Reflecting before RAW in Houston

As of last month, it's been 14 years working in the pro wrestling industry, depending on what you classify working as. Me and my brother started on the ring crew for Combat Zone Wrestling in 2003. We would just help them break down and clean up, usually leaving thumbtacks stuck in my shoes only realizing the next day in high school that was where the clicking sound was coming from when I walked. Oh yeah, every CZW event back then had a thumbtacks or glass match, leaving my sneakers with a nice floor scratching coating of whatever goodness the wrestlers felt like falling into that night. If it wasn't for independent promotions like Combat Zone Wrestling and people like John Zandig who said, "screw it" and started promotions like CZW themselves, I wouldn't be sitting in Houston, Texas today working for the WWE.

World Wrestling Entertainment is such a large organization. For the people that are familiar with it you might see statistics thrown around touting their incredible reach to people across the world but the production itself is rarely talked about in detail. In short, compared to companies like a CZW, the scale of the operation itself is awe inducing. And no matter the amount of people who work here, or their years of experience and training, or the budget, or the scope of their production, the same principals I was taught 14 years ago as an independent wrestler, ring crew personnel, or production assistant, all hold true to what I do here in the company of hundreds. It's what we were taught by the CZW crew so long ago just breaking rings down in parking lots. Be respectful. Be willing to learn. Work hard. Have fun.