Smackdown

 Sheamus. That was his stage name. You couldn't break into the big time in American wrestling without a stage name. And being ginger haired, ginger-bearded and pale as a dove led to the name Sheamus. Of course his real name was Wade O'Reilly but Sheamus looked way better on a billboard. He had more muscle than Gunther but didn't look like a Gunther. And he'd never pass as a Santos Escobar even if he lived near the sun. Like all the other 'stars' he had worked his way up. Jobbing for free in local matches and finally getting his break when he blagged his way onto a ten-match-ticket in San Diego that was televised in the wee hours one random Tuesday night. His phone rang and funny enough, hadn't stopped ringing in fifteen years.

We all know wrestling is fake as fake can be. You spend more time in rehearsals than in the gym. You do however, have to be fit and strong and supple and with an inherent ability to bounce. Again and again and again. Sheamus looked in the mirror one particular Saturday morning and realised the bounce wasn't there anymore.

Last night's fights had gone really well. He had a bout with Austin Theory and the win was his. Or at least the producers had orchestrated his win. And the tag-team match to finish out the night, while teamed up with Seth Rollins had similarly seemed to be a great match, a great, crowd-pleasing end to the series of fights.

But that particular Saturday morning Sheamus saw an even paler man staring back in the mirror. A man blurry on the edges. A man in pain from one shoulder to the other. Late in the last match he had taken a wicked elbow between the shoulder blades as expected but his head was too close to the corner pole and even though they were padded, his temple had struck one hard. No biggy on an average day but this wasn't Sheamus' first concussion. It wasn't his second or third either. And that Saturday morning he was sure he'd fought his last WWE fight. 

On the couch he downed a glass of beer and four Advil to calm himself and stop the wave of nausea and headaches that engulfed him. He could not keep his eyes closed and things were a little odd with them open. 

He began to look into the past. Remembering where he had come from always helped to ground him and motivate him too.

His Dad had laughed at his little muscles as he grew up. He would watch TV wrestling and his Dad would point and say "That'll never be you boy!" And the frustration and slowly rising anger never left Sheamus. But his father did. Left them high and dry. By seventeen his sparring was supporting his Mum and keeping a roof over their heads. He provided the alimony that never came. 

And now, on a couch in his lavishly austere condo in Miami's South Beach, he was hurting. And now that he thought about it... he'd lost something. Everything in fact. His youth trying to prove a bullying father wrong. His personal life because relationships on the Road are fleeting. His health because he'd lost count of the cortisone shots, the smelling-salts revivals... the bangs to his head. "God", he thought,"I can't remember how far back it was that the doctor mentioned multiple concussions for the first time. Four years? Five?"

It didn't matter. His mom had her new house now. His Dad was dead at the bottom of a bottle. There was enough zeroes on the ATM screen too. Fifteen years worth. Sheamus settled into the sofa for a sleep and hoped to feel better if and when he woke.