It’s 5:45 AM, the coffee machine is broken, it’s my 10th straight day at work, and I’ve seen far more buttholes than I originally planned this week (my normal expectancy for strange buttholes at work is zero, btw). As I sit, drinking my grounds-filled coffee, I tried to self-percolate through a Keurig pod with a pinhole that I MacGuyver’d. I think to myself…. SELF…. What will we write about this week!? (Cue the badass “Blood from a Stone” montage piece and theme music provided by the amazing people here!) When last we saw our hero, he had recently vanquished his nemesis Jack Pride and was on his way to Battle the ROH world champion Matt Taven! MATT FREAKIN TAVEN!
*Random voice whispers* “Dylon, Do you even know who Matt Taven is?”
Dylon: That’s not the damn point, Mr. Random whisperer!
To be completely honest, I didn’t know much of anything about Taven. He had (as of this writing) only 21 days prior captured the ROH World title from Jay lethal; BUT, make no mistake, that doesn’t mean this man came out of nowhere. Prior to this Taven Main evented CMLL’s 85th Anniversary show (CMLL’s Wrestlemania), Fought for the ROH title at ROH’s 17th Anniversary show, and 21 days ago, Taven main evented the NJPW/ROH G1 Supershow in Madison Square Garden in front of 16000 people to win the ROH Title.
Matt Taven & I
The real issue is, I’m a horrible wrestling fan. I admit it; I’m a horrible fan of the sport. I don’t watch Raw, Smackdown, NXT, NXT UK, 205 LIVE, ROH, NJPW, IMPACT, CMLL, AAA…*pant pant*… *Takes deep breathe*. AEW, NWA, IPW, RevPro, Defiance, AJPW, NOAH, MLW, CZW, DDT
You get the point. There is so much content out there that it is impossible to stay up to date with everything. So I don’t; I have a hard enough time keeping up with my PokemonGo updates. So in doing my due diligence, I decided I need to educate myself and watch some game tape on Taven. Because even if I don’t watch much product, it would be irresponsible for me to go into a match of this magnitude without at least understanding a man’s moveset, Onward to youtube!!
As I begin to check youtube, I begin to realize, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! I don’t mean there’s only a couple of matches… I mean ZIP, NADDA, ZILTCH, GOOSE EGG! How could this be? Vimeo, Daily motion? Literally, one single match against Ultimo Guerrero from 2015…. ROH has his tapes locked down “tighter than a m*********** gangsta beat”.
Going through this article, I think to myself, “why don’t I watch wrestling more”? Was it the explosion of MMA? Did I sour on the product/performers? Did I reject the move to 3 hours Raw?…. I’ve searched the databanks of my brain, and I’ve finally figured it out… It’s literally my job. I started as a paramedic for this ambulance 8 years ago next month (what have I done with my life). My shift is 6 am-6 pm, but if we get any calls, then we have to be ready on standby to be the second ambulance to go. So more realistically, I work 24 hours a day, and the only times I could sneak off to the gym are between 7-9 pm.
Drifted away…
What shows happens to be on at that time on Monday magically and (whatever night SmackDown is on now)? So I slowly but surely drifted away, much like we all do. Life gets in the way; you have a rec league hockey team, you gotta spend time with your significant other, gotta help the kids study 6th grade science (I’ll have you know I still remember Bernoulli’s principle….. Suck it, Trebek!). Life moves forward whether we follow it or not.
I still love pro wrestling, but as you grow as a person, so do your horizons. I will always love wrestling, but I am much more than just a wrestler andI train in the Filipino martial art of Gan Soo Do, continue to expand my skills as a fire medic (got a sweet high angle rope rescue court next month ? ), and occasionally I can sift through the hellhole that is Tinder long enough to find a woman that can muster more than just “Yaaaaas, Bae on fleek”…. But…. BUT!….. Occasionally I do get enough time to write this column.
