Ep 04. Double Knees

 

The only thing I can say to explain is that it’s comedy wrestling is that it’s wrestling, but…

The style that I do, and the style that does, we shine as professional wrestlers by making you laugh as an audience.

So I would rather stamping their toes, poke their eyes, spike their ass.

We use wrestling as our platform.

Really, my wrestling style is quite unique.

That’s our outlet for comedy.

When I was twelve years old I came across a wrestler called “The Rock”, and ever since then I became absolutely obsessed with wrestling. Obsessed. I used to get tapes sent over from the US, from Japan, from all over the world. The one wrestler that always stood out in my mind was Cabana.

I’ve been a professional  wrestler since I was 18 years old.

[Announcers]

Cabana, making his way to his feet

I was in the WWE for two years.

I went to my first wrestling […] session in June the 6th 2002.

But I’ve made my most success on the independent underground alternative wrestling scene.

I’ve done my first show in 2004 but I was the worst wrestler on the planet.

I’m known as one of the better comedy wrestlers in the world, I hope to say. So there’s a couple of stories. Now he has a story that I don’t remember but he’s tell it every single day. In 2004 when I wrestled in Kilmarnock, Scotland…

Kilmarnock, Scotland, which is down the road for me.

[Together]

He/I was 14 years old

And he must have been about 26.

I was about 24 years old, I was traveling around the UK

I’d seen a poster in the street, and I was like: “Holy Shit, Cabana is coming to Kilmarnock? That’s fucked up!”

I was the first time I had ever really been over to the UK for a long amount of time.

It’s so small and so intimate that I knew I would probably get to bump into him at the end of the show.

Honestly it wasn’t even an audience, I was so out of my element at that point.

So we went, and of course I was the only guy in a coat that recognized him.

He tells me that he came up to me and told me I was his favorite wrestler of all time.

I really looked up to him, I seen him as one of my heroes. I got my picture with him, I got to speak to him after the show.

He started strutting around and imitating me, and mimicking me.

When he came out and when he was done his dance, I danced and there were all these merfs that would shout: “double knees! double knees!

When he says that I vaguely if I do at all remember it, I laughed at him and I kind of shrugged it off and I moved on to the next person.

I think he liked it.

I thought was a goofball, this kid was.

Looking back he probably thought I was a pain in the ass, but at the time I thought he loved me.

To me he was just a crazy Scottish person. I just assumed all the Scottish kids were just weird and crazy and just like this.

I was just a fat young wrestling fan willing to spend my hard earned pocket money on Cabana merchandise and shake his hand.

And later we find out that, that was just the young .

I just wanted to wrestle him so much.

That was apparently the first meeting of myself and .

It’s only really in the last couple of years that I’ve learnt to wrestle, ever since I’ve managed to get exposure on youtube.

was kind of an enigma because even though I’d wrestled in the UK, probably forty times, I had never heard of until this vice documentary popped up.

He seen me in a documentary, “The British Wrestler”

I was drawn to the documentary in such an amazing way because he organically got the whole wrestling community of Scotland to will him onto these shows even though he wasn’t the giant wrestling star that there was at the time. Weirdly I felt he was literally saying to me: “Hi , I’m , here’s a documentary for me to specifically introduce myself to you, and we’re going to be great friends”. I felt that’s what the documentary was saying, I really did. I tweeted that was my new favorite wrestler, or maybe I said hi to , I said something to .

And then he started following me on twitter, and I thought it was the best thing ever.

He had only been in it a couple of years and that point I had been wrestling probably fifteen years or something like that.

I just knew him as a fan before.

He probably told me right away on twitter that he wanted to make some kind of bond.

Just because he’s a comedy wrestler, and I’m a comedy wrestler, I just thought we’d create magic.

He’s not really getting flown around the world, he’s just located in Scotland at that point.

So it was very nerve wracking but I was excited as well because I just wanted to wrestle.

We would talk now and then on twitter.

We were friends online for quite a while, until he came over to wrestle that first time.

Let’s see… I was doing the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and it’s the largest arts and comedy festival in the world, I was going to be wrestling for this wrestling company in Scotland called

[Together]

ICW

Is the company that I wrestle for, I was going to do a show at the Edinburgh festival.

And that’s where lives.

So then as soon as I realize that me and Cabana were going to be at the same place at the same time, then I knew that as soon as I had an opportunity to meet him.

All of these things came together at once.

He contacted me just before he was flying from New York to Edinburgh, to see if I would pick him up at the airport, and then as soon as he arrived at the Edinburgh airport I was there waiting.

 

I land off the plane, I’m very tired, and I start walking all of my giant bags, and I’ve got my headphones on, and I’m tired, and sweaty.

And he came through the doors at the arrivals, I was there with some gifts.

He pops out with a sign.

I had a sign that said ” Cabana, at your service”.

He’s dressed in a wrestling singlet.

I was wearing my wrestling gear because you never know when you need to wrestle.

You have a giant man’s onesie.

He just looks quite puzzled, like he doesn’t know what’s happening.

He hugs me, and he presents me with ‘Iron Brew’ and a kilt.

I had a cowboy hat.

Scottish pancakes, and we go over this whole thing, and we go out to his car, which he had made a sign out of

[Together]

and Shaving cream/foam

So that I could spray paint my car to say “Welcome ”.

It said “I love ”.

Welcome , Star of David.

No one said anything. There was no police, or security, or anything. It was just another day in Scotland. It was a real celebration, this was the first meeting.

Just to make him feel at home, his now second home, which is Scotland. We actually had never met each other before apart from that time that I was a fan in 2004.

And we got along so well that it continued throughout the whole festival and I think our bond probably grew a lot stronger when we wrestled each other in front of about 1500 people.

It was very very nerve-wracking, because he’s such a superstar you know?

I believe this was his first big match with an international star.

Like I loved him so much, and to get the chance to wrestle him was amazing. There was an absolute buzz, I was buzzing.

I know that there was a lot of pressure for him.

I was nervous because I wasn’t really that confident in my wrestling abilities at the time.

will admit to you himself that he’s probably not the best in ring professional wrestler.

Honestly I was so scared, I was a scared little fuck.

He’ll say; “I’ll shit myself”.

I couldn’t contain my nerves, I was fucking shitting myself.

He’ll say that over and over again.

I was shitting myself.

He kept on shitting himself.

He’s such a big superstar, and I was just a shitty Scottish guy, but he calmed me down and was like: “Look, you need to stop worrying.”

I wanted to be able to take those years of experience that I had had at that point, where it looks like we both come out at stars.

He was like: “It’ll be fine.”

I think I said to him, before we went out, “Hey!”

“You just need to enjoy yourself.”

And then we walk out into this giant crowd.

He made his entrance, and the whole crowd was chanting : ” Cabana, ask yourself”. I made my entrance, the place was on fire, crowd was going nuts.

[Announcers]

Say hello, here is oooo. Grad has […] after Cabana, calling him his inspiration, but you know something, some say you should never meet your heroes. Oh! shoulder tackle, both men still vertical but felt the full effect of that. Oooooh! This just got serious! One more time here we go! Stunner! We’ve never seen that […] wins! wins! just pelt Cabana.

I won the match, I beat him.

Yeah, he won, he was the big winner.

I won. I managed to do a move to him and then I went an pulled his head back and poured iron brew down on his face, he hated it, and it was spewing everywhere, and I was fucking laughing in front of 1500 people, it was nuts.

And they loved it.

It was a good nuts. I beat him 1,2,3, in front of the round.

I think our bond really grew from that, from that point, leading to the present time.

Never in a million years did I think that I’d get a chance to wrestle,  but it just shows you if you keep believing, just tell yourself, say your prayers, take your vitamins, don’t eat as much chocolate as you should, be nice to people and probably one day your dreams will come true, that’s what happened with me, my dreams came true and I managed to wrestle Cabana.

I’ve been there now four years in a row, and every year we do stuff with ICW, and I do stuff with , and we wrestle with each other, one year we tagged the whole summer and we were the ICW tag champs, as the Iron Jew, that was our wrestling name.

Twelve years ago I was such a big fan, and now I can text him whenever I want.

He’ll always send me pictures of him just drunk and fucked up.

He’s a friend now, a good good friend,

I almost saw him as a little baby brother before I even met the guy.

He’s cool, man, he’s cool as shit.