Spent the early part of yesterday at a funeral for Colin and Graham McKay mum leigh and it got me thinking back to when my own mum passed my mum Rena passed a couple of years before i got involved in wrestling she never got to meet my extended family she never knew SWA existed and she never saw us sell a ticket she never knew how much this crazy buisness ment to me and when she died i never got to say goodbye

Leigh (Colin and Graham mum) not only met the brothers extended family but was a big part of it she got to share in the good times and help in the lean months and she must have been proud of what her boys achieved ,she would have seen how many dreams they helped fulfil how many careers the started ,nurtured and blossomed into some of the best workers in the business.
C & G work tirelessly to promote BCW and their boys and Leigh was always by their side they should be proud and im sure she was at seeing what they have created

Her boys done her proud yesterday and so did her family(the Lycra clan) the showing of respect and love for Leigh was evident as there was as many standing as there were sitting im sure she was watching from above smiling and nodding in appreciation C & G know we are all here for them as they were for her because that's what family do

some of you will know and some of you wont before i got involved in "the biz" i was an international athlete for Scotland and Great Britain and i played american football at collegiate,league and international level

now pay attention the above paragraph is not a work of ego its an accomplishment

accomplishment (plural accomplishments)
1. The act of accomplishing; entire performance; completion; fulfillment; as, the accomplishment of an enterprise, of a prophecy, etc

ego (plural egos)
1. The self, especially with overtones of self-importance.

now we have that sorted out and we are all clear on the difference i will continue

as an athlete i went to training worked on my technique got selected for teams competed in events some i won some i lost but my place in the team was earned because as a discus thrower there was no one in the team who could beat me if a person came along to training and they were better than me then i would have been dropped and would have had to work harder train more ect to get my place back i would not have

A.moaned that it was all politics
B.left the club and set up my own team and competed with other people that had been dropped because they weren't good enough

it was a simple equation you trained hard you learned your craft from proper respected coaches and you competed against the best that other teams/organisations had to offer

when i played football it was the same you trained you learned the play book and you played your part in the game.you did not

A. moan that you weren't playing after not showing up to training for 2 months
B.listen to the coach then do your own thing so you looked good but the rest of the Team looked like arseholes
C.turn up on game day expecting your brother,wife,girlfriend,mother,gre
 at aunt would be part of the team without asking the coach/manager
D.stop training because ive made the team

these seem like basic common-sense rules to me but apparently they don't apply to wrestling

as a wrestler i expect decent safe opponents
as a promoter i expect professional workers who do what i pay them for
as a trainer i expect respect hard work and commitment


as for promotions there are 4 or 5 guys busting there arse to maintain a level of quality in the business up here and another half dozen pissing all over it and the ones pissing on it don't have the overheads of insurance ,training schools,ring ,sound advertising ect to worry about they put on there shows burn a venue/town and walk away
becaue if a worker or god forbid a fan gets hurt the papers wont say "FAN INJURED AT(insert 3 letters) WRESTLING SHOW" the newspaper article will say
"FAN INJURED AT WRESTLING SHOW"

so in summery this business is the best business to be in we get to be superheroes but with that comes a great responsibility (ops all went a but spiderman for a second there) take a pride in what you do get proper gear train hard and keep learning if you want to join a school find out who the trainer is and where they trained and what they have achieved try different schools learn different styles invest in your future show respect to those who have earned it and most important of all never forget rule number 1.................................
 ...........

decided to write this down in a kinda closing a chapter in my life ready to write a new one kind of way

September 2007
we had just finished the gathering it was one off those things that could have been a triple disaster which was ironic because i wasn't supposed to be in the main event with Doug Williams Adam was but due to injury we didn't know if Adam would be fit in time but he was and he had a corker of a match with drew but back to the triple disaster thing

option 1. no one came lol the show was good and me and Doug was a good match
option 2. lots of people came the show was shit but me and Doug was a good match
option 3 lots of people came the show was great but me and doug was a shyt match

there are a few other combinations i know but i couldn't afford to think about that at the time in the end in one night i had put my balls on the block as a promoter ,a booker and a worker and the gamble payed off we put 1700 people in the kelvin hall the show rocked and me and Doug had a good match i was so proud of all the guys who had came up through the SWA training school and shown they didn't look out of place on a super show i was proud of Scottish wrestling because we showed that we could work together and produce something of that size(special thanks to ross at PBW ) and i was proud that id been part of it

top of the world dose not even begin to describe it

couple of months later i started feeling like crap i had been diagnosed with crohns disease bout a year earlier but it was getting worse so i went to the doctors and he sent me to a specialist at Ross hall who suggested that i had been miss diagnosed and he wanted to run some more tests it was at this point that it was suggested that i couldn't rule out bowl/stomach cancer

so in febuary i went for a endoscope (camera down the throat) and a MRI of my upper and lower intestine it was at this time two small tumours were discovered in my bowl

march i went in for a colonoscopy (swiss army knife and bbc film crew up my arse,well thats what it felt like lol) and the two tumours were removed and biopsyied sp? i was then put on a cocktail of medication for 6 months which was basically the opposite of growth hormone it was to inhibit any cell growth and kill off any lingering disease as well as a shyt load of antibiotics

on 9th september i was given the all clear but nearly 12 months of not being allowed to train and to be honest not wanting to had taken its toll id gained about 3 stone and my cardio had left a long time ago which was a problem because i was the NWA UK heavyweight champion and had to keep defending the belt even though i was unwell i couldn't drop it to anyone because i don't have control of that title i tried to use it to put guys like adam ,adrian and wolfie over but it never worked out the way i wanted but my hands were tied i finally had enough and decided to relinquish it in bellshill and that was the hardest thing ive ever had to do the waver in my voice that night was real and my apology to the locker room and the fans was heartfelt

i know i should have just walked away and got better but i couldn't i love wrestling too much and in a year that had went from so high to so low so quickly the only thing that kept a smile on my face was the prospect of wrestling for SWA

so at this years gathering conscience is dead and peter was watching from the crowd and as Brittany says "oops we did it again" all the boys stepped up and big props to nick who went above and beyond makes me proud as a trainer and as a worker to see them do what they do and do it so well

so the good news is im better (that could be the bad news im not sure lol) im back in the gym ive dropped about 20lbs of the 60 i need to lose ive just ordered some new gear (for wearing gentlemen) and when im ready ill be back but not in SWA ive taken a few bookings outside SWA for the first time in a long time and im looking forward to them like i was in m