Notorious Notes – Chapter 22: Canceled

By
Nick Radford

Notorious Notes – Chapter 22: Canceled

Dearest readers, friends, colleagues, and everybody else – things are absolutely crazy right now. Wrestling shows as far out as two months (as of this writing) are being canceled. WrestleMania will be held with no audience and inside (essentially) a warehouse, and don’t even get me started on the real-world implications of businesses shutting down and people losing their jobs. It’s all a very bleak picture to be painting. So what can we be doing during this downtime? How can we be utilizing our time while we quarantine and wait for this to “all blow over”?

A lot of performers have turned to the internet as a way of coping and/or staying relevant.

Funny skits, OnlyFans account, Twitch, and pimping out their merch like it’s going out of style. There is a LOT going on but I cannot speak for other wrestlers. I cannot speak for other people who may have lost their jobs. I can only speak for myself. So as a part of how I am coping during this time of crisis, I will write this blog and share my story and my experience with this whole thing, in hopes that it may provide even a morsel of relief from how your brain may be processing all this.

As a side note, before we begin, I know there is a LOT of other wrestling-related stuff that happened before the COVID-19 scare began, specifically in the PNW. However, I don’t think that now is the time to be addressing all of that. Maybe sometime in the future we can talk about the things that happened and process them together. However, in a time of pandemic emergency, I would rather look at the big picture, I would avoid spreading more anxiety and stress to you – my faithful reader, and to my peers.

Since there’s no wrestling enjoy more pics of my cat, Poutine!

My experience is similar to a lot of other wrestlers.

I was scheduled to have a match for Pacific Pro Wrestling (PPW) in Abbotsford, BC on Saturday, March 14. I was excited to wrestle in Canada Land again, as it had been some time since my last Canadian bout. But with all the closures and bans that started happening in the week leading up to the show, concerns started to grow. I and other American wrestlers who were booked on the show discussed what might happen if the border gets shut down and decided to make a judgment call the Friday before the show, but we didn’t even get that far.

On Thursday, March 12, the promoter of PPW Danni Deeds, contacted all who were on the show and informed us that he would have to cancel the show due to regulations around public gatherings. Now, let me pause here to discuss how much of an awesome guy Danni Deeds is. Since I started wrestling, Danni Deeds has been one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met both in and out of wrestling.

He cares so much for everybody around him and for wrestling.

In general, he pours his whole heart into the shows that he runs so that the people in the area have places to work. He does this so the fans have an option when it comes to what shows to attend. Deeds doesn’t get enough credit or attention for the amount of much-needed positive energy he injects into the PNW wrestling scene, so the least I can do is give him a shout out here. I know that having to cancel the PPW show was probably one of the hardest things Deeds has had to do during his wrestling career, but I respect him for assessing the situation and making the right call for everyone’s safety.

After those first initial cancellations, it was just like a snowball effect. Shows through the end of March started to be canceled. Company after company announced show cancellations or postponements. There were some holdouts who tried to figure out ways to still have a show but in the end, even they had to call it. Then after the weekend, shows all the way through April started dropping like flies.

Mania weekend indie shows pulled out until the only thing that was still going to happen that weekend WAS Mania, but even WWE had to pull out eventually. And not just shows either, I am unable to train in a ring for the foreseeable future due to health concerns. Again, this is the right call but a MAJOR shift. Now we are seeing gyms close, so your boy is just over here playing Ring Fit Adventure on the Nintendo Switch every day, which is actually kind of nice because the gamification of working out keeps me interested.

canceled
Winnie the Pooh-tine

But here I am now – no bookings until May and even those shows are in jeopardy, I am quarantined and I’m trying to figure out what to do with my time.

I decided to open myself to a creative challenge and I am now offering commissioned Erotic Fanfiction Poetry through PayPal or Venmo ($5 for just the poem, $10 for the poem and an audio recording of me reading it) and that has gone pretty well. It hasn’t been canceled.

I’ve also written a few PSA poems about the importance of social distancing and washing one’s hands that I have been releasing via social media. AND I’m working on laying the groundwork to start releasing all of my poems (past and future) in the podcast format, but I will delve deep into that when I actually have something to announce, for now, I am just prepping. 

Thank you for listening to my story, it was therapeutic to run through it with y’all.

And if you feel the need to share yours, don’t hesitate to reach out here or on social media. We’re all in this together and it’s not easy for ANYBODY, so please be kind to each other and reach out to your friends (not physically, please) to check on them or just talk about how you’re doing. Please ensure those friendships don’t get canceled.

The world is your burrito!

Upcoming Dates:
  • I’m just not gonna promote anything until I know for sure it won’t get canceled.
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