Intro

I was probably watching WWE through my mom’s bellybutton while I was in there (actually, probably WCW, not too sure.) I grew up addicted, and some of my earliest memories are Smackdown! 2: Know Your Role on PS1. I watched every show (except PPVs, although Rogers gave us a free PPV we used on the OG ECW One Night Stand, thank god) and I of course got the games every year. I remember the first time I saw non-WWE at my aunts while being babysat, seeing Abyss & Sinister Minister throw a fireball at someone in a hexagon ring. Shortly after, I discovered N64 emulation to finally play my favourite wresting game, No Mercy, at home and not just at Vincent’s house. I soonafter found the TNA vs ROH mod, with these cool ass characters and crazy moves like a 450 splash (I remember being told a 450 was impossible when doing it with my wrestling action figures at lunch, but these dudes were doin’ em irl!) I learned about CZW via the Forever Indy mod, and that was insane. Sick Nick almost dying from the Zandig roof spot, and Zandig getting hung by meat hooks… Crazy shit for a kid to try and hide from the fam on the living room PC monitor. I had also made my own mods in No Mercy, creating my own e-fed full of characters, custom moves, custom weapons, and unique match types, all edited down into fun little montage videos similar to the PWG post-show montages on YouTube, akin to the CrW crew of NM modders.

Fast forward to my early teens. AJ Styles? In Toronto? Last match in Ontario before WWE? My dad and my 2 buddies who still watched wrestling all packed into this 300 cap lazer tag arena that was so packed to the gills, people were BEHIND the entrance way with the curtains ripped down. Chris Hero’s performance that night was the first thing that led him to eventually become my favourite wrestler of all time (a feat previously held by El Generico), and our interactions at the merch booths going forward might have also secured him as my GOAT. Top to bottom, I knew I had to be at Smash Wrestling every single month from that point onward. I even built a DVD collection of every single one of their shows they had available, both before, and for a long time after that night. It ended up getting me in the good graces of some of the staff, where I got to help volunteer, produce music for some of their content, and even help them promote a show in my home town of Brantford. (We didn’t sell many tickets, but last minute my dad and I drove to Ribfest and managed to pack the room.) That night, a young wrestler named Tyler Thomas who had been wrestling some openers at the past few shows, hit this crazy suicida over the ring post during a great match where I saw so much growth in him as a performer over such a short time, and that was the first time I ever felt the need to contribute to pro wrestling.

Wrestling stayed close to my heart throughout my entire decade career as a musician, where I had achieved a million streams on a song, opened for Lil Yachty (which is now relevant to wrestling. Funny!), and built an events company called Evrvdav. I booked local acts for shows and tours around Ontario & also produced content, from video shoots, all the way through to editing them and formatting them for artist’s social media. Video was one of my favourite parts of Evrvdav and musicianship in general, especially filmography en-masse when it isn’t bogged down by my pitfalls associated to my personal artist brand. Capturing shows and moments via footage and being able to add some flare onto it to elevate it past simply documenting the moment… It’s just the best.

When Covid shut down the entire fucken world, my tour company kinda died and I pivoted back into my childhood dream of Game Dev. It finally clicked that Pro Wrestling can allow me to do all the things that I loved in Evrvdav.

The El Esquizo iconography came back into my life as the logo for my personal Game Dev projects, where the lucha decal over a ski mask represents both the urban side of my projects, and the pro wrestling fundamentals I pull into everything I do. I did do a decent amount of straight-up pro wrestling stuff as well though.

This brings me to today. My day job of providing ambient pedestrian support on the dopest fucking game of all time keeps me hungry to raise the bar in other avenues of my life, and as we finish this project, I’m starting to reconnect with life outside of work.