Origin Story Part I: Painted Faces and Neon Shoestrings

It's 1987, one lazy afternoon in Florida… 

The living room TV is locked on TBS.

I’m seven years old, halfway through a bag of chips, not really sure what I’m watching. Just that it's loud, wild, and kinda awesome. 

Guys are getting body slammed. Bouncing off ropes. Flexing. Screaming.

Cool.

But then I hear a roar. The announcers are losing it. I bolt back to the living room just in time to see a surfer-looking guy with wild, colorful face paint storm the ring. He’s throwing haymakers, clearing the ring, and coming to someone’s rescue like a superhero.

“He's heroic,” I think.

“Into the ropes, here comes the Stinger Splash!”

My eyes go wide. “Stinger Splash?!” I yell. “He jumped, like, a hundred feet in the air on that guy!”

The show signs off: Join us next week for more World Championship Wrestling... 

And that was it. A wrestling fan was born.

But watching wrestling wasn’t enough, we had to make wrestling. At the family table, my sister and I would grab whatever markers we could 

find and start drawing our own rings, dream matches, and wild arenas. Lined paper t

urned into squared circles. Notebooks turned into pay-per-view posters. She signed her masterpieces proudly: "By Brooke."

It was our own little territory, booked from the kitchen.

I didn’t know when Sting would show up again. But I knew this: I was hooked. And every day after school, I was scanning the channels, waiting to catch that magic again.

To be continued…