Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2017 23:03:33 GMT -5
Me name is Eavan Maloney. I ain’t a superhero, I can’t fly. I didn’t come from a faraway planet, or come from murdered parents or none of that. I’m just a lass who had a dream, and is getting t’live it. I’m a professional rassler, a Steampunk Warrior, and I’m here t’make a name in CWC.
I was born in New York City on October 24th, 1991; the third, and last, of the Maloney Clan. I was a standard baby, nothing extraordinary. No wait, that wouldn’t be true, I was born with a hole in me heart. Thankfully nothing that required much in the way of surgery, I had one at the age of two and me ticker has been good t’go since.
From the time I was four, I was already the test dummy for my older brothers Jack, 6, and Ryan, 9. On Tuesday afternoons, the three of us would watch wrestling on the floor of our home. The recap of the previous night’s Raw would be broadcast in a shorter format, so many of the matches and stories that had taken place on the real show would generally get blown over in the edited show. It was alright, though. We didn’t understand the stories, we just liked the violence. I’ve been told lately it was considered the worst year in wrestling, but when you haven’t even started school yet, you don’t understand these things. Jack and Ryan would always rough-house in their bedroom, trying to emulate the moves the moves they saw on television, trying to do the wrestlers’ catchphrases. Sometimes I would be the referee in their matches, I even had a striped shirt that I would wear specifically for this.
My mum, Ellen, was a stay-at-home mum, with the patience of a saint. Being the baby of the clan, and the only girl, I was doted over all the time. As I grew older, I started to dislike because I never thought of meself as a girl. Mum could always be found in one of two places, it seems. In the kitchen, cooking; or doing laundry. Me brothers and I would always be up to some sort of trouble, and you’d hear her from the house yelling after one of us. We never knew how she always managed t’see us though. We could be blocks away, and when we walked in the door, she knew we’d been up t’no good. Either she was a ninja, or we were always bad, though I still haven’t ruled out ninja. Me mum, as patient as she was, was also the disciplinarian of the house. Ya knew you were in for it when she got that look t’her. I don’t recall her ever raising her voice at us for somethin’ we did, but she had a way of lettin’ ya know how she felt, and you sure felt pretty bad about hurtin’ Mum. She was strong as an ox, she was, but she was soft when she had ta. When Ryan went into the Army, Mum cried for days, afraid for her boy. Jack managed to stay out of trouble when he grew older, got into his studies, was always “the good boy”. Me, I was special, but we’ll get into that another time.
My Dad, Ryan, my brother is the fourth Ryan Maloney in our family, so Dad would be the third. Dad was an electrician, very charming fella, well-liked wherever he went. He was a big bloke with a big beard, and a bigger smile behind it. He was a hard worker and was respected by everyone he worked with. When the opportunity came to get a city job doing what he always done, in a quieter city that reminded him of home, we uprooted to Ocean City, New Jersey. There, he became the city engineer, was a great boss to his workers. He took pride in his work and his men, and his men repaid him. He’s still out there today, never being a boss but one of the boys. He was never a man to ask somebody to do anything he, himself, wouldn’t do. He would delegate, but get his hands just as dirty, just to prove he was one of them. The man has no quit, probably where I inherited it.
Me family still live here, over twenty years later, though we’ve kinda took over a bit. Mum and Dad still live in the same house they bought when we moved here. My room is now Mum’s sewing room, though my bed is still there in the corner, waiting for me. Jack’s married and moved closer to Philadelphia now, where he’s got a wife and a couple pups. Ryan’s not too far from Jack, forever a bachelor he says. Methinks he’s jus’ too picky on who he dates, but he don’t wanna listen t’me. As for me, I have a bachelor pad that overlooks the boardwalk and the ocean. I run it every day as the sun comes up.
Sports had always been a part of our lives growing up. Every year, we were in softball and soccer. When we weren’t in organized sports, we were simply outside doing SOMETHING. The neighborhood knew us as the Maloney Boys, and I loved it. I knew I wasn’t “built” the same, not I looked, I think one of me brothers pointed it out at a young age, but still. We played together, we were rough together. I got scraped knees and a broken wrist and black eyes like they did, and I always emulated my brothers in how to handle it. I never cried, I got patched up, and I kept on.
That lasted until I was about 11 when “womanhood” arrived. The vile, vile beast of puberty was not kind t’me, let me tell ya. In a span of a week or so, I had t’be fitted for trainin’ bras and buying tampons, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t play with me brothers anymore. While they got t’play football and rugby, I was playin in girls’ leagues and gettin’ yelled at by coached for playin’ too rough. Well, of course I played rough, I grew up a bloody boy.
I was never asked t’be more girly, though I started growin’ out me hair. I was always the girl in the jeans and hoodies in high school, and yet people started t’like me. I had friends that helped me get through “girl things”. I had never worn make-up until midway through high school, but then people started noticin’ me, and I’ll admit, I kinda liked the attention. Then I found somethin’ I could still do as a girl, that I can still compete with my brothers, and that was goin’ t’the gym. I would be in the gym in my high school early mornin’ before class and after school unless I had somethin’ t’do, like dance class. That was my other escape, apparently I could dance.
As my body started t’take shape, and people started t’notice me, I broke out of me shell and started t’realize I loved being the center of attention. I went from one of the boys to being the PRINCESS. My friends had starting dating and kissing boys, but I was always the shy one in that department. They liked me, maybe I had bigger muscles than they did, who knew. Whatever it was, maybe I wasn’t girly enough or what have you, but high school was a bust for the boys for me. I had all this energy and no way t’blow it off. So, I put it back into me trainin’.
~Another fresh face to the world~
One day, I was maybe about 16, 17, me brother Ryan, he came home t’visit and he had a DVD of old rasslin matches from the 80s, before my time, practically before his. I was surprised he still watched, but we watched it together just like old times, and I loved all of these bigger-than-life characters. They were big, strong, colorful, they grabbed your attention and I loved it. These were great gimmicks, they sold themselves well, and it rekindled my passion for rasslin’. I told me brother right then, I was gonna be a rassler. After he stopped laughin’, he realized I was serious. All the moves we used t’do, all the play fights we had, I had perfected them. I even took some moves from some of the 80s wrestlers I admired.
There was a wrestling school in Philadelphia I went to, but not long. They wanted $3000 for the ability to train and no guarantees, so instead, my brothers and I spent about $700 and built a ring in the backyard and taught me themselves. Within 2 years of weight training, taking bumps, wrestling my brothers and other kids in the neighborhood who caught wind of our little “school” and beating them, I decided I would go out into the world and see if I can do this for a living. My parents, the ever-saints, initially pleaded with me not to do it, afraid I’d get hurt or worse (I didn’t understand what was worse than getting hurt until way too late - next part), but as they always had done for their children, if they were that passionate about it, they would support it, and so they did.
The first car I ever owned was a 2004, sky-blue, rusted Toyota Corolla. That thing was a thumpin’ beast but ya couldn’t kill it. It had already well over 120,000 miles on it, it had been ridden hard all of its life, and by 2010 when it came t’me, we all thought its best years were behind it. I think me dad paid like $1000 for the thing. It was bad; the seats were cracked and torn, the antenna was missin’ but we put a new one on, the tranny was shot. $300 later at a junk yard and that thing was good to go. Kinda. That car served me well for almost four years. I had a few firsts in that car, most good.
So, I bet you’re wonderin’ how a basically self-taught female rassler gets into the biz. Answer, I lied through me teeth. I started calling schools and promotions asking for a job. I fudged a little on where I had worked before to get a few matches under me belt, and I was off. I still remember the first one, it was in Uniondale, New York. In February. In a barely-heated room. I guess the booker rented the place after-hours on the provision we didn’t use the heat, but they kept it warm enough not t’freeze the pipes. I didn’t have a gimmick at the time, so I just used me name, had this normal brown hair that was slightly orange in the right light, and I had on just a sports bra and a pair of shorts. I knew nothin’ about ring psychology or none of that, they paired me off against this… ok, the man was fat and surprising, in a cold room we were in, the man sweated profusely. It was pretty bad. We did a ten-minute match, he won, I got paid… in food. It was a good burger, but money woulda been nice. I ended up doing a few more shows with him actually, as he liked me style. I always showed up on time, always smiled at people and said hello t’everyone, worked with the crew, I did everythin’ because I was jus’ happy t’be doin’ what I loved.
Terry Jones, or TJ as he was known to us, always reminded me of Larry from Three’s Company, or for you younger lot, Quagmire from Family Guy. He was always chasin’ skirt, but he was also a pretty good businessman. Shrewd was a word I heard used often. He didn’t have a large roster, probably should have been a red flag, but the dozen or so he had were loyal. We signed on to TJ’s vision and we followed him blindly. I honestly don’t know when the lines between booker and employee and partners happened, but over time, TJ and I started seein’ each other exclusively. When shows didn’t bring in the money it should have, I always got paid first, in full, and told not t’say a word to the other guys. We hid our affair pretty well, nobody expected the sweet Irish lass of sleepin’ with the Boss, but that is what happened. Actually, while probably not necessary t’the story, but maybe it is, but he was my first and I fell in love. When I heard people talkin’ bad about him, I’d be the first t’defend him, and the boys always jus’ thought I was being my sweet self.
That came to an abrupt end about 8 months in. We had a show in Vermont somewhere. TJ and I were going to ride in together. He had his car, mine was parked at the airport at Logan in Boston for the end of the last show. He had been drinking all day as he had started to do, stressed about money and keeping the fed afloat, and at first it was just a squeeze of my thigh. No big deal, I’ve dealt with worse. Then for whatever reason, he pulled the car over on the side of the highway and tried t’have his way with me. Now, growin’ up with two brothers, and all my trainin’, you would have thought I would have been prepared for somethin’ like this, but I wasn’t. I loved him, I naively thought he was feelin’ a wee hornier than usual and wanted a bit. It wasn’t until he was holdin’ me by the throat and threatenin’ t’kill me that I realized what was goin’ on so I hit him a few times and managed t’get out of the car, clothes torn. He sped off with me gear in his car, and I was stranded on a Vermont highway with nothin’. Not even me shoes, I had taken them off in the car as I do on road trips. Well, used to, not anymore after that.
I managed to hitchhike back to a truck stop and call home. Dad came t’get me, it broke me heart t’see him, and I’m sure it broke his heart t’see me. Funny thing is, it didn’t stop me from quittin’, it jus’ made me smarter. I took a few days off, left me car in Boston, and started out on the road again. This time, I found a better circuit, about 20 of us on a decent night, we even had titles. Real leather ones with gold plates on them, just like the ones I’d seen my favorite rasslers had on TV.
Somehow the Corolla has returned. I think me dad and one of my brothers went t’get it and bring it home, because the day before I was due t’meet the new booker in Philadelphia, it was sittin’ in me driveway.
The NEWF (New England Wrestling Federation) was a pretty big deal for me. Lookin’ back now, it was pretty small, but I had a blast workin’ with those lads and lasses. This would have been in 2012 I came in. Yeah, that would be right. We had a wide variety of guys in our roster, we were like a travelin circus. We had a clown called Hazel, no idea why. We had a tag team of two Canadians whose gimmick was Terrence and Philip from South Park. We had a zombie, an army guy, those were our stars. And then there was Big Turk, who was the most evil giant in the ring, he would scare ya right outta ya boots, but as soon as he came through the curtain, he was a big kid, always laughin’, our locker-room leader. If anyone had a bad day, or had a gripe, you went and saw Turk. He looked out for all of us, and I miss him terribly.
Strangely enough, it was a game of Truth or Dare with the NEWF boys that hooked me up with my long-time partner, Rosie.
~Rosie & I, 2015~
I had started dying me hair orange, they wanted t’play up my Irish heritage, and it helped me t’stand out, so I was fine with it. The first time I dyed it, when I showed up at the venue, everyone was surprised. Talked about how good it looked, was getting compliments from everyone, it was awesome. That night after the show, we were sittin’ in a dive bar attached to the motel we was stayin’ at. Sixteen guys, four girls, all a few pints in, and Turk, our gentle giant, decides he wants t’play Truth or Dare. When they got t’me, there had been too many truths, some I’m still strugglin’ t’forget about. I’ve had a few, I decide to go with Dare. Of course they had t’go with “kiss somebody on the mouth for 15 seconds”. I had always thought she was beautiful, but never thought nothin’ like that, so I just shrugged me shoulders, turned to Rosie… and by the time we came up for breath, the rest of the guys were gone. They had abandoned us. I thought it was weird, thought maybe a minute or so had passed, until the poor janitor of the place told us it had been about two hours!
From then on, Rosie and I were inseparable. We rode together, we moved in together. We discussed the business and what we could do in it together. We were best friends, and partners in everything. We won our first championships together when we became the NEWF Tag Team champions. We stayed with the NEWF until… I think mid-2015, t’be honest, most of it was a blur.
It didn’t register with me when Rosie told me she found a lump. I likely thought a muscle had torn and curled up the wrong way when it healed, a botched rasslin’ move or somethin’ until she made me feel it as well. Cancer was a beast in her family, her mum has it, her granddad died from it, among other kin as well. That trip to the hospital haunts me still. They did a barrage of tests and within a few days, they confirmed what we already knew. Rosie had breast cancer. She opted for a double mastectomy, in hopes of not having the cancer spread. Sadly, we were too late, I lost Rosie t’cancer March 2nd, 2016.
I had already stopped rasslin’ by this point, Rosie couldn’t travel, and my focus was t’take care of her. I got a normal job, took care of everythin’. I loved her, and I hate t’say this because only those who have suffered through it would relate, but after Rosie passed, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a mixture of her no longer sufferin’, and realizin’ how much energy I was burnin’ t’keep her as comfortable as possible. It was a very, VERY, hard road, but in that time, we learned so much about each other and what we can endure.
I’ll never say we never fought, we didn’t always agree, but we were smart enough t’talk it out. Neither of us were perfect, but we fit well. It took me a long time t’get over the pain actually. I took a few months t’grieve, then I went back t’work my normal job, it was only a few months ago I decided t’get back in the gym. I hadn’t “let meself go” but I was a little softer than I wanted t’be.
Sorry t’get heavy on ya, but if I was tellin’ me story, I had t’tell it all, and Rosie was a big part of that. I guess I should tell ya about the steampunk stuff. All me life, I was a reader. I would read anythin’ that was given t’me. From comic books, t’Stephen King, I read all the Harry Potters a few times, but I loved reading about Victorian times, 19th-century stuff. When ya on the road, you always have that one friend with three or four books in their bag, and we had a few of them, so stuff got passed around. Someone handed me a book that was kinda weird but it sucked me in, and it was all based around steampunk. Then I started seeing fairs and people dressin’ up in this stuff and I loved it. I bought a leather coat and goggles that’s now become a part of what I wear t’the ring now, but I have a lot of stuff at home, jus’ stuff I collected over time. Sorry it’s not some juicy secret, it’s simply somethin’ I fell in love with, it made me stand out from the others, and it became a part of me.
So, I guess this is the end. I hope ya learned somethin’, or I filled up a quiet part of ya day. Either way, I’m lookin’ forward to gettin’ on the road, gettin’ back in the ring, meetin’ the fans, eatin’ bad caterin’, and just buildin’ connections. Touching people’s lives. Whether it’s the ring crew, the bookers, the event staff, your co-workers, the fans, anyone. Jus’ make sure ya take a minute and touch their lives and you’ll never regret it.
My name is Eavan Maloney. I am the Steampunk Warrior and I’m bringin’ the fire.
I was born in New York City on October 24th, 1991; the third, and last, of the Maloney Clan. I was a standard baby, nothing extraordinary. No wait, that wouldn’t be true, I was born with a hole in me heart. Thankfully nothing that required much in the way of surgery, I had one at the age of two and me ticker has been good t’go since.
From the time I was four, I was already the test dummy for my older brothers Jack, 6, and Ryan, 9. On Tuesday afternoons, the three of us would watch wrestling on the floor of our home. The recap of the previous night’s Raw would be broadcast in a shorter format, so many of the matches and stories that had taken place on the real show would generally get blown over in the edited show. It was alright, though. We didn’t understand the stories, we just liked the violence. I’ve been told lately it was considered the worst year in wrestling, but when you haven’t even started school yet, you don’t understand these things. Jack and Ryan would always rough-house in their bedroom, trying to emulate the moves the moves they saw on television, trying to do the wrestlers’ catchphrases. Sometimes I would be the referee in their matches, I even had a striped shirt that I would wear specifically for this.
My mum, Ellen, was a stay-at-home mum, with the patience of a saint. Being the baby of the clan, and the only girl, I was doted over all the time. As I grew older, I started to dislike because I never thought of meself as a girl. Mum could always be found in one of two places, it seems. In the kitchen, cooking; or doing laundry. Me brothers and I would always be up to some sort of trouble, and you’d hear her from the house yelling after one of us. We never knew how she always managed t’see us though. We could be blocks away, and when we walked in the door, she knew we’d been up t’no good. Either she was a ninja, or we were always bad, though I still haven’t ruled out ninja. Me mum, as patient as she was, was also the disciplinarian of the house. Ya knew you were in for it when she got that look t’her. I don’t recall her ever raising her voice at us for somethin’ we did, but she had a way of lettin’ ya know how she felt, and you sure felt pretty bad about hurtin’ Mum. She was strong as an ox, she was, but she was soft when she had ta. When Ryan went into the Army, Mum cried for days, afraid for her boy. Jack managed to stay out of trouble when he grew older, got into his studies, was always “the good boy”. Me, I was special, but we’ll get into that another time.
My Dad, Ryan, my brother is the fourth Ryan Maloney in our family, so Dad would be the third. Dad was an electrician, very charming fella, well-liked wherever he went. He was a big bloke with a big beard, and a bigger smile behind it. He was a hard worker and was respected by everyone he worked with. When the opportunity came to get a city job doing what he always done, in a quieter city that reminded him of home, we uprooted to Ocean City, New Jersey. There, he became the city engineer, was a great boss to his workers. He took pride in his work and his men, and his men repaid him. He’s still out there today, never being a boss but one of the boys. He was never a man to ask somebody to do anything he, himself, wouldn’t do. He would delegate, but get his hands just as dirty, just to prove he was one of them. The man has no quit, probably where I inherited it.
Me family still live here, over twenty years later, though we’ve kinda took over a bit. Mum and Dad still live in the same house they bought when we moved here. My room is now Mum’s sewing room, though my bed is still there in the corner, waiting for me. Jack’s married and moved closer to Philadelphia now, where he’s got a wife and a couple pups. Ryan’s not too far from Jack, forever a bachelor he says. Methinks he’s jus’ too picky on who he dates, but he don’t wanna listen t’me. As for me, I have a bachelor pad that overlooks the boardwalk and the ocean. I run it every day as the sun comes up.
Sports had always been a part of our lives growing up. Every year, we were in softball and soccer. When we weren’t in organized sports, we were simply outside doing SOMETHING. The neighborhood knew us as the Maloney Boys, and I loved it. I knew I wasn’t “built” the same, not I looked, I think one of me brothers pointed it out at a young age, but still. We played together, we were rough together. I got scraped knees and a broken wrist and black eyes like they did, and I always emulated my brothers in how to handle it. I never cried, I got patched up, and I kept on.
That lasted until I was about 11 when “womanhood” arrived. The vile, vile beast of puberty was not kind t’me, let me tell ya. In a span of a week or so, I had t’be fitted for trainin’ bras and buying tampons, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t play with me brothers anymore. While they got t’play football and rugby, I was playin in girls’ leagues and gettin’ yelled at by coached for playin’ too rough. Well, of course I played rough, I grew up a bloody boy.
I was never asked t’be more girly, though I started growin’ out me hair. I was always the girl in the jeans and hoodies in high school, and yet people started t’like me. I had friends that helped me get through “girl things”. I had never worn make-up until midway through high school, but then people started noticin’ me, and I’ll admit, I kinda liked the attention. Then I found somethin’ I could still do as a girl, that I can still compete with my brothers, and that was goin’ t’the gym. I would be in the gym in my high school early mornin’ before class and after school unless I had somethin’ t’do, like dance class. That was my other escape, apparently I could dance.
As my body started t’take shape, and people started t’notice me, I broke out of me shell and started t’realize I loved being the center of attention. I went from one of the boys to being the PRINCESS. My friends had starting dating and kissing boys, but I was always the shy one in that department. They liked me, maybe I had bigger muscles than they did, who knew. Whatever it was, maybe I wasn’t girly enough or what have you, but high school was a bust for the boys for me. I had all this energy and no way t’blow it off. So, I put it back into me trainin’.
~Another fresh face to the world~
One day, I was maybe about 16, 17, me brother Ryan, he came home t’visit and he had a DVD of old rasslin matches from the 80s, before my time, practically before his. I was surprised he still watched, but we watched it together just like old times, and I loved all of these bigger-than-life characters. They were big, strong, colorful, they grabbed your attention and I loved it. These were great gimmicks, they sold themselves well, and it rekindled my passion for rasslin’. I told me brother right then, I was gonna be a rassler. After he stopped laughin’, he realized I was serious. All the moves we used t’do, all the play fights we had, I had perfected them. I even took some moves from some of the 80s wrestlers I admired.
There was a wrestling school in Philadelphia I went to, but not long. They wanted $3000 for the ability to train and no guarantees, so instead, my brothers and I spent about $700 and built a ring in the backyard and taught me themselves. Within 2 years of weight training, taking bumps, wrestling my brothers and other kids in the neighborhood who caught wind of our little “school” and beating them, I decided I would go out into the world and see if I can do this for a living. My parents, the ever-saints, initially pleaded with me not to do it, afraid I’d get hurt or worse (I didn’t understand what was worse than getting hurt until way too late - next part), but as they always had done for their children, if they were that passionate about it, they would support it, and so they did.
The first car I ever owned was a 2004, sky-blue, rusted Toyota Corolla. That thing was a thumpin’ beast but ya couldn’t kill it. It had already well over 120,000 miles on it, it had been ridden hard all of its life, and by 2010 when it came t’me, we all thought its best years were behind it. I think me dad paid like $1000 for the thing. It was bad; the seats were cracked and torn, the antenna was missin’ but we put a new one on, the tranny was shot. $300 later at a junk yard and that thing was good to go. Kinda. That car served me well for almost four years. I had a few firsts in that car, most good.
So, I bet you’re wonderin’ how a basically self-taught female rassler gets into the biz. Answer, I lied through me teeth. I started calling schools and promotions asking for a job. I fudged a little on where I had worked before to get a few matches under me belt, and I was off. I still remember the first one, it was in Uniondale, New York. In February. In a barely-heated room. I guess the booker rented the place after-hours on the provision we didn’t use the heat, but they kept it warm enough not t’freeze the pipes. I didn’t have a gimmick at the time, so I just used me name, had this normal brown hair that was slightly orange in the right light, and I had on just a sports bra and a pair of shorts. I knew nothin’ about ring psychology or none of that, they paired me off against this… ok, the man was fat and surprising, in a cold room we were in, the man sweated profusely. It was pretty bad. We did a ten-minute match, he won, I got paid… in food. It was a good burger, but money woulda been nice. I ended up doing a few more shows with him actually, as he liked me style. I always showed up on time, always smiled at people and said hello t’everyone, worked with the crew, I did everythin’ because I was jus’ happy t’be doin’ what I loved.
Terry Jones, or TJ as he was known to us, always reminded me of Larry from Three’s Company, or for you younger lot, Quagmire from Family Guy. He was always chasin’ skirt, but he was also a pretty good businessman. Shrewd was a word I heard used often. He didn’t have a large roster, probably should have been a red flag, but the dozen or so he had were loyal. We signed on to TJ’s vision and we followed him blindly. I honestly don’t know when the lines between booker and employee and partners happened, but over time, TJ and I started seein’ each other exclusively. When shows didn’t bring in the money it should have, I always got paid first, in full, and told not t’say a word to the other guys. We hid our affair pretty well, nobody expected the sweet Irish lass of sleepin’ with the Boss, but that is what happened. Actually, while probably not necessary t’the story, but maybe it is, but he was my first and I fell in love. When I heard people talkin’ bad about him, I’d be the first t’defend him, and the boys always jus’ thought I was being my sweet self.
That came to an abrupt end about 8 months in. We had a show in Vermont somewhere. TJ and I were going to ride in together. He had his car, mine was parked at the airport at Logan in Boston for the end of the last show. He had been drinking all day as he had started to do, stressed about money and keeping the fed afloat, and at first it was just a squeeze of my thigh. No big deal, I’ve dealt with worse. Then for whatever reason, he pulled the car over on the side of the highway and tried t’have his way with me. Now, growin’ up with two brothers, and all my trainin’, you would have thought I would have been prepared for somethin’ like this, but I wasn’t. I loved him, I naively thought he was feelin’ a wee hornier than usual and wanted a bit. It wasn’t until he was holdin’ me by the throat and threatenin’ t’kill me that I realized what was goin’ on so I hit him a few times and managed t’get out of the car, clothes torn. He sped off with me gear in his car, and I was stranded on a Vermont highway with nothin’. Not even me shoes, I had taken them off in the car as I do on road trips. Well, used to, not anymore after that.
I managed to hitchhike back to a truck stop and call home. Dad came t’get me, it broke me heart t’see him, and I’m sure it broke his heart t’see me. Funny thing is, it didn’t stop me from quittin’, it jus’ made me smarter. I took a few days off, left me car in Boston, and started out on the road again. This time, I found a better circuit, about 20 of us on a decent night, we even had titles. Real leather ones with gold plates on them, just like the ones I’d seen my favorite rasslers had on TV.
Somehow the Corolla has returned. I think me dad and one of my brothers went t’get it and bring it home, because the day before I was due t’meet the new booker in Philadelphia, it was sittin’ in me driveway.
The NEWF (New England Wrestling Federation) was a pretty big deal for me. Lookin’ back now, it was pretty small, but I had a blast workin’ with those lads and lasses. This would have been in 2012 I came in. Yeah, that would be right. We had a wide variety of guys in our roster, we were like a travelin circus. We had a clown called Hazel, no idea why. We had a tag team of two Canadians whose gimmick was Terrence and Philip from South Park. We had a zombie, an army guy, those were our stars. And then there was Big Turk, who was the most evil giant in the ring, he would scare ya right outta ya boots, but as soon as he came through the curtain, he was a big kid, always laughin’, our locker-room leader. If anyone had a bad day, or had a gripe, you went and saw Turk. He looked out for all of us, and I miss him terribly.
Strangely enough, it was a game of Truth or Dare with the NEWF boys that hooked me up with my long-time partner, Rosie.
~Rosie & I, 2015~
I had started dying me hair orange, they wanted t’play up my Irish heritage, and it helped me t’stand out, so I was fine with it. The first time I dyed it, when I showed up at the venue, everyone was surprised. Talked about how good it looked, was getting compliments from everyone, it was awesome. That night after the show, we were sittin’ in a dive bar attached to the motel we was stayin’ at. Sixteen guys, four girls, all a few pints in, and Turk, our gentle giant, decides he wants t’play Truth or Dare. When they got t’me, there had been too many truths, some I’m still strugglin’ t’forget about. I’ve had a few, I decide to go with Dare. Of course they had t’go with “kiss somebody on the mouth for 15 seconds”. I had always thought she was beautiful, but never thought nothin’ like that, so I just shrugged me shoulders, turned to Rosie… and by the time we came up for breath, the rest of the guys were gone. They had abandoned us. I thought it was weird, thought maybe a minute or so had passed, until the poor janitor of the place told us it had been about two hours!
From then on, Rosie and I were inseparable. We rode together, we moved in together. We discussed the business and what we could do in it together. We were best friends, and partners in everything. We won our first championships together when we became the NEWF Tag Team champions. We stayed with the NEWF until… I think mid-2015, t’be honest, most of it was a blur.
It didn’t register with me when Rosie told me she found a lump. I likely thought a muscle had torn and curled up the wrong way when it healed, a botched rasslin’ move or somethin’ until she made me feel it as well. Cancer was a beast in her family, her mum has it, her granddad died from it, among other kin as well. That trip to the hospital haunts me still. They did a barrage of tests and within a few days, they confirmed what we already knew. Rosie had breast cancer. She opted for a double mastectomy, in hopes of not having the cancer spread. Sadly, we were too late, I lost Rosie t’cancer March 2nd, 2016.
I had already stopped rasslin’ by this point, Rosie couldn’t travel, and my focus was t’take care of her. I got a normal job, took care of everythin’. I loved her, and I hate t’say this because only those who have suffered through it would relate, but after Rosie passed, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a mixture of her no longer sufferin’, and realizin’ how much energy I was burnin’ t’keep her as comfortable as possible. It was a very, VERY, hard road, but in that time, we learned so much about each other and what we can endure.
I’ll never say we never fought, we didn’t always agree, but we were smart enough t’talk it out. Neither of us were perfect, but we fit well. It took me a long time t’get over the pain actually. I took a few months t’grieve, then I went back t’work my normal job, it was only a few months ago I decided t’get back in the gym. I hadn’t “let meself go” but I was a little softer than I wanted t’be.
Sorry t’get heavy on ya, but if I was tellin’ me story, I had t’tell it all, and Rosie was a big part of that. I guess I should tell ya about the steampunk stuff. All me life, I was a reader. I would read anythin’ that was given t’me. From comic books, t’Stephen King, I read all the Harry Potters a few times, but I loved reading about Victorian times, 19th-century stuff. When ya on the road, you always have that one friend with three or four books in their bag, and we had a few of them, so stuff got passed around. Someone handed me a book that was kinda weird but it sucked me in, and it was all based around steampunk. Then I started seeing fairs and people dressin’ up in this stuff and I loved it. I bought a leather coat and goggles that’s now become a part of what I wear t’the ring now, but I have a lot of stuff at home, jus’ stuff I collected over time. Sorry it’s not some juicy secret, it’s simply somethin’ I fell in love with, it made me stand out from the others, and it became a part of me.
So, I guess this is the end. I hope ya learned somethin’, or I filled up a quiet part of ya day. Either way, I’m lookin’ forward to gettin’ on the road, gettin’ back in the ring, meetin’ the fans, eatin’ bad caterin’, and just buildin’ connections. Touching people’s lives. Whether it’s the ring crew, the bookers, the event staff, your co-workers, the fans, anyone. Jus’ make sure ya take a minute and touch their lives and you’ll never regret it.
My name is Eavan Maloney. I am the Steampunk Warrior and I’m bringin’ the fire.