"I'm sorry for running into you," I said trying to look down and not stare. "My training session starts soon, and I was thinking about that. My name is David".
"It is your first training session isn't it?" She asked. I nodded my head sheepishly. "Look up." she snapped. I raised my head so I could look her in the eye. "If you can't look at me with my clothes on you'll get eaten alive in the ring. What would you do if I was across the ring from you right now?" My mouth opened and hung there but no sound came out. "You are in a lot of trouble....unless," she paused and stepped in close to me. Her hand slid up my thigh and stopped on my crotch. I tried to maintain some dignity but it was rapidly disappearing as she stroked me through my shorts. "You know David, I think your problem may just be me. You're hard as a rock for me and you don't even know my name. Would you like to know it?"
The word yes slipped out of my mouth faster than I could think it. Stretching up she wrapped her arms around my neck and put her mouth next to my ear.
"My name is Ana," she said in a seductive voice. "I wrestle as The Princess. If you win your first few matches I'll find you." With that she grabbed me one more time, picked up her gym bag and walked away.
After a few seconds I realized I was still standing in the hallway and not at my training session. I hurried to the room, and burst through the door. Mr. Bartlett stood in the ring next to a man in shorts and a tee shirt. He waved me over and as I entered the ring introduced me to my new trainer. "David this is Steve your trainer. He is a former champion and left with a 13-3 record. An accident in the ring ended his career early but he agreed to help us as a trainer." A former champion for a trainer I must have hit the jackpot I thought. He continued, "Steve is here to teach you the fundamentals of wrestling, answer questions about the league and in general provide you with advice. Did I forget anything?" Steve shook his head no and I realized he had been watching me intently. "Did you come up with a nickname yet?" Mr. Bartlett asked me.
"No but I have an idea. I was thinking about Titan?"
He looked me up and down "You are a bit taller than most of the other competitors so we'll give it a shot. We'll give you a green mask with a golden T that has room for the goatee. My final advice is to listen to everything Steve tells you. He didn't become a champion by accident." With that he left Steve and I standing in the ring together.
As soon as he cleared the room my first session began. We went over my modest athletic experience, what I thought I'd learned by being a regular spectator and my measurables. Steve asked if I have anything I thought would be a particular advantage; I said my height and reach. He chuckled to himself and told me it would be a double edged sword. "You're already underestimating your opponents. If you go in expecting something other than experience to be a major strength right away it won't be. You need to develop good fundamentals and work your size into being strength. A lot of the women will be smaller yes, but they will probably be faster, and the good ones will be just as strong as you." After having him basically tear my plan apart I tried to keep my hopes high. We spent the next hour covering basic wrestling moves, holds and strategy. Steve talked about his first experience in the ring and how the experiences of his other trainees went. Toward the end of the session we covered some basic and some mildly exotic submission holds. For the most part he simply walked me though applying them and how to break out of them.
He did have one specific move in mind for me though, "How familiar are you with a judo style armbar?" I knew the basic jist of the hold and explained it as best I could. "Lay down on your back," he said pointing at the ground. "It is very important that you pay attention. I'm going to very briefly put you in an actual armbar so you know what it feels like when you do it to someone else. Submission moves are a perfectly legitimate way to score a pin fall but if you seriously injure someone in a match you'll have hell to pay." He briefly looked down at his leg, "The reason I had to leave the league is because I was too stubborn to tap out. Some competitors will be very stubborn, but probably not to the point where they end up tearing their knee up. My opponent never wrestled again after that match and I've never been the same. You need try to be aware of when someone is in real danger of a permanent injury. The referees will try to stop a hold when they think it's close to permanent damage but they're not always right, and they don't want to decide matches."
After his explanation he took a hold of my arm, locked in the armbar, and raised his hips. The further he went the more it felt like he was trying to snap my elbow in half. I lasted about 30 seconds before I had to tell him to let the hold go. I cradled my arm as he explained that my size should give me a bit better than average leverage when using an armbar. We arranged three more sessions between that night and my first match because my schedule matched up well with his. My first session had been on a Thursday. The second would be the following Tuesday, third would be Saturday during the day, and my final training session would be Wednesday of match week. I left the building feeling pumped about having an ex-champ for a trainer, him having a plan, and slightly guilty about meeting a cute girl.
I felt guilty because the girl I was seeing, Savannah, had no idea that I had signed up to compete in the league. The few times I'd convinced her to come to the matches she'd thought the sex was hot but the wrestling aspect wasn't really her thing. She told me she didn't mind if I went because she knew I was making some money betting on the matches but we'd never approached me wanting to be in one. I hoped that I would be able to win a few matches and show her the money before we really had to talk about it. Since we didn't live together she probably wouldn't have a reason to be suspicious about my remaining training sessions and I was sure I could just tell her that I was hanging out with people from work on the night of my match.
The time in between my training sessions went fairly quickly. Our second session, a week later, was mostly about how to play to the crowd. We talked about what had worked for Steve, what grabbed me when I watched the matches, and what turned audiences off. He impressed upon me that keeping the crowd on my side was important. He explained how very promising wrestlers both male and female had sidelined and eventually drifted away because bad losses. "Sometimes the success of a wrestler is based more on who they get paired against instead of any appreciable talent," he told me. We worked on a basic good guy routine to use in the ring, and even a few fall back bad persona ideas. Work with what the crowd gives you was the lesson for that night. Steve talked a lot about his career and gave plenty of examples of when he'd made mistakes or made very good decisions about the crowd. Time flew by and when our time was up I hardly realized we'd done no real wrestling practice.
Between the second and third training sessions life went pretty well. I got a promotion at work, not a big one but still. Because of it I had to interact more with my manager Jackie. She was a good looking woman, so I didn't mind. She always seemed frustrated with something but for the most part didn't take it out on me. Things with Savannah were going steady, a few times I thought she had an inkling something was different but she never brought it up. For the most part all I could think of was my upcoming match and how I could train in my apartment. I resolved to go to the gym as often as I could in the weeks before my match. Sadly that fell behind the closer my third training session got. Toward the end of the second week Jackie dumped work my predecessor had put off on me. It took me until my third training session just to try catch up.
My third training session the Wednesday before the match went really poorly. Work was making me very short tempered and I had been thinking a lot about how little actual training I'd had in my last session. This session wasn't going any better; Steve kept rattling on about old matches and only vaguely showing me how he escaped holds. I finally snapped at him and told him I was too stressed from work to keep going. He tried to talk me into finishing the session but I wouldn't have it. When I got home I called his cell phone and left him a message apologizing for canceling training and asking if he was still going to be at my match. Thursday morning I had a message from him promising to be there.
The next two days flew by and Saturday night I found myself in the locker room waiting for my first match in the Sex Wrestling League. I donned my mask and pretty much nothing else and moved into the hallway. There I paced and tried to stay loose while I waited to be announced in. "Ladies and Gentlemen tonight we have two first time wrestlers squaring off. I introduce to you first the man of the hour David aka Titan!" he finished with a slight dramatic flair and my rather generic sounding intro music started. It was a rock/rap beat with no lyrics, but what rookies ever get the royal treatment in anything. I made my way to the ring trying to look as confident as possible and hoping only I could hear my heart pound. My eyes scanned the crowd and settled on Steve who shot me a big grin and a thumbs up.
The announcer interrupted my thoughts, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the wrestler who will be facing Titan, Stacy the Schoolgirl". Stacy's trainer must have put a little more effort in or had better connections because she came out to a real song. As she pranced her way down to the ring Britney Spears "Baby One More Time" rolled through the room. She gave everyone ample time to look at her as approached the ring. My estimate put her at four to five inches shorter than me, but she had a killer body. Blonde hair bobbed out of the back of her mask, a tight body and B cups breasts that looked like they'd been sculpted onto her body. The referee politely held the ropes for her as she stepped into the ring. Stacy paused bent at a 90 degree angle at the waist and made a show of surveying the crowd, clearly making a few more fans of her body than anything else. Whatever squeamishness I may have been feeling was something she didn't seem to be bothered with. The match hadn't even started and I felt like the crowd was solidly in her corner.
