In the 9 years that I have been an active "pro" wrestler, I spent 7 of them billed as a jobber in several different underground federations. It's like promoters can smell it on you. Maybe it's just your look, or your attitude in general or something else entirely. But they just seem to know almost instantly what role the fans will want to see a new guy playing in the ring.
At first, fresh out of high school and pumped full of energy, a bright eyed muscle head teenager- I was a shoe in for the beefcake babyface fan favorite. Everywhere we went with our small promotion the crowds (while often small) were ecstatic to see this new handsome face, built like a brickhouse geared up in simple solid color trunks and matching boots going by the name Atlas and destroying the ranks of paunchy wrestler wannabes and occasionally taking a challenge from a local tough guy and laying him to waste-always ready and willing to flex and pose for the fans.
Then the crowds along our tour routes began to get bored with the gimmick. Personally I blame the likes of Brock Lesnar, Chris Masters, Bobby Lashley and so on. People were tired of the big bodybuilder just tromping through the roster of wrestlers and never facing any kind of challenge. After a few more weeks of traveling around and crowd reactions dwindling more and more with every new stop, and some of our regular venues outright booing me, management had enough.
They billed a fairly new guy as the mysterious martial artist called Onyx, I was thinking the whole gimmick was just been there done that but the first place we debuted him was just hypnotized by this guy, his entrance, ring gear the whole package just had them eating out of his palm. He did his little promo "I'm the new badass in town blah blah blah" slapped around a local no name for 4 minutes and left the ring to thundering applause. I had to give him credit, he was certainly acrobatic and knew his way around the ring and obviously no stranger to the gym, but I'll admit I was jealous that I was fast becoming the "dead weight" around the locker room and watching this guy eat up my newly lost superstardom.
After his well received debut, Onyx was billed to meet Atlas, and naturally win in an effort to boost the new guys star power and relieve some of the repetition of my appearances-a chink in Superman's armor as it were. I wasn't excited about it, used to being on top and getting the adoration, but I wasn't going to be that guy whining to management about match outcome, so I took it in stride.
On the night of our first match I came to my locker as usual, it was a familiar arena in Northern California that we had come to many times before, and they were one of the most anti-Atlas crowds we had encountered. People barely even approached me at our promo events when we first got into town so I was feeling pretty down by the time I had to gear up for the show. I opened my locker and slid on my boots, knee high black leather with silver laces and fairly thick soles. They looked like a monster to walk around in but they were actually pretty comfortable. I pulled out my trunks, expecting the usual solid glossy black trunks that complemented the boots I had choosen. Instead of my trusty solid black briefs however, they looked like somebody had rolled them through a bucket of glitter. Shiny silver embroidery spelled my name across the ass and a clusterfuck of glittering curlicues and swirls dotted my trunks all over the place. I figured now that I would be getting my ass kicked they wanted me to look more flamboyant and ridiculous. I just shook my head and pulled the trunks on, noticing that they rode a little higher than usual in back-ignoring my new bikini-ish tailoring I headed out to the entry ramp.
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