Carte Blanche to Mariana Massa | Struggle

June 20. 4:30 p.m. The wrestlers have arrived. Even comedians. Rehearsal begins. I find it hard to believe that tonight, for a few moments, I will be the one who acted as my guardian in my childhood.

I was shaken by the excited cries of supporters and happy commentators when my mother returned from her early morning. Change In the reception hall.

We are filming a special program where wrestlers and comedians can mix their talents in one evening.

I see wrestlers wearing wraps on their wrists Type Electricity by fixing the floor. A man rubs his hands with coconut oil before tying his construction shoes. His role as a woodcutter is only visual. Physically, he can play the role of a hewn tree, his body is so sculpted.

Wrestling is not a joke. This is serious. Shots. Clothes. Everything is true.

My mom would leave us $20 on the kitchen counter so my brother and I could order whatever we wanted at the convenience store while we waited for the evening menu. At the time, it was mostly Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker or Shawn Michaels waiting. In the middle of the night, when the fight started, my brother pushed me to wake me up…

Before today, I had never attended a wrestling match in a ring. It filled me with joy to see the muscles twitch, the faces tense, and the actors wobble 2 inches from my face.

I was thrilled with what I expected early in the morning in our three-and-a-half-bedroom apartment in Montreal North. Painful ropes in the small of my back, feeling the ring move to the rhythm of our steps and a violent waltz I never imagined being led by wrestlers.

By the end of the evening, with the adrenaline wearing off, I could barely walk. I got a headache. I felt my heart beating in my shoulders. Still I put minimal effort into looking spectacular. I so admired these men who entertain the public with their bodies and their cries that my pulse throbs with pain.

Yet, none of them have ever made a living out of wrestling.

“I’d love to live with it, but you have to pay the bills. It doesn’t pay to rattle around in Quebec. »

I was stunned by the physical and mental toll the wrestlers put on themselves in one evening. But the next day, some of them woke up at 5am to spread tar on the asphalt. As if the previous day had only been an illusion.

“But why don’t you go to America and fight? »

“We need a work permit, we’re coming back. A gang might have been there, but when you’re banned for five years, it hurts to start over. »

Learn to fall, stand up, act and dance with the crowd.

The struggle is real. Like life.