The door swung open and a glaring light struck my eyes. 30 seconds later my eyes adjusted to the bright, artificial illumination of the stadium and I was suddenly struck with a sense of awe. Never before, had I wrestled in a venue of as great a magnitude as Selland Arena, in Fresno, California. Swiftly, I made my way down to the arena floor, teammates in tow. After having not eaten all day, I was positively famished and just wanted to weigh-in; really I wanted to go eat. After weighing-in I stood in line, waiting to get a removable tattoo that would grant me access to the floor for the weekend. I winced as she pressed the ink to my shoulder.
“Is it cold?” she inquired.
“No, I just hurt it recently,” I replied.
“Are you okay to wrestle?”
“I’m…show more content… After, a painful warm-up consisting of me recoiling in pain every time I tried to use my shoulder. I was ready to go out on the mat… sort of; as ready as I would be anyhow. As I stood by, waiting for my name to appear on the jumbotron, memories of all the work it took to get to that point in time flashed through my head. The people who helped me get there; I trained for hours every day. The injuries I fought through, from both shoulders, to my ribs, to my knees, to my head, it took quite a bit for me to pull myself together for this one point in time. And there I stood, twiddling my thumbs staring at a screen of names, waiting for mine to appear. Then, it did. I treked towards the mat I had been assigned to, across the arena from where I stood and checked in at the table. My opponent strode to as well. Who he was mattered not, what he did mattered not, where he had been mattered not. All that mattered was that he stood between me and my ultimate goal of going to the national tournament. As the match started, and the whistle blew, we went at it. Blow after blow, shot after shot, takedown after takedown. we exchanged. As the period came to a close and the buzzer went off we each trudged to our respective corners. I with my shoulder hardly intact and him with his
