got into wrestling I feel like it's kind of paying homage to her and you know, she always wanted like she was quoted to say I wanted to be famous and I think bringing oh, I know some sappy but whenever you look her up a lot of
00:14:00
Speaker
references, whether it's the movies they make of her or her in American Horror Story, they're always implied that she was like a whore because she said, I'll do anything to be famous. Yeah, yeah. She was a 22 year old kid. Like, yeah. So it implies like she would do anything to be famous. And I feel like that's just disrespectful. So I feel like what happened to her, she probably got with the wrong people in Hollywood and they
00:14:30
Speaker
They snuffed her, you know what I mean? Yeah, I was actually thinking, right when you said that, I was thinking like, you know, usually things like that where they say like, oh, she was this, she was that. Back then, it was probably just a way to like kind of like dismiss what happened to her. Dismiss what happened to her, like she had a carbon or something, like she wasn't a zero or something. That's just so rude.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's where I got the name and then the chainsaw queen. Yeah, so I came up with that in 2016 and I'm the first female ever to wield a chainsaw in professional wrestling. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's awesome.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, so when I was out in LA, training under Rikishi, that's when me and my friend Nathaniel kind of came up with this gimmick. And then, of course, my accident ended up happening the next year. But yeah, that's the origin of my gimmick.
00:15:33
Speaker
So let's actually hit on a couple of points as you were going through the story and stuff like that. I want to go back a little bit to the... Actually, let's go with the chainsaw queen. Where did you get the idea of having a horror type of gimmick with your wrestling gimmick? How did that come into play?
00:16:00
Speaker
Well, to be fair, like I said, with the Black Dahlia, that origin of loving horror films, like, I mean, I was a kid, like, just a small child watching black and white films and silent films. And one of my favorite, one of my favorites of all time was News for Autus. And I just, I was captivated by the old school monsters. And then when I incorporated the Black Dahlia, that was me rebelling against the stereotype because, you know, like,
00:16:30
Speaker
Sex sells in wrestling, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with big boobs, just as there's nothing wrong with muscles, and then there's nothing wrong with blonde or brunette. There needs to be diversity, and there needs to be everything and anything. Yeah, definitely. So sex does sell, and that's a part of my gimmick, but it's more of a Harley Quinn multi-personality. That's what I bring to the Black Dahlia.
00:16:58
Speaker
As for the chainsaw queen, no other female had wielded a chainsaw and Texas Chainsaw Massacre really kind of was the founding father of horror if you think about it because it really set the pace and the tone for what came next with like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street and then of course a Halloween. Like if you think about all these different ones because I think
00:17:27
Speaker
And correct me if I'm wrong, but texture semester really set the tone for... That Black Christmas. Yeah, Black Christmas was one. Have you ever seen Black Christmas?
The Influence of Star Wars on Wrestling Narratives
00:17:38
Speaker
I see Black Christmas, yes. Have you seen the OG or the remake?
00:17:42
Speaker
I'd seen the remake. I didn't see the OG one. Watch the OG. I definitely have to. With Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I think I see the one with Matthew McConaughey, the sequel that they did for it. I see that one first. Okay, that was part four. That was part four. That was the second one then, right?
00:18:06
Speaker
It was like the Texas Chainsaw, the new generation or something. It was called like the actual name of it. That was part four and it had the Illuminati theme, correct?
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's yes. I see that one person. I was like, then I worked my way backwards to, you know, the same thing. That's the same thing I did with Star Wars. Not gonna lie. I literally I stumbled across Return of the Jedi spoiled the whole idea of Darth Vader being Luke's father and then found out there was other movies and had to put them in order. But
00:18:38
Speaker
That's how it goes though, sometimes. It's not a, I mean. Especially the Star Wars movies. You can watch them in any order. It doesn't, I mean, I don't think it really matters. But I'm a huge mark for Star Wars though. I actually just watched, uh, which one did we watch, Nathaniel? Uh, The Last Jedi. The Last Jedi. Or the Rise of Skywalker. That was it. Really? The Rise? The Rise of Skywalker? Yeah, yeah. That's actually...
00:19:04
Speaker
Did you like that one? Oh yeah, no, I'm like, I'm not a super duper Star Wars fan, but I've seen all the Star Wars movies. I'm not sure what my favorite one is though. I can't really pick between the favorites. I was a huge mark for the OGs and then when they made the prequels, I was a kid, so I was fucking down. I don't care about Jar Jar Binks. I don't give a fuck. I was like, yeah, Jar Jar Binks is there. We got him. I don't care. This is my childhood.
00:19:30
Speaker
But anyway, um, but yeah, so the chainsaw queen gimmick, it just stimulated from my friend Nathaniel and, uh, um, and then me. And then of course our coach Ritesh, she like, we ran up by him and, uh, it was just one of those things where.
00:19:46
Speaker
My gimmick was already horror related. I was always casted as a heel for the most part with everything I did. For some reason, people love to make me the bad guy. I can never get casted as a good guy for some reason. Yeah, that's a way. I don't see. Do you see yourself as a heel or a bad guy? I don't see that at all. No, exactly.
00:20:16
Speaker
I'm such a dweeb and I'm like I'm a Pisces as well. So I'm so freakin giving to giving that's my Achilles heel. Yeah, I Just so freaking loyal and nice and then whenever I show up they're like She's a bitch and I'm like Bad guy she will really piss people off and I'm just like, okay
00:20:41
Speaker
Here's a here's what I found too with wrestling like most people that are like I obviously I don't know any wrestlers personally but like it seems like the ones that are like They'd seem like really nice people usually like when they when they turn heel
00:20:56
Speaker
Or we do or become a bad guy or bad woman. They like go like they go fully into it. Like they become like the best. Like I'll give an example. Brian Danielson to Daniel Bryan when he did his WW when you do like his eco warrior.
00:21:11
Speaker
get back when he was just like you know calling the fans fickle and you know he got rid of the the world title because it was made out of like you know leather and that's not you know cows are killed for it so he came back with an eco-friendly world title that was like made out of like you know
00:21:27
Speaker
like wood and like it was like made out of straw and all this stuff like he just went full but he's like if you ever watch him on like you know Total Divas or see him in interviews he's like one of them he seems like a really nice guy so it seems like people that are really nice you know that he's really funny like just
00:21:42
Speaker
Being involved with professional wrestling for so long, especially on the indies, it's just like any other showbiz, like whether it's modeling or acting, the theater, film, whatever. It's one of those things where, I will say this just to draw behind the curtain,
00:22:03
Speaker
Normally the bubbly baby faces that are taking photos with your kids, they're probably hooking up with your husband in the back. I've seen stories of her. And then the one with leather and harnessed and a whip and it's like, ew, we don't like her. No, she's the one that was.
00:22:25
Speaker
the one hooking up with your husband and she's the one that's a girl's girl and got your back, okay? So, it's generally, it's generally the, I will say this, as a, as a, as an actor and being brought up in theater, it was, it was, it's so, like, no one wants to be a bad person, you know? Especially as a Pisces, like, I just, I love being nice to people, right? So, like,
00:22:54
Speaker
I don't like to piss in anyone's Cheerios, you know? But I will say, as a performer, it's just so fun playing an in-depth bad guy. To play the exact opposite of who you are is just so fun. And as a performer, it's so exciting to step into these roles. And whenever I get to be Dahlia, it's so fun.
00:23:21
Speaker
Yeah, no, I was gonna say it's like, it has to be kind of like enthralling to like, you know, not be like, you know, like you said, be like, you're not a bad person or anything like that. But when you get a chance to actually, you know, perform as a like, you know, like a bad guy or a heel or whatever, and like, yeah, you kind of like want to go, you can express your you can express yourself.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah, you get to get away with things, you know? Yeah. Yeah. The funny thing is also, like, if you, like, say if you botch in a match, like, it's like, I'm the cowardly, goofy heel, and it's like, I'm lit to do that, you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:23:58
Speaker
That's actually, that's actually a good point. There's my secret. Why do you like playing a hill? Because I can watch all I want. Exactly. You can just say like, oh, it was like, you just bumbled a little bit. It's just, you know, I'm just a goofy hill. I'm about to watch out for that now. And I watch, uh, you know, watch. Not you. I'm saying, I'm just saying in general, like, watch, like, watch the WWE, just watch the hills and like see if they actually do that type of stuff.
00:24:27
Speaker
cool like Shawn Michaels like oh yeah that's a perfect example yeah I love that shit oh yeah especially yeah especially the uh uh heaven uh when you face Hulk Hogan at SummerSleem and he's just like over over doing all the it's still the greatest match ever like even just like how human
00:24:49
Speaker
oversold literally everything that was such a dick move but also like same you know what i mean it made it iconic like that match is like yeah as much as people like you're talking about it right now exactly that's that's how iconic like that's how great like Sean Michaels is like
00:25:04
Speaker
probably like in his mind going, if I do this, you know, obviously I'm kind of like trying to get back at Hogan, but at the same time, people are gonna talk about this match forever, because of what I'm doing and how I'm like, you know, completely like being cartoonish in the ring with Hulk Hogan, like if he had punched and he's like rolling out of the ring. Like I know he did it out of probably disrespect, but I would do it out of like charisma. Like this was out of the art.
00:25:33
Speaker
I mean the Rock kind of did it too a little bit when he faced Hogan at WrestleMania. He kind of, he didn't over, he didn't go like the Shawn Michaels rope, but he was doing it. He was kind of like late, like, you know, playing it to the Hogan punches and the, you know, the boots of the face of the other, all that stuff. Isn't that just the Rock though? Like that is true.
00:25:52
Speaker
that is very that is very true that is that is the rock and the rock i feel like the rock is phenomenal oh yeah no definitely i want actually before i move on a little bit more i want to go back a little bit because you did kind of bring up like you know uh when you started watching it the women's you know revolution hadn't started yet
00:26:10
Speaker
Right. So that's why I focused on being a manager. So then when I was out on the NDS, I was just the kid that was going through acting school, but then also was doing managing. And so I grinded on the NDS. I showed up early to show, you know, set up the rings and then I ended up
00:26:35
Speaker
You know just performing and then and then tearing down the rings and staying light so I I paid my dues for a couple years and then it got to a point where it wasn't enough, you know doing the gym tan and And then grinding on the road.
Training with Legends: Funaki and Rikishi
00:26:55
Speaker
So I was like, I really I really want to kind of
00:26:58
Speaker
take this seriously. And my friend at the time, Nathaniel, he was training at OVW under Rip Rogers. And I was just like, you know what? I think I can do this. I think I have an athletic background. I think I want to take it seriously. And I think I want to wrestle, but I don't want to wrestle like in no disrespect for the girls at the time. But I was like, I don't want to wrestle like the girls on TV. I want to wrestle like the men.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I said at the time and that was right before the women's revolution and when I did that I embarked on okay, so as I took acting acting seriously, I I went to school for it as I took the valet seriously, I was not only sticking to my Acting studies I was also Studying old-school footage of other ballets and other managers. So now that I was going into the wrestling part I was like school so
00:27:57
Speaker
The schools I looked into, I first started being mentored under Bobby Blaze. And he's a phenomenal guy. And then I ended up training under Funaki and then Rikishi. Oh, nice. Yeah. How was that? How was that? How are those experiences working, you know, being mentored by those those guys there? Yeah, they. You.
00:28:27
Speaker
If you want to learn a craft, you have to learn from a master, you know, like spoken Star Wars, not trying to be a nerd right now. But like, if you want to be a Padawan, you got to go under a proper master and you want like someone as badass as Qui-Gon Jinn or Obi-Wan Kenobi, obviously. Yeah, exactly. Yep.
00:28:46
Speaker
I searched out for my Obi-Wan's and Qui-Gon's, you know? I didn't want to just be a Mark and Tights, and I wanted to be legit. And I wanted to be serious, and I wanted to wrestle like the guys. And I will never forget locking up for the first time with Bobby Blaze. And that was a moment of, he's like, hey, you need to do this kid. You have the look. You have the background.
00:29:13
Speaker
you can make a career out of this. And I, it's one of those things of you have to commit. So when I trained under Funaki, I got my shoot job, which I've held for the past eight years. I
00:29:28
Speaker
I still have it to this day. When I trained under Fornaki, it was intense because I worked night shift at my shoot job. And then when I'd get off my shoot job, I'd go to the gym, work out for a couple hours. And then after working out, I would shower and go straight to my class.
00:29:45
Speaker
And at 10 AM, we'd have like a three hour class. It was in San Antonio, Texas. It was at the Spartan gym at the time. And now I believe he's associated with hybrid school in San Antonio. But which I'm definitely going to check out now that I've been medically released to start training again. But at the time, it was like this Spartan gym that had like this
00:30:14
Speaker
I'm
00:30:31
Speaker
and he's like, let me know when you're going to be here. And if he wasn't working for WWE and doing something for them, he was there and he made himself available six days out of the week for us. If we want to just we would literally text him and we're like, we're available, sir. And.
00:30:48
Speaker
would show up and we would train six days a week. And I'll never forget it because I have some footage of it. And the main thing he wanted to teach us is it's all with the lock up in the beginning. So yes.
00:31:09
Speaker
It was surreal at the time because it was 2015 and then into 16 when I trained under him and NXT was a thing, the Women's Revolution had started and a lot of excitement in female wrestling and Funaki was down there with WWE and he would come up, it's a class and he'd be wearing the NXT logos and I'm just like, this is so insane.
00:31:36
Speaker
I was like, what am I doing here? But he's a really cool guy and he's a big fan of Star Wars.
00:31:44
Speaker
Oh man, dude, I was, I mean, I love Funaki, like, you know, his, you know, run with the, you know, cruiserweight champion at the time when they had the cruiserweight championship. He was a hard, hardcore champion when they had the, you know, the hardcore championship. Just, you know, he was amazing. Like, I'd be, I'd probably like a little, be a little bit like, you know, starstruck, you know, being, you know, being able to train, like, how was, was that how you were? Would you like,
00:32:12
Speaker
When you came in contact with Campbell or Rikishi, were you like, holy shit, this is Rikishi standing right in front of you. What the hell was that? Did that ever cross your mind?
00:32:24
Speaker
Well, the weirdest thing is I have the most respect for everyone involved with wrestling, but growing up as an actor, I wasn't a wrestling fan, so I didn't know the history of a lot of these people, and it's surreal meeting people, don't get me wrong, but
00:32:44
Speaker
The thing is, I'm this way with any celebrity, if that makes sense, because even with my acting career and being an extra in a couple films, even as a teenager, when I would go on set and hang out with these actors, I would, it's just meeting another person and it's cool. This is gonna sound so narcissistic and I don't mean it in the narcissistic way. I mean it in the aha, this is surreal moment way, but this is what I mean.
00:33:15
Speaker
Holy shit, they know I exist. I'm meeting these people. Yeah, exactly. It's not in the narcissistic way. That makes total sense. Oh my God, this is my freaking life. And this celebrity is seeing me right now. I'm interacting with them. I'm touching them right now. You know what I mean? It's one of those moments where you see me.
00:33:37
Speaker
Yeah At least yet with any celebrity I've met it's never been one of the moments of And honestly, I thought of it. Okay, I correct myself There has been a moment like that and I might tell you about it in a minute But I think the one celebrity that will literally make me freak out would probably be
00:34:05
Speaker
Uh, Lucy lawless, uh, you know, I would scream like a, I would scream like a little bitch. I'd be like, you're the reason why I did sports. No, no, it's funny. There's a lot of, you know, not that she's like a, you know, a direct, you know, reason why there's a lot of like, you know,
00:34:29
Speaker
a lot of it seems like a lot of like uh women in wrestling do like pull from zena and i i feel like i've seen that a lot in different interviews where they say like you know they you know i was inspired by you know zena the warrior princess or like a lot of the interviews i didn't know that yeah so like there's like really yeah she she's for some reason yeah she's like one of those like
00:34:51
Speaker
Kind of like, obviously China was- Well, I shouldn't be surprised. I mean, that's my response too. I mean, especially as a nineties baby. I was born in 92, so I grew up on that shit. I grew up on- Yeah. He was in Xena.
00:35:05
Speaker
Well, yeah, before like I think she was like at that at that time, it was like you didn't really see like a kind of like a like a badass like lead female character. You know the origin stories of her, right? Like she was just she originally wasn't even seen us. She was.
00:35:24
Speaker
And extra on Hercules because Hercules the right was the the show and then um and then what happened was she was such a good actor that I believe she was married to like the the director producer or something so
00:35:41
Speaker
Then she came back on Hercules, but she played Zena. And the fans of the show loved the character Zena so much, that's why they did a spin-off it called, dedicated just to her. And the funniest part of that was it out blew Hercules, it blew Hercules out of the water and it became so much more popular and made so much more money than that. And I find that ironic.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's why, that's why I think, you know, like I said, it's one of those things where like at the time, obviously you have like, you know, Wonder Woman and stuff like that, but like, besides like Wonder Woman being on TV way back in the day, like, that was like the, like, that was like, she was like the, you know, made like badass female character at the time.
00:36:28
Speaker
all over the place pretending i was zina i i loved that but i didn't know a lot of female wrestlers referenced her that's so cool yeah like even like you know i think like i think back like when you know when china was you know wrestling stuff like that she always they always used to like
00:36:42
Speaker
like confuse them too, or you know, they kind of like drew comparisons at the same time. Yeah, both beautiful women. Yeah, they're definitely like, because I kind of actually I wanted to get back to like the women's wrestling and stuff like that. And, you know, like you said, you started watching when, you know, the women's revolution hasn't started. But like, even from back then to like, now, like, you know, what do you what do you
00:37:07
Speaker
like what do you think about like the growth that you like I mean I've been watching wrestling forever so I've seen like right literally from like you said when they were like really barely on tv so like now it's like their main eventing matches it's like it's so cool it's more exciting than men and sometimes like a lot of the matches are you know I think it should be an equal I feel like it should be an even balance and sometimes the women should be more over and vice versa it depends on the story but um
00:37:35
Speaker
Honestly, I feel like it's cool, but I have to make it clear. A lot of people might not realize, especially as a wrestler, I haven't really been watching and keeping up with it, and that might be surprising as someone involved with the business, but for my mental health and during my injury, I haven't been, where,
00:38:02
Speaker
I was in I was in the ring when I was hurt so yeah wrestling did this to me and I do sometimes have triggers and PTSD with it and that I have been dealing with my and I've been going through therapy about it so It's it's it's a hard subject sometimes so when people would think of what's going on right now and it's like
00:38:27
Speaker
I've seen clips on social media. I keep up with a little, but for my mental health, I actually don't turn on the TV and watch it.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah, but man, that's actually very interesting. Sad. Yeah. I mean, it's not sad. It's whatever, like you said, like we always say, and it's a lot more prevalent now, like your mental health is as important as your physical health. Right. So it's one of those things where I accepted I had been injured, and then I accepted I would be in pain the rest of my life, and I just knew it was like an injury. It was weird. It was one of those things.
00:39:04
Speaker
And then I slowly started weight training and I was linking up with people to start training again. Saw a doctor.
00:39:20
Speaker
And then my world was paused because I got informed of what it was. And then now I'm picking up the pieces and accepting that it wasn't an injury, but it's permanent. And I've been going through a grieving, what my therapist and what my pain management specialist calls it a grieving process.
00:39:48
Speaker
When you become disabled when you become handicapped or the politically correct terminology for this It's surreal and It's one of those things where people don't realize that Holy shit, this is my reality and you have to learn how to accept that and yeah, I've been
00:40:15
Speaker
struggling with my mental health which is normal and natural and I'm going through the normal process but I have been going through a grieving stage because it is like exactly like a death like think like a death in the family and and in energy you you don't have rhyme to reason with grieving there's not a proper process of grieving and um
00:40:38
Speaker
No one can say which stages people should be at because grief comes in waves. So what your listeners right now might be wondering, I was injured out at Rikishi's and what
Struggling with CRPS: Diagnosis and Awareness
00:40:53
Speaker
happened to me was just a normal, like as performers, as entertainers, as athletes, as professional wrestlers in anything that you're involved in, especially this physical contact sport.
00:41:08
Speaker
You're gonna get hurt. We risk our lives every day entering the bat ring and It's gonna happen accidents are gonna happen and I got hurt I got injured I tore my ligaments in the bottom of my feet and
00:41:26
Speaker
The insane part is when I was training at Rikishi's I still had my job and I was working night shift and I was sleeping out of my vehicle in Los Angeles and because school was so expensive and living was so expensive me and my friend Nathaniel would pay our dues in wrestling by
00:41:50
Speaker
Sleeping out of our vehicle in the daytime with no air conditioning Working out at Planet Fitness and showering at the gym and brushing her teeth at the gym and going and training at our school and then repeat working night shift and then it was an intense schedule I did that for seven solid months and then I ended up getting injured in the ring But the thing is when you get hurt you have surgery and you get better and I never got better
00:42:20
Speaker
So my whole setup is I've been hurt this whole time and I just assumed I'd be in pain the rest of my life and then that was it. I went through four surgeries on my feet. I went through
00:42:40
Speaker
Two processes of having to learn how to walk again. I was in a wheelchair for almost three years It just wasn't normal like when you get hurt you get better and no one had an explanation explanation I went through 12 different doctors two different states and no three different states and no one could explain to me what was going on and I went through
00:43:07
Speaker
so many hurdles just to get to hear where we're at now and I'm almost on my seven year anniversary of my injury and
00:43:19
Speaker
People are like, so you were in a wheelchair this whole time. You had to learn how to walk again. You've had four different surgeries and you're in chronic pain. Like this doesn't make any sense. I have officially finally been diagnosed with CRPS. And for those that do not know what this illness is, CRPS is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and it can happen to anyone.
00:43:46
Speaker
But what happened to me is I got injured and it activated an illness of the nerves. And the way my doctor described it to me is it's permanent. It can spread throughout my entire body and it's lethal. And my doctor pulled out a pain chart
00:44:16
Speaker
And on the pain chart, it listed all the pains.
00:44:22
Speaker
The most painful pains a human can fill and then in the entire world and what I mean by that is on the pain chart, there's kidney stones, which is Apparently like very brutal. No. Yeah. Yeah, like like cancer is on that chart a woman going into labors on the chart and then another thing on the chart is a woman going into labor without any aid or any medicine a person
00:44:50
Speaker
happen to have a forced amputation of a limb with no medicine this pain chart was listed and i'm like okay why are you showing me this and she's like your illness is on this chart and it was on the very top of the chart oh wow so how did yeah yeah it's intense and
00:45:17
Speaker
So basically, the way it was described to me, it's the most painful pain a human can feel. How are you alive? Yeah.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's like in more politically correct terms, obviously. But like this sounds like a movie and sorry. Yeah. My allergies are. I'm so sorry. Picking my nose. I swear I don't have no medicine. Sorry. Go on. What did what did she
00:45:56
Speaker
What did she how did she come to that conclusion? You see it all these doctors, all these different people. What was it? What? What? What made her go that route? And what was it something that she's seen before? Yeah. So so the way you get diagnosed is you have to go through the Budapest procedure. I'm sorry. I the Budapest
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah, well anyway, so basically way the way you get diagnosed with CRPS is You have to go through anything and everything and then
00:46:40
Speaker
This is it. There's no blood work. There's no x-rays. There's no MRIs. There's nothing that can detect it. There is like a type one and type two or a type A type B. I can't remember. I'm very new at this and I'm learning the terminology. But basically,
00:47:01
Speaker
some people have nerve damage and other people don't and i do not have nerve damage but you you can do anything from breaking your arm to to getting in a car accident and having a severe leg injury like you you can do anything to to get this illness but the scaring thing about that basically think like when you get scared
00:47:26
Speaker
And you like, it's like someone flips on a light switch and your nerves are activated. Oh yeah. Yep. I know about that. So that feeling that happened to my nervous system and it never was shut off. So basically to describe the illness I have in my feet, you, so my injury was in my feet and that's where it stimulates.
00:47:52
Speaker
So basically, so to describe to your listeners, imagine the most painful pain you've ever felt, like the most painful pain you've ever, you fell out of a tree and broke your arm as a kid or whatever, or you're a woman and you went into child labor. That is what I've experienced on the bottom of both of my feet for seven years.
00:48:17
Speaker
wow that's the way my doctor described it was i became desensitized because i pushed through and a lot of people see me and they're like there's no way you're in chronic pain there's no way that you suffer and it's like oh no it's bad but
00:48:36
Speaker
i'm so used to it and i built a tolerance to it that it's one of those things where i can ignore it for the most part unless it gets to certain levels and i have flare-ups because like one day i'll have a good day the next day i'll have a bad day and then it just it comes in waves but it's always constant so the way you get diagnosed is
00:48:58
Speaker
you have to go through a neurologist and you have to go like basically you go through a pain management specialist and the woman I saw she worked under a neurologist as a nurse for
00:49:14
Speaker
20 years or 25 years and she saw all these I call them victims but patients of CRPS and she studied under this doctor and she ended up going and getting her master's becoming a doctor herself and that's the doctor I got referred to because when I originally was introduced to CRPS and I originally had the Budapest
00:49:38
Speaker
a test or whatever you wanna call it, was actually through FaceTime, through a wrestling fan, that was a doctor, actually. They introduced, that was actually the first interaction I had when I was introduced to what I had. And I didn't know about CRPS, I didn't know what I had. I had someone reach out to me and say, I think you have this illness, can you please describe what you're going through?
00:50:06
Speaker
And I described the illness to a T. I had the exact definition and I had never heard of CRPS before. And then that's when that person introduced themselves properly and they're like, I am a doctor. I handle patients with CRPS. You need to find a local doctor and you need to get legally diagnosed. I don't know how you're alive. Wow.
00:50:34
Speaker
and yeah it was so surreal and i i went through a stage of and i've talked to other people that went undiagnosed for a minute and they say this is normal because i felt so self-conscious but i got so scared of finding a local doctor
00:50:50
Speaker
and local people with CRPS and finding a support group. I got so scared of getting legally diagnosed because what would that mean to me? What would that mean for my future? What would that mean for my shoot job? I was so scared.
00:51:05
Speaker
I ended up finding a local support group. I ended up finding a woman and she referred me to her doctor and both women saved my life. It was a very emotional moment.
00:51:21
Speaker
That's pretty, you know, that's like, I was gonna say, you're the first person I've seen, or that's how I heard about it, is through you. Like, I've never heard of, you know, that type of, you know, condition. So yeah, I mean, like you said, you're the first person, and then, you know, obviously I want to like read up on it and see like, you know, what, you know, the causes and stuff like that. And it is like, yeah, I mean, obviously, it's one of those things where it's, it's,
00:51:49
Speaker
It's out of a Marvel movie. It's like when you research this and you find out about it, it's like, this is real. It literally sounds like something out of Spider-Man. And I'm like, this is not, I've been experiencing it and I've been living it. Okay, so the best way to explain it is,
00:52:16
Speaker
Having this illness sucks. Being diagnosed with cancer sucks. Being diagnosed with a sickness sucks. Being diagnosed with something that doctors say is far worse than cancer is terrifying. Yeah. Like, how do I process that? Like, I barely have lived my life. How do I process this? And the one thing that's intriguing is
00:52:43
Speaker
When the majority of people when you get diagnosed with this when you have this illness and you get diagnosed with it You get put on pills And no judgment no judgment towards them. But I mean we're in a lot of pain so And people are People are killing themselves because of the pain and they they're they're being They know what they have
00:53:12
Speaker
They're medicated and the pain is too much and they rightfully so, you know, kill themselves. And the reason I'm talking about that is this is nicknamed the suicide disease. America has nicknamed this the suicide disease because of the death rate. People would rather die than feel what I feel right now. And the reason I bring that up is
00:53:34
Speaker
I had this for six and a half years before I even knew what it was. Wow. I was, I know what pills, what medicine, pain relief. Cheese. I, and my doctor's like.
00:53:52
Speaker
you went through this pain and and and you hadn't what because you're like these dog everyone yeah whether it's uh whether it's my fellow crps sisters or uh um this um this one guy that i talked to the icrps there's a couple guys uh um they're like they've all been through the um the ketamine treatments the you know the ib treatments the
00:54:19
Speaker
the pills, the pain meds, the different surgeries and the different... And I'm just like, yeah, no one offered that shit to me. Wow.
00:54:32
Speaker
well as you could say now i am offered medical marijuana but that's not it so just god my nose wasn't itching it's just awful allergies yeah i'm awful too you could i mean you can see me i'm always like rubbing my nose pretty much oh my god i feel so awful right now we can make brush the one in my witch cauldron place
00:54:57
Speaker
Was gonna say oh, so it's hard. So Did you did you know you had this you didn't find out till after the injury, right? You said like until after you got injured? Well, yeah, so the injury my Illness. Oh, sorry. I'm gonna go off camera for a second. Yeah, that's fine I'm gonna fix my makeup and get my medicine ready. So I
00:55:22
Speaker
was injured out at Rikishi's and I went through all my surgeries, 12 doctors. I went through, thanks for hearing that, Nate. I went through, that's fine, thank you. I went through 12 doctors and six and a half years of my life undiagnosed. So I only recently back
00:55:48
Speaker
legally got diagnosed, well I was diagnosed unofficially by a doctor this past summer and then I legally got diagnosed officially on my record in November.
00:56:05
Speaker
going forward like what is it what is it like what does it look like now that you know you're officially you know you know what it is you know what you're you're up against how does how does that like how does this is a very serious conversation yeah no it is i was fixing my makeup damn kidding i was fixing this because my allergies god damn we're talking about a serious subject i went off camera okay okay i'm back i'm back all right
00:56:35
Speaker
so what what's next yes yeah going forward like let's see just i'm not trying to like i'm not a politician i'm not like all like shiny and perfect i
00:56:53
Speaker
I'm human. I'm flawed. I'm the black sheep of my family. My family doesn't like wrestling. They weren't wrestling fans. I wasn't brought up on wrestling and I'm alone in this except for my one and only family, Nathaniel.
00:57:11
Speaker
I've been ill for almost seven years now, but finally having a name for it and understanding the severity of my illness, having the world's most painful pain known to mankind, that's a heavy burden. Knowing that I have an illness
00:57:29
Speaker
that's nicknamed far worse than cancer and the suicide disease because people are killing themselves to escape this and knowing that i've done this without any pain meds going undiagnosed i it's it's surreal i literally feel like i don't i i don't know what to say so what's next i
00:57:53
Speaker
I don't want it to be for nothing. So I slept out of my vehicle for wrestling. I shit and pissed in a freaking cup for wrestling. I became a handicap for the rest of my life and ill for the rest of my life for wrestling. Wrestling gave me CRPS.
00:58:13
Speaker
But I'm gonna make sure that that wasn't for nothing. CRPS, I went almost seven years with this illness that I should have died from because of the neglect of the medical field. But because of the people not knowing of this illness. Yeah.
00:58:35
Speaker
So I'm not acting like I'm the next Mother Teresa or I'm the next Jesus Christ coming. I'm not saying I'm gonna even be famous or some shit. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that...
00:58:47
Speaker
Okay, I did what you were supposed to do. I starved for three days every week for wrestling, because I had to pay for wrestling school. I know what being homeless feels like, and then sleeping out of my vehicle and getting sun poisoning for wrestling. I shit in a cup for wrestling, and then just to get in a wheelchair and be handicapped, and that's it? No. To get an illness, the disrespect of having this illness for so long and not being treated,
00:59:16
Speaker
I might have been strong enough to survive without pills, but there's people out there, children out there that are getting this, men, women out there getting this, that might not be strong enough to survive and they're not being diagnosed. So I'm like, and I'm not saying I'm going to be famous or anything, but I'm going to take this. And if I've been able to get this far,
00:59:41
Speaker
I think I can push it and get a little further and I'm gonna bring awareness to this illness and I'm gonna make sure everyone Googles this every single day and figures it out and tells their doctors and educates them and then maybe scientists and then we get a cure for this. Yeah, definitely. That's the next step. My nose is dead!
01:00:03
Speaker
It's it's it's it's it's the intensity of the conversation. That's why you didn't. But it's like I said, it's it's one of those things where, like, you know, you could you could definitely become like that, like kind of like the, you know, the make a wish, John Cena moment. No, no, no, like not like that. Like you could be like the advocate. You could be like the, you know, yeah, like the spokesperson for this, like the I want to say I want to say that, like,
01:00:32
Speaker
I've combated this illness without doing pills, so maybe I can start a program to where maybe we can fight. Not that there's any disrespect towards people that need it. Even people without CRPS that needs it. If you need it, you need it. But maybe I could start a program and write a book about how I did it without pills and what it was like.
01:00:53
Speaker
being undiagnosed and how i survived um what was my life like learning how to walk again because everyone's like oh you must have just got out of that wheelchair and learned how to walk again oh no it took an entire year and it was very hard i couldn't stand in the shower without screaming and crying i couldn't walk to the toilet to go to the bathroom like that's how severe this was guys like you see me now and you're like oh awesome she's doing great it took seven years to get to where i'm at right now guys
01:01:20
Speaker
That's a long time to be with something that causes that much pain. Did it just stay in that region? Like in your feet? Or did it move up to your whole body?
01:01:35
Speaker
If you research it, it can spread throughout your whole entire body, and that's what's the scariest thing about it. So if I break my arm tomorrow, am I gonna get it and develop it there? It's so scary. This guy, part of this support group, he had CRPS in one of his limbs or something, I can't remember where, and he had a colonoscopy. Guess where CRPS is now?
01:01:59
Speaker
There's this other woman that had CRPS and again, I can't remember where she had it in her body, but she put herself in re-emission, which is great. So we're, like I said, we're still ill, we still carry the illness, but we can't feel the pain. So there is hope to put yourself in re-emission. And I've organically, in the past six and a half years without help, put myself in semi-re-emission, like I still feel the chronic pain and there are really bad days.
01:02:29
Speaker
but I'm trying to organically put myself into re-emission so I don't feel the pain and I can just shut it off and focus on wrestling. That's the goal. Well, this one, here I am with my medicine. So there's this one woman, she put herself in re-emission and she ended up having a C-section. She ended up getting pregnant. Oh, wow.
01:02:53
Speaker
She ended up developing it. So that's the fear and that's the challenge I'm facing as an athlete, as a bodybuilder, as a wrestler, or just as a human being living life. Like, you know, accidents happen. But that's at a young age and then living the rest of my life like this sucks. It's a heavy burden, but hopefully I can put myself into re-emission and we can find a cure.
01:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think, did you mention before that, you know, the journey is to, you know, is it to get back back into the ring and try to train again at some point? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as a professional wrestler, the goal is to wrestle again. And my doctor, now that I've been diagnosed, I've been discussing things with her. We changed up my diet to sugar-free and dairy-free, and now I'm on daylight.
01:03:43
Speaker
27 of doing that and it's been great. She I've been doing my shoot job and I've been doing my in the gym starting bodybuilding and now she approves of me starting to roll around and train in the ring but the whole goal is to put myself into full readmission before I actively take bookings and that's what we're trying to do right now.
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. That's like, it's kind of like, you know, like you said, almost like six, seven years in the making trying to get back to where you were before. It's kind of, you know, do you ever like sit back and go like, you know, I mean, you probably just like kind of reflect and go like, I didn't think I was going to be back at this position again. I thought it was never going to like, you know, happen again. Yeah, I didn't know I was going to survive.
01:04:32
Speaker
let alone, let alone do this. I didn't know I was going to walk again. Like I remember sitting in that wheelchair. God, this is so heavy and I have to itch my nose. This is bullshit.
01:04:52
Speaker
So yeah, I remember being in the wheelchair and being in chronic pain because everyone doesn't understand. It wasn't just standing for long periods of time. It wasn't just walking. It was literally just sitting and living. It was waking up. It's constant. It never goes away. You go to bed and you're feeling it. It's the last thing you think and feel and that's the first thing you think and feel when you wake up.
01:05:13
Speaker
I remember being in the wheelchair or sitting in my vehicle and seeing the local college kids walking with backpacks on and I'm like, how are they able to do that? That is exactly that they're walking all day and going to classes. I was like, you can do that? It messed with my mental health, it messed with my brain because I was just like,
01:05:35
Speaker
People are able to walk for long periods of time. I forgot that. People are able to do all this. How are you guys able to do that? And then one of the things is, especially like I post, like I'm a big advocate for this and I bring a lot of, I try to bring a lot of awareness to this illness now.
01:05:50
Speaker
If I have to have this it's everyone's problem. Yeah. Yeah Let's find a cure goddamn it I'm suffering I know I so Like one of the things I just posted it's like basically always remember that the energy it takes you to do something It takes me five times that amount of energy to do the same thing Wow
01:06:15
Speaker
That's pretty intense. The most pain I ever felt is I got diagnosed with spinal stenosis. Oh, I'm sorry. I can get sciatica. If I interrupt my lower back, I'm pretty much toast for months. But I can only imagine it's obviously worse than sciatica pain. But sciatica pain, it just doesn't go away.
01:06:44
Speaker
It's like your legs numb at some point, your calves numb, your foots numb. You can't sleep. You can't like stand up or sit too long periods of a time. Because if you stand up too long, your whole leg starts to ache and your lower back aches. But if you sit down too long to rest it, it's like, so like I said, it's not, obviously it's not as bad as like what you have, but I can only imagine, that's what it is like.
01:07:06
Speaker
just being uncomfortable is even more like being in pain and uncomfortable is probably you know yeah it's awful well you you just spoke your truth and you have that pain and i'm i'm so sorry for your pain and uh just for the record and i i say this to everyone that i meet um you're allowed to be in pain around me you're allowed oh yeah no i'm not in pain now thank thank oh really it's not permanent
01:07:29
Speaker
So what I do is like, what I've been doing is going to like, I was encouraged to go to like a chiropractor just to see like, if I don't get cracked, I don't get my, like, cause I can't like my, with a spine, I have like a, you know, I basically have like a slipped desk or like a no desk and I don't know what section of my spine. It's like, it's like basically like, it's basically just on nerves right now. So like it's the bone, that's what, that's what pretty much spinal stenosis is. So like any type of like,
01:07:56
Speaker
uh you know like you know working out or i can't work out too long i can't like like i like to do um i used to go to i used to do boxing um and any like any twisting all the time like if i you know obviously it's a lot of hip work so when you throw like you know punches you move into your hips and you punch so like if i'm doing it if i'm 10 minutes in it's like i already feel the you know i feel the pain in my lower back and like it's obviously after like seven it goes away so like it um
01:08:26
Speaker
you know, when it I'm hoping to never get it again. Like what the fear is, if I start going in a full workout mode, like I want to like, get back to like a regular routine. The fear is I'm gonna slip I'm gonna, I'm gonna slip my lower back and it's just gonna, you know, go crazy. And so like, I've been here.
01:08:45
Speaker
like I said like what I was gonna say was was it is was is that ever in a like in your cards like a like go to like see like a chiropractor or anything like that where it's not like really medicine it's more like you know you know massages and physically were you doing that type of stuff as far as you know it's very
01:09:06
Speaker
Everyone's different, but it's one of those things where one of the first 12 doctors I went to before I got diagnosed was a chiropractor and it did nothing for me. But I'm going the organic route. I am going where I've done it this whole time without pills. I'm going to continue. So I'm not going to do the kind of mean treatments. I'm not going to do the pain meds.
01:09:30
Speaker
Because I follow just like wrestling and I researched everything with wrestling and I followed the different groups and I educated myself when I got involved. I've been the same thing about my illness now that I've been diagnosed. Because I never heard of it until I got diagnosed. I didn't even know of it when I was talking to my first doctor. I genuinely was just talking about these symptoms I had and they're like, oh yeah, this is what it is.
01:09:57
Speaker
It's one of those things where I just lost my train of thought because my nose itches! Frig! I look like I need to take Benadryl's stats! Oh my god!
01:10:11
Speaker
Anyway, I lost my train of thought, but CRPS is a bitch and I hate having it and it sucks. And to answer your original question, it was in my feet, all over my feet and ankles and Achilles. And unfortunately, when I had my third and fourth foot surgeries, again, we did not know I had CRPS at the time, so it's not,
01:10:37
Speaker
the doctor's fault, especially the last surgeons, but it did spread up my legs. And I don't want to go into detail because I'm still grieving, but is to have an illness and people not understand it and going insane because I knew it was the worst pain I've ever felt. But then I didn't know it was the world's worst pain. And then when I and then when I found out that
01:11:06
Speaker
Well because people were telling me that people had it far worse than me and so I was like placebo affecting it in a really weird way of yeah okay it must not be that bad but it was apparently and so imagine feeling that pain and then having these nerve surgeries thinking it's gonna help you and without understanding the logic of it
01:11:29
Speaker
Because now we understand I have CRPS and it can spread. Well, again, I didn't know about CRPS. Never heard of it. Never googled it. Before I was diagnosed, I never googled it. I was diagnosed and then researched it. So I just knew what I felt. And I was very alone in my head.
01:11:52
Speaker
My mental health hadn't been well. We were at like, what, four and a half years at that point in this journey. And I was like, this really odd pain that I have, and everyone says it's not that bad, even though it's really, really bad in my, that I feel.
01:12:15
Speaker
It's now everywhere. Like it's now, it's spread. And I didn't use that word. I said, it's now, I don't even remember the word I used. I didn't even know how to describe it. I was like, I went in to have a surgery that was gonna take away this pain. This doctor said I wasn't supposed to live my life in pain. We did the surgery and now all of a sudden the pain's even worse.
01:12:46
Speaker
My mental health, that's the point I shouldn't have survived. That's the point where I lost my shit. And my mental health really deteriorated. My mental health wasn't good throughout this whole entire journey, but these past two years dealing with the last two surgeries and then finally getting diagnosed, this was really, really, really complex.
01:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. What were some things that you did to curb your mental, your sanity? What were some things that you did to train your mind into getting back into, as normal as it can get back to it in that sense? A lot of the way that I put myself
01:13:38
Speaker
In a Zen mode, the way I put myself in a desensitation state of mind, I have my best friend Nathaniel that has been a really, really strong support system. I have my two dogs, Winston and William, that have saved my life as well as Nathaniel has saved my life.
01:14:04
Speaker
The way that I get out of the pain now, at least for the past six months, is my medicine.
Coping Mechanisms and Mental Health Journey
01:14:14
Speaker
And then I also have been going to therapy and really have been processing the grieving stage of my past life that I had before my illness because everything's changed now. Everything's different now from the food I put in my body to
01:14:33
Speaker
smoking um the devil's lettuce now you know like i never i never smoked the devil's lettuce before believe it or not and now i'm just like oh i'm such a weed person i never did this before i don't know so it's one of those things where
01:14:52
Speaker
My whole life has changed and it's one of those things that's like saddle up and I hopefully can put myself into re-emission and hopefully it doesn't spread anymore and hopefully there could be a cure one day. I just want to bring awareness to it and bring hope to other people whether they have CRPS or whether they have chronic pain or any other illness. There's always hope. You can never give up.
01:15:22
Speaker
Experience the world's most painful pain. Think the most painful pain you've ever felt. And I had no medicine and I was like, dear God, what's going on? And I survived for almost seven years like that. Wow. That's like, that's insane to think like, I know this better be a fucking movie one day. Yeah, I know. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's it. Like I said, I'm looking. I'm going to look forward to the book. Yeah. There's going to be so much. I'm going to have my doctor.
01:15:51
Speaker
their hockey series. I've had people I actually last year filmed a pilot for the Discovery Channel, I pitched a pilot. Oh, wow. Yeah, I had a producer common. We pitched a
01:16:09
Speaker
A pilot idea and filmed a little bit of it and hopefully in the next six seven weeks Hopefully I film a little more for it There's something there's some stuff coming up in the springtime and I'm excited to announce it soon
01:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. That's awesome. That's like, you know, just like I said, just being able to like, you know, like me as a follower, able to like, you know, the share your experiences and stuff like that. But now like if it's able to like get on a bigger scale and like, you know, millions of people will be able to see it, that'll be, you know, hopefully that brings out more, you know, more obviously more awareness, but at the same time, more people that may have it that, you know, that don't know that they have it.
01:16:53
Speaker
You know, that's one of that's definitely one of the something really personal to me. It's not just the illness. It's not just bringing awareness. It's not just let's find a cure for this. Let's not help others. It's all of that. But one of the main things is I'm not the only one that there's people out there right now that are not diagnosed and I am terrified for them. Yeah, yeah. I want I wanted to like you, you know, you become this like you
01:17:21
Speaker
you know, famous in a sense where like, even like, even if you get back, you know, you get back into wrestling, you become this like famous wrestler, but you still have, you know, you have that story. You have that like, you know, story where, you know, you, you started from here, it got curbed, but then you worked your way back up to get to that, you know, point again. That'll be like, you know, it kind of sucks though, because I didn't want this story. Like everyone, even before the injury, when everyone heard the story about me, like pooping in a cup and like for wrestling, when people found out,
01:17:50
Speaker
I starved for wrestling. I lived out of my vehicle for wrestling. I worked night shift and slept in my vehicle with no air conditioning for wrestling. All my money went to wrestling school. When people find out all this stuff I've done for wrestling, you would think that was the movie. You would think that was the book. Apparently God's like, you are blessed, my child. Be crippled.
01:18:15
Speaker
Let's inspire people, shall we? Why not? I mean, why not? I mean, it's it's it's one of those things where, you know, you are you can be that, you know, inspiration inside and outside. I mean, I don't know when their right mind would have their kid look at me and be like, yeah, be that when you grow up kids. But I mean, obviously, you're going to have allergies out of the asshole. I'm going to like deep throw a Benadryl after this. Jesus Christ. I look like a cocaine addict. Isn't that the one that they put up the nose?
01:18:43
Speaker
I think so, yeah. Honestly, I've seen it in movies, but I swear, just because I do The Devil's Lettuce, I am...
01:18:52
Speaker
not a pro at all. This shit, guys. Oh, yeah. I have never applied like itched my face with a makeup brush on a fucking podcast. Jesus. Edit that out. I know. I definitely I definitely will. If you if you want to. It's fine. I used to. I like to leave stuff unedited. Now, everything else is now it's funny. You brought up Winston. You said your dog seems Winston.
01:19:16
Speaker
What do you do? Okay, so I have allergies, obviously, yay me. I didn't have them my whole life, though. I developed them in my 20s. So I now have to repercussions of it, I guess. So I have to get a hyperallergenic animals. And okay. So I have a Shih Tzu and a Shippu and one's Winston and one's William. Yeah, my, my, my
01:19:42
Speaker
Mother-in-law, my parent, my in-laws, their, well, their dog passed away a few years ago, but his name was Winston as well. Oh, such a sweet name. Named after, he was a conquer spaniel, I believe. Yes. And he was named after Winston Churchill. That's the one with his annual jokes and says that it's a British name and it's named after Winston Churchill, but I swear I didn't do that.
01:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's no, that's how that's that. Well, if he if he if he wants to know, that's where my my in-laws got the name. They literally got it from Winston Churchill. That's that's no other. No other reason why they were just like, no, we love the name Winston Churchill. Yeah, that's that's what I believe that was going to know. Well, my wife, she was going to be if she was going to be a boy, they're going to name her Martin after Martin Luther King, which is kind of funny. So I
01:20:34
Speaker
I have Winston and William, and then if I got two little girls, they would be, I guess, Wilma and Wanda. Oh, okay. Any origins to the name? Did you just love those names? I think I was just sticking with the W theme. Oh, okay. I like that. I need a Benadryl.
01:20:57
Speaker
I have friends that name their kids all the same initial for every single one of their names. Yeah, and my family's weird. They've done that. My family...
01:21:09
Speaker
Let's see. Let's see if I can name them. I know that with me personally, with my sibling, it's Pilar and Paige, and then the peas. And then also our full initials, also Pilar, Raelynn, and then Paige Raeann. Paige Raeann is my middle initials, so that's pretty something that no one knows, so.
01:21:39
Speaker
There we go, guys. So let's see. Let's see. My cousins. So there's Josh, Jeremy, and then there's others like, let's see, Daisha, Devon, Derek,
01:22:00
Speaker
Danessa and Dustin, I think. Oh, no, no, no. I don't even know my cousin's names right now. My nose is itching. I'm tired. I'm self-conscious of itching my nose and talking about it. But I don't know, my family did that, like Caitlin, Cortland, and Cadence. Caitlin, Cortland, and Cadence are... Oh my God.
01:22:20
Speaker
I don't know. It's just my family's weird and they do the initial thing. So yeah, am I making your nose itch or do you, is it your... No, I've been, I've been, I think you, you've been doing it. So you haven't really been noticing me, but I would rub it or wiping my nose because I am. I've never, I've never itched my nose so much on a podcast. I think I'm allergic to you.
01:22:39
Speaker
You might be. I mean, I do that sometimes. I was a very successful with the ladies back in the day. I probably did make them allergic or made them sneeze and kind of run away too. So how long have you been going on this, man? So before I let you go, just another quick question. No, no, no. I'm staying on. Yeah.
01:23:04
Speaker
Besides of wrestling and all that stuff, I always like to ask this question. What are some other, obviously we know the horror stuff, what are some other interests that you like besides cooking, singing, music? What are the things that make you happy? Yeah, before wrestling I was into modeling and I modeled for like,
01:23:30
Speaker
my local communities, like different gigs, like for my local college and stuff. So I was into modeling and then I still am. And then acting, which I'm also going to be in two films this year. So that's pretty exciting. I'm excited to announce those two.
Acting, Modeling, and Graphic Novel Aspirations
01:23:49
Speaker
One's going to be on Tubi.
01:23:50
Speaker
And then the other one I'll announce when I get more information, but we're going to be filming the spring and summer for both. So that's going to be fun. And then I'm not going to announce what I'm going to be doing, but I'm going to be in Philly for WrestleMania and I'm going to be doing stuff there. So get ready for that. But yeah, other than a wrestling, acting, modeling, I've been to
01:24:18
Speaker
bringing awareness to my CRPS. I'm being an advocate for that. Let's see. Yeah, besides my modeling one only fans, you guys can subscribe. I am into fitness and battling my CRPS journey. I'm thinking about writing a book about all this. So that's something I'm into besides reading books. I'm probably will write a book.
01:24:46
Speaker
What else? What else do I like to do? I don't know. I guess I spend so much time in the gym, at my shoot job, bringing awareness to CRPS, love watching movies, Star Wars, I'm such a nerd.
01:25:03
Speaker
What do you what kind of books do you like to read? Okay, growing up, I read some Star Wars books, but and then Harry Potter, and then of course, Twilight, because I was a teenager. But
01:25:21
Speaker
Those were the main ones growing up with Lord of the Rings. I loved that stuff, but definitely Harry Potter was my go-to, and then I loved the science fiction books. Are you a big reader or something? Yeah, that's what I was asking if you really- What genre are you into? Did your school do the book club thing? Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Oh my God, I love that. I could smell it right now.
01:25:47
Speaker
I used to yeah, I used to I was a I was I like bounce between I wasn't really like a Like a fiction person. I was I kind of liked a lot of the like biographies and stuff like that Name one of them
01:26:04
Speaker
Like, let's see. Oh my God. I've read tons of those. I don't know. I mean, I don't think they're really biographies, but like, you know, like I liked, I liked books that were written by like, you know, like a, you know, like a comedian or like a, like, like an actor or something like that. Like I like, like memoirs and shit like that. Yeah. Like, yeah. That, that type of stuff. Like, you know, like George Carlin was like a huge, I was a huge fan of George Carlin. Do you like history memoirs as well? Or just like more modern and then, uh,
01:26:33
Speaker
more more modern. Definitely into sports. Autobiographies as well. I read a lot of sports autobiographies. Interesting. That's so neat. I normally when I come across another book nerd or something, they're into like more like fiction or
01:26:49
Speaker
I like to read about people's lives, especially like sports guys or something I find interesting. For instance, I do have Bo Jackson, who's one of the greatest athletes ever. He has a book out there that I have. I have a lot of the wrestling biographies too. What do you call it? My favorite one is from
01:27:15
Speaker
Shinsuke Nakamura who's still wrestling actually but his book is written like a it's a biography but it's written in interview form which I thought was very interesting so like it's like someone's asking like the someone's asking him quite it's literally the whole books like that it's not like you're reading paragraphs it's literally like his name it's like the the interviewer's name
01:27:37
Speaker
the question. And then he answers and stuff like that. So each chapter is, you know, an interview for which I thought was very, it was very easy. I've never seen that before. I never seen like an interview style, like book like that, like if it was like, you know, like a
01:27:52
Speaker
like a fiction book maybe, but not like a biography where you're like, you know, it's someone like sitting down, like, usually when people sit down and write a book about their lives, like they do have someone to interview them. And then the person takes notes. But like, literally, it seemed like they just took that format, didn't rewrite it and just left it as a, you know, interviewer, you know, question that the person answers throughout the whole book, which I, I, I really loved it. It was, it was very insightful. Yeah.
01:28:20
Speaker
When I was going to my local community college and I was getting my associate's degree and then I was gonna go and continue a theater degree, I...
01:28:29
Speaker
One of my English instructors was into the graphic novels but they're more adult related and I can't remember the different names of the different novels but they were definitely adult content and it was really serious stories and but they were more
01:28:50
Speaker
uh they were graphic novels so like think like a comic book but yes it actually was a full a full freaking story and yeah i was thinking i i've considered when i write the story of my wrestling journey when before my injury and then during my injury and then now what i'm manifesting and starting to do
01:29:13
Speaker
uh now after my entering you know like after my diagnosis um uh i was thinking about having one serious book and then taking it and then making it the serious book also a geographic novel because i have a lot of friends that are really good artists that do my research designs and stuff and i was thinking about doing and making it very adult and and raw and horror related and then people see
01:29:39
Speaker
what CRPS is and what the not pretty side of wrestling. Yeah, definitely. I have a couple of graphic novels. There's one called The Watchmen, and that's also a movie. And then there's a series called Sin City by Frank Miller. He's one of the
01:30:02
Speaker
He's one of the top comic book writers in history. He created a series called Sin City that's more adult oriented. Like you said, it's a comic book. Obviously, it's a graphic novel, but it's a lot of naked bodies and murder and blood and all that stuff. So it's an adult graphic novel, but it's really well written and stuff like that. I think that's actually a really good idea, having a
01:30:27
Speaker
I already came up with my logo and my name wrestling with CRPS so instead of it like wrestling it's more so like it has double meaning obviously I'm a wrestler that has CRPS but also I'm doing wrestling with this illness so that's my that's my whole logo and that's my whole pitch
01:30:51
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Like I said, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more stuff from you when it comes to you. I'm doing it as well. You see me doing it. We're both doing it. I look like a narcissist because I'm itching my nose and there's no makeup on this. I swear I'm not reapplying my makeup, but maybe I am. I don't know.
01:31:15
Speaker
Yeah, don't feel insecure. We're both. We're
Wrestling Memories and Podcast Challenges
01:31:17
Speaker
both doing just noticing. I've never done this on a podcast before. How am I going to take little bits of this and make a tick tock out of this when I'm scratching my nose? And it looks like I'm applying makeup as we're talking about serious shit. I look like a narcissist. You know what? It's something new. It's something new for the people to see.
01:31:37
Speaker
right now. Ask one last question and let's get off this shit. I'm so pissed off at my nose right now. I could sleep on for another hour if it wasn't for my nose.
01:31:46
Speaker
All right, let me see. Let's go with, because you're into acting and stuff like that. What was an inspiration for you to get into acting or who was an inspiration for you to like, was it something that you just seen that you wanted to do? Or was it like an actor or an actress that you've seen that kind of like drew you into that world?
01:32:10
Speaker
I definitely loved Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley in the early 2000s, but when I was younger, it was one of those things where I just organically got into it because my family was religious and at the local, at our church, I was in the plays as an infant. So I was brought up in the local.
01:32:31
Speaker
I was brought up in the local community whenever there was activities like with the sports and with the plays so and then also with the church and then also with the schools so I just organically stumbled into it and then as a little kid watching Turner classic movies on the TV and then seeing all these classic films I was like I want to do this. So I always knew I wanted to be an actor.
01:32:56
Speaker
OK, and one more. I was I was ended with a wrestling question because that's why we know that's what grounds us. Stop laughing at me. I know what this is. I don't know what it's like. Can you can you like, can you say who's laughing at you? It's going to sound like I'm laughing at you. I'm not laughing. I just said they're laughing at me. All right. Everyone's laughing at me because I have allergies.
01:33:23
Speaker
I'm done, I'm over the same for you. If you had to pick a match, like a wrestling match to bring someone, like a dormant wrestling fan back into wrestling, what match would that be? Mike! Mike, what do you mean?
01:33:44
Speaker
like if you like say you had a friend that like you know you guys grew up watching wrestling and then that friend was like hey I'm not watching anymore and then you continued on you're still watching it blah blah blah and then like you know you want to bring that friend back into the fold and you want to like kind of get them excited or let's let's go with this it's someone that's really not familiar with wrestling and they're like man I've never seen the real
01:34:06
Speaker
into wrestling. Yeah, like what match
Reviving Interest in Wrestling: CM Punk Discussion
01:34:08
Speaker
would you show them to like, kind of go, I'm not really into wrestling, but holy crap, that's pretty interesting. I think I'm gonna start watching it. What would that match be for you? It's a hard question. I always, people always say, what the hell? There's so many, there's so many you could pick, but I've heard all the different ones. I don't want to be a stereotype right now. I think I've heard them all. I think I've heard all the typical
01:34:35
Speaker
but I've heard some interesting ones as well. Yeah. Honestly, like if we're doing recent, like honestly, if we're doing something like local right now, I would say anything to do with LNI or CM Punk right now.
01:34:59
Speaker
Okay, I like that. CM Punk. No, you like that? You like that answer? Okay. I like it cause you know, CM Punk. See, my mind went to like, okay, well let's bring up some classic matches. Let's bring up some, let's bring up some Razzle Dazzle with old school matches. But then I was like, no, it's just like, if you want to bring anyone into wrestling right now, just like bring them to the product right now. Like, cause I feel like what's CM Punk's doing, but then also LA Knight's over.
01:35:29
Speaker
You're the first person that's actually said that didn't say a match and actually like said, Hey, watch these people. And then I'll get more gimmick related. I'm more promo related and I'm more storytelling related as opposed to the matches. Like I'm, don't get me wrong. I mean, let's do the grappling and the matches and the, but some people can get lost in the spots. I feel.
01:35:50
Speaker
Yeah. I'll be honest. CM pumps, the one that brought me, I mean, I left wrestling like early 2000s, um, after like pretty much stone cold and the rock left, um, in CM pumps, the one that actually brought me back into watching wrestling again, just because he was, he looked different. He spoke different. He didn't look like, he didn't look like anybody. He wasn't this like big muscular guy or anything like that. He had tattoos kind of greasy hair. Just like, just like a noble dude that you like see.
01:36:17
Speaker
He wasn't the rock. He wasn't John Cena. So it's like, who is this guy? So that's, he wasn't yelling to him. Yeah. He didn't yell at his promos. He spoke just regular and he got his point across as, as efficient as someone that was yelling on the microphone. But
Conclusion: Future Collaboration and Humor
01:36:32
Speaker
definitely love that answer. But let's, uh, like I said, let's end this. This was, uh, this was awesome. Like I said, this was everything I expected and more with this, with this interview. I like you. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I said at the beginning, you're an amazing individual. Oh, thank you.
01:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, I wish my nose wouldn't stop itching. I wipe off all my makeup. I just, I was just in this and then we'll do another one and I'll take a Benadryl before or something. Oh no, definitely not. I definitely gotta have you on again. This is a, if you had, that's if you would, you know, want to be on again. That's the other, I can't say that sort of thing. Yeah, of course. No, you're completely professional and it's fun. And yeah, I definitely will come back on and DM Nathaniel and he'll come on too.
01:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. If he's willing to, maybe I'll have them both on at the same time. You can kind of talk about what you guys get going on and stuff like that. We'll kind of regroup. Maybe after WrestleMania, we'll regroup and see how everything's changed and find out actually what you did during that time. But yeah, thank you for coming on here. Like I said, it was a pleasure. Thank you for sharing your story. And just thank you for being you. Aw, thank you.
01:37:40
Speaker
I appreciate you. Thank you for being professional. And I really appreciate you letting me come on and talk about my illness and scratch my nose for an hour. Yeah. That's totally fine. You gave me some work to do. You gave me some editing work to do. I'm going to try my best. I'm joking. But we'll talk to everybody soon. All right. Bye, guys. I'm a hot mess.