A local sports reporter makes his pro wrestling debut

By Dan Truttschel

Sports Correspondent

Many of us have a list of activities we hope to accomplish before our time on Earth is done.

It’s our “bucket list,” as they say.

Well, last weekend gave me a once-in-a-lifetime shot to check off one of mine, and let me tell you, it was an experience I won’t soon forget.

I now can say that I’ve not only participated in a professional wrestling match, but I’ve also retired on top with a perfect 1-0 record.

How cool is that?

To set the stage for my one and only appearance in the squared circle, I need to back up about a year when discussions began about how to raise funds for the Wilmot boys basketball program, where I’ve been an assistant coach the past four years.

Sure, we’ve done the feeder school tournaments, the different sales, whatever we could think of to add a few bucks to our bank account.

At that time, I gave our head coach Jake Erbentraut a crazy idea: Why not try to bring in a professional wrestling company to do a show?

It had never been done before, but that shouldn’t stop us from branching out and trying something new – and it just so happened I had an inside connection to such a company.

Just a few months earlier, I began attending shows in Fox Lake, Ill., when the Purely Obsessed Wrestling World crew would arrive, and it didn’t take long to get hooked.

You won’t find the wrestlers in this company on cable television every week, but they spill the same effort, desire, blood, sweat and tears as those more recognizable names.

So when I met the owner, Jimmy Blaze, about bringing his form of entertainment to our school with an eye on raising funds, it seemed like a perfect match.

There was just one catch, and that’s Blaze (who since “lost” the ownership of the company) wanted yours truly actively involved in the show.

Wait. What?

How does someone, who admittedly is a die-hard wrestling fan but who had never stepped into a ring, accept this challenge?

It took a lot of arm twisting, a lot of courage and a whole lot of reassuring that all would be good before my 43-year-old self joined forces with Blaze and fellow “good guy” Joey CeCe against the three-headed “evil” team of Scott X-Con Ortiz, Pee Wee Bob Parella and Chris Cairo in the main event late Saturday night.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but let’s just say, good prevailed over evil that night, and I was able to reap the benefits of all my partners’ hard work to pick up the pin in front of dozens of excited basketball players and fans.

While the win was exciting in and of itself, it was the whole night that I will remember.

Some people jump out of dangerously-fast airplanes for a rush. Others scale tall mountains. Some drive really fast cars.

For these men and women (and myself for one night only), the adrenaline fix comes in the form of a wrestling ring.

As nervous as I was before we headed to the ring, I had so much excited energy flowing through my veins – from the moment we circled the ring to engage with the fans, through the entrance, the match itself and the finish.

All totaled, we were probably out in the ring for about 25 minutes, give or take. And my involvement really was limited (which was definitely better for my health), but I definitely was exhausted at the end.

In the few days since the event, I’ve talked to some of our players who said they initially weren’t sure what to expect, but by the end of the night, completely enjoyed themselves and wanted to come back for more.

And that’s what the entertainers in small companies like POWW count on. They pride themselves in giving the crowd a show, and they pour every ounce of their being into doing just that.

For one night, I was part of that inner circle, that family (and it is a family believe me, these people look out for each other). What I did in the ring really was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Never trained a day to do what they do, and it definitely showed.

Will we try this event again? There’s already been talks about doing just that. Now that I’ve officially promoted a show, I can fix all the mistakes on our end that I know we made.

So we likely will give it another shot. In the meantime, though, we raised some money, and I left with a memory of a lifetime. Whether I pull a Brett Favre and come out of retirement remains to be seen.

But that can’t erase what’s already done – and one less item on my bucket list to boot.