For more than a year, my body had been put on the line numerous times training for the moment in which it would be put on the line for real. This time would be in a more serious atmosphere. From the many times I ran drills between the ring ropes, to the many bumps taken on my back practicing powerbombs, and even on motivating and working a crowd I had yet to perform in front of. I felt that if I was ever going to showcase the skills I’ve accumulated over the past year as a professional wrestler, then it would need to come soon.

​

To be called for a wrestling event felt like being drafted to the NFL for my 21-year-old brain when I was told by my coach that I had been offered to be a part of a tag team match in an El Paso Lucha Libre event called Fight on the Star. I would be lying if I said I thought I was more than ready at that moment to finally have a match. I was as much of a beginner as a kid at a poker table. I only dreamed of wrestling in front of a crowd. These dreams consisted of a large pile of other wrestling hopes, such as me winning a world title at Wrestlemania.

​

As much as I wanted these dreams to come to fruition, my nervousness and my own ego tried to talk me out of it. I thought I should skip it and train some more. I even thought that I felt more like a singles competitor, not a tag team competitor. I never trained as a tag team partner, so how would I be able to compete like one? The reasons to not take the match piled up higher and higher, and I almost let it overshadow me. However, after talking to my coach after another grueling day in the ring training, he told me what I needed to hear in the moment. He told me not only that I should take the match, but he also gave me proper advice:

​

“It’s better to take a chance at success or failure than to never take a chance at all.”

​

It was there in that practice ring, two weeks before Fight on the Star, that I agreed and took a chance on having my first ever match in a real wrestling event in El Paso.

​

Fast forward to the day of the event, and I have spent more time in the toilet than in the general locker room chatting it up with some of the other experienced performers. Men and women who have been in the sport from a range of a couple years to even decades surrounded that room. People have killed to have the opportunities that I had. Just to talk to any one of these guys would have been more than beneficial, and I felt like a selfish prick using all that time voiding my nervous bowels. I was told earlier that my match was the second to last on the card and it would be between myself, and another wrestler named El Skybird versus the tag team known as Los Chicanos. Los Chicanos was a team I had kept my eye on as I viewed them as a fan attending past wrestling shows, and I was a fan of their high flying moves and classic Lucha Libre aesthetic. To know I would be facing them only added to my nervousness.

​

After a good while in the bathroom, I finally worked up the courage to introduce myself to my tag partner. Skybird was a physically toned man who reached my height of 6’4”. He wore light blue tights that matched his light blue luchador mask. He was stretching his arms in the locker room and my immediate thought was that he wouldn’t want to even be bothered to talk to the novice he would be tagging with, let alone work with. These worries evaporated the minute he stuck his hand out to shake mine along with a gleaming smile after greeting me. At that moment, I wasn’t talking to just an experienced wrestler with a couple of notches on his belt, but rather I was talking to a guy who was actually excited to be working with a kid who was having his first match.

​

Our initial conversation of general greetings and excitement over our match quickly switched to our ideas for what we wanted to work on tonight in our match. Soon after, we were met with our very own opponents, Los Chicanos, who greeted Skybird as an old friend, and greeted me as a new guy on board. Talking with these guys about what kind of fight we were going to have felt ironically exciting, regardless of the amount of pain we were going to subject ourselves to. They wanted to keep up their heel gimmick, meaning they wanted to be the villains of the match. Meanwhile, Skybird and I played the gimmick of the baby face, or good guys. After a solid few minutes of conversing, planning, and hyping each other up, we made our way to the entrance curtain. It was time.

​

I was going to be introduced to the wrestling world and, I didn’t know if I fit in at all. In a building full of toned and flexible men with six-packs wearing lucha libre masks and bright colored tights who were used to doing flips and tricks in the ring, I was a big white guy who was more of a powerhouse wearing black jeans with wrestling boots, a black tank top, and had athletic wraps around my arms and wrists. I didn’t have a gimmick. I didn’t have a character. I didn’t have a persona to drive on. I was just me. I was a metalhead from El Paso, Texas who barely knew what he was doing except wanting to fulfill a pipe dream of being a professional wrestler, even if it was just for one night. As I stood behind the curtain waiting to make my entrance, I thought of all the greats who I grew up watching on TV when they made their debuts. Legends like Randy Orton, CM Punk, Roman Reigns, and my personal hero, John Cena. I kept telling myself that they all started from somewhere before they became great, just like me. They could do it, and they made it big even when no one knew who they were. They made their moment, and this was mine.

​

Los Chicanos made their entrance first, followed by El Skybird. There was a moment before I went out. It was silent. I closed my eyes and told myself, This is the moment 7-year-old You wanted to make happen. Don’t disappoint him. That’s when "Back in the Game" by Airbourne started playing in the speakers and the ring announcer spoke:

​

“And his partner, making his debut tonight! From El Paso, Texas, weighing in at 285 pounds, Nick Bowman!”

​

I blasted through the curtain and went from being a shy and nervous kid to being an energetic and crowd-hyping fighter ready to take on the world in the middle of the ring that stood ahead of me. At that moment, all the worry in the world faded away. I was no longer Nick Bowman the student, the manager, or the writer. I was Nick Bowman the wrestler.

​

From the minute the bell rang, all four of us engaged in a match that was both physical and exciting. Los Chicanos showed off their team dynamic with their special team attack set that involved them attacking Skybird and I with moves that sent us in and out of the ring. Skybird came back at them with his jaw dropping maneuvers off the top ropes and many superkicks he gave to both of our opponents. In the moments I stepped in and I felt clumsy, yet confident. I came at them with the power of a linebacker. My punches were as wide as they were hard. I was a heavy lifter in the ring, and my power showcased that. At some point, I even almost caused my own career ending injury when I landed on my neck as I was being piledrived on the side apron of the ring. For a moment, I thought my neck was broken. One of the Chicanos and the referee whispered to me to make sure I was okay while I was on the ground outside the ring. I don’t know if it was the adrenaline or my own sense of high pain tolerance, but I got up at only a moment’s notice and continued the match.

​

The match went on every way I could have wanted it. It was exciting, physical, exhilarating, and fun. I even tested out my new finisher: a swift punch to the jaw I called the “Bow and Arrow.” The crowd loved it. I even got them to chant my name trying to inspire me to go on and win. In the end, Los Chicanos won the match after performing a somersault jump on me off the top rope and pinning me for the 3-count by the referee. With their hands raised as the victors, Skybird and I walked away to the curtain with our arms over each other’s shoulders as the defeated, yet also being clapped out by the crowd who gained a newfound discovery of respect for an experienced wrestler and a new and aspiring wrestler.

​

Back in the locker room, I finally felt the full force of the pain in my neck after the hard knock. Both Chicanos patted my back and offered their respect towards me for a great match. Skybird acknowledged the same. I felt like a star. Of all the names in the hall of fame of wrestling and the legends that came from it, I felt like I was one of them.

​

I was paid $120 that night, but I would’ve done it for free. No amount of money in the world would have filled me up with the same amount of gratitude and happiness I experienced that night. It wasn’t just a great night for me. It was a night for that 7-year-old kid who sat on his bed with a WWE bed comforter, surrounded by wrestling action figures, styrofoam title belts walls covered with posters of his favorite wrestlers. All while watching wrestling every day of the week hoping that even if it was just for one moment, he could be a wrestler just like his heroes.

​

The tears I cried in that locker room were for that little boy. His dreams came true.