The former Sterling James Keenan retired from in-ring competition last December due to post-concussion syndrome, after a fourteen year career as a wrestler. Tragically, hed only just made it to the big time too, signing a developmental contract with WWE and joining the then FCW in August 2011. Fortunately for the real life Matthew Polinsky, hes a charismatic guy with a bones-deep love of the business and the gift of the gab. As the colour commentator for NXT, hes really something special: on-point, relevant and genuinely funny. Hes also the host for the Networks Culture Shock mini-show, as well as other online content like Superstar Ink, in which he harrasses WWE superstars about the deeper meaning of their tattoos, and they try and figure out how to rephrase I like lions so that they sound interesting and culturally attuned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HfZLQxPy6w Its no great surprise that Graves is into punk culture - his look is a dead giveaway. With tattoos throat to toes and a shaved and quiffed hairstyle, he could be the frontman of a psychobilly band. He was first tattooed at the age of fifteen when his parents had to sign a permission slip for him to have a giant cross scratched into his leg. Since then hes branched out, with his left sleeve a Japanese theme, all geisha girls, koi and samurai imagery, and the other arm far more traditionally punk, crowned by the bloody masked face of a pulverised luchador writ large across his right shoulder. Hes also got STAY DOWN inked across his knuckles, which seems to have seriously put people off him in the past for some reason... but then people can be precious about tattoos. The neck/throat and knuckle ink, in particular, seem to rile people up. Theyre referred to as jobstoppers in the trade, because the minute you get them, youre stepping outside of the traditional working world: theyre a lifestyle choice, precisely because so many people have negative preconceptions about people with ink above the collar or below the cuff. Polinsky is legit, though: just like many of the rest of us, Operation Ivy and Rancid are personal touchstones for the man, but hes also into AFI, Dropkick Murphys and Slayer, to name only a few of many. In the old days, he worked event security for bands across the Pittsburgh area, and has worked in and around tattoo studios since he was a teenager - hes a qualified body piercer, and made a living out of it while he was wrestling the indies for chump change. Embarrassingly, although one of the tattoos on his right arm - one of his favourites - reads pretty girls make graves, he wasnt aware until some time later that this was the name of a post-punk band, themselves named after a Smiths song, itself named after a quote from Kerouacs novel The Dharma Bums but then we said he was punk, not a pop culture magpie.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
