1. Know When To Go Home
This isn't about knowing when to execute a finishing maneuver or hold in a match. It's about the points when I should have quit the professional wrestling industry. The first pang of "what else can I do, and the butterflies are going to get no bigger than this" came after my sometime trainer, often road partner, and most unlikely of (both positive and negative) life coaches, the "Hardcore Chair Swinging Freak" Axl Rotten (and his partner Balls Mahoney), closed a Velocity Pro Wrestling show at the ECW Arena with Axl giving me a chairshot to the head, and Balls literally flattening me with a chairshot to the back. There's nothing more crazy, ridiculous and/or absurd that I've ever done in life than prepare for those two chairshots. First, there's driving up to the show and thinking about getting hit, and psyching yourself up for the idea that "whatever happens is going to happen," be that bleeding, broken bones or a terrible concussion. There's that "getting indoctrinated into the brotherhood of the business" toughness, too, that "hell, this is what my heroes did, and this is what I will do, too." Of course, there's the idea that I had a girlfriend at home who had told me that if I ever took a chairshot that she was going to dump me on the spot. That "wrestling sickness" that Roddy Piper speaks of takes over then, and you're basically like, "f**k her, she doesn't understand what this chairshot will do for my career!" The chairshot to the back hurt more than the one to the head, at least I thought until I learned otherwise from listening to ex-WWE performer (and current concussion protection advocate) Chris Nowinski discuss concussions. Though I had earned my (thankfully not so red) badge of courage, and ultimately remained in a then very strained relationship for another two years (leading to a breakup), wagering all of that on two potentially very damaging moments (and "winning") should have been the end. The real end was a whole lot worse. In 2012, I was getting more heat and being of more use to a professional wrestling organization that I had ever been in my entire career. I wasn't just a manager anymore. I felt like I wasn't just managing "Mempho Mofo" Mark Bravura as champion, but I was a key storytelling fulcrum point in the promotion, too. I was operating as a sort of "Wizard of Oz" in Fusion Wrestling. I had imparted some in-ring brains upon A1, had given heart to the eventual team that unseat A1 as Fusion's tag champs - two of my real-life best friends Stephon (now OVW's Stephon J. Baxter III) and Larry (independent wrestler Jael Rose), and had given dome in-ring courage to young wrestlers Ryan Zane and Big MC 123. Not gonna lie, I felt pretty goddamned great (read "quietly arrogant"), and at some point, the butterflies you're supposed to feel when the music hits and you enter from the curtain, well they began to die. At that point, my career began to die, too. Compounding that, my career working in and around music (my OTHER lifelong passion) really took off for me. I was the Executive Director at Washington, DC's longest-standing recording studio, and as well was growing as a music journalist. As well, social media consulting was going well, too. Taking a weekend to go to a wrestling show in the midst of all of that started off at first as being a respite, but as my success grew, it was a burden. If there was a choice in my mind to remember what the cut-off was after the double down where I needed to pop up on the ring apron and glom the babyface with the strap for the DQ, or to know if Dillon Francis' latest moombahton track was coming out in two weeks or three weeks, my mind definitely didn't seem to think wrestling was so important anymore. My body was willing, but my mind was gone. At that point, the butterflies died, and well, when I realized that the Mofo and A1 were about to head into War Games, and that, yeah, once again, "the manager was the finish," I probably should've thought to call out sick and quit on the spot. I still have no idea what Mark told me to do, and it's probably because I no longer cared. I still don't remember the finish, the highspots, the crowd response, or anything else. My last true memory of nine years of being an active participant in the professional wrestling industry was watching men sweating in a cage in an elementary school gym. No, this wasn't "Fusion Wrestling's Fight Before Christmas." It was watching five husbands of six children who were my friends. The gimmicks dropped away, the heat dropped away, the ring dropped away, the promotion dropped away, and then I...dropped...away. The biggest lesson I learned from wrestling? Know when to go home. Because nothing good has ever come from over-staying your welcome.