keskiviikko 2. syyskuuta 2015

Making it on a bad day



Before the bout that took place at Snacky Slam Sörnäinen 29.8.2015 I said to StarBuck that over the years I've learned many things; having watched him in the spotlight I know everything he can do while he doesn't have a clue what I'm capable of. I was wrong.

Next stop: dark side of the moon.

To begin with, it wasn't a perfect day for me. It was difficult to get the energy flowing, difficult to find the emotion when I first stepped out to greet the audience and difficult to sharpen my perception when I started forming a game plan. I guess it happens time to time, just had to believe in the routine that I already have and tell myself I'll know what to do when the moment comes. Second, the fact that I kept having problems with getting the upper hand on the mat made me think StarBuck's been paying attention on the trips to Japan; since my comeback I've been known as the ground fighting specialist in FCF, but in Sörnäinen he was definitely faster and more agile than I expected, so all in all it wasn't a day I would have chosen to face someone on his level.

We started the match by scouting each other as usual. You want to hit the opponent like an express train, but to do so you have to know where you're going; you need the rails. After a couple of minutes I'd gotten confident enough to try one of my Lancashire-style takedowns. It felt almost too easy so it actually threw me off balance for a fraction of a second, but I decided to go on - only to find out I had walked straight into a trap set by StarBuck as he tipped me over by using my own hold for leverage. The next thing I knew I was Gerard Gordeau in the end of his UFC final so I had no other option but to grab the rope.
 
They didn't call me La Freccia Distruttice for nothing.

A bit later, when I was trying to counter some of StarBuck's techinques I'm very familiar with, he suddenly had me in a Boston crab in a manner so effortless it surprised even me - like I said, my mind wasn't working the way it should. The good part was he couldn't finish the match with the hold though he did put me through some serious suffering while aiming at it. And after a minute or so it was StarBuck's turn to reach for the ropes; I managed to escape his chinlock and twist his arm behind his back, which not only forced him to hit the apron but to leave the ring. It's psychologically a situation most uneasy when you supress someone, then you do it again and you think you're going to keep doing it, only to end up having your own face shoved to the ground. That's when you want to pull back and rearrange, see what's coming.

It had been warming up for both of us up to this point, which meant it was time to move on, and then came the strikes. In many previous cases of wrestling StarBuck it has been my intention to take the brawler off his feet; hadn't worked on the occasion so I decided to go Chuan Fa. I did have my moments but couldn't really maintain my offence when it came to that, in the tactical sense of the match, whereas StarBuck appeared to know exactly what to do. It felt like he kept breaking pieces from me to eventually cause a collapse, and here lies the importance of my own teaching about having a pyramid-like structure: it cannot be felled with a battering ram. An individual who doesn't comprehend the essence of proper strategy is like a house of cards; lose one piece and immediately head for destruction.
 
Pushing with foot to maximize energy.

For my part the rest of the match was a test of endurance rather than one of prowess. Since I couldn't keep slamming/dropkicking/top rope-head butting StarBuck like it would pop the wax out of his ear canals, I chose to base my offence on technical pin attempts instead. The moves may not seem that dangerous in the eyes of a spectator, but the thing is that every time a person needs to kick out he/she loses a significant amount of energy, not to mention it also increases the knowledge of both parties about the match almost having ended, a matter of seconds. The lesson of the story is this: if you can't hit the guy with a baseball bat, sting him with a needle. As long as you have the strength to keep going and the grit to try to do something - anything - stuff can happen. The opponent may make a stupid mistake, a twist of fate might take place; to me it was neither of those but an opportunity which said "never underestimate the potential of backslide".

At Snacky Slam StarBuck was, without question, more aggressive than me, not to say there was any anger or rage but the will to move straight forward. I, on the other hand, seemed more determined that time. Then again, when there's determination, there's aggression. I understood this after coming back to pro wrestling in 2012, realizing that in the earlier days I had been seeking ways to satisfy people so to speak; I would tend to wonder what the audience's expectations might be, or what sort of vision the promotion might have about the event at hand and so on. Far better than that is to be your own man, ignore the pleas from the outside and grant yourself the freedom to wield your personal power. Only stepping forth from behind the bars of pleasing others allows you to fulfill your destiny, it´s preferable for one to keep in mind it won't always be a pretty sight though. Mishima: "When a captive lion steps out of his cage, he comes into a wider world than the lion who has known only the wilds. While he was in captivity, there were only two worlds for him - the world of the cage, and the world outside the cage. Now he is free. He roars. He attacks people. He eats them. Yet he is not satisfied, for there is no third world that is neither the world of the cage nor the world outside the cage."

Photos by Marko Simonen.