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Grappling with air travel reality

By DON 'Cyrus' CALLIS -- For SLAM! Wrestling

I am often asked what the best and worst things are about being in the
professional wrestling industry. I often answer "the travel" to both
questions. While going off to Miami in the dead of a Winnipeg winter,
or heading to Europe in spring is definitely appealing, there are
other times when the travel can seem quite stressful.

Being away from family and friends or just the comforts of home can
really wear you down and trying to maintain your diet and training
schedule while working nights and making early morning flights can be
a huge drag. Dealing with lineups in airports is never fun either,
which brings me to the main point of the story.

This past week, about 24 hours before I was set to fly, I realized
that my outbound flight was departing on Sept.11. Being a veteran
flyer, I tried not to push the panic button and get paranoid, although
I did seriously consider changing my ticket. To make matters worse,
the evening before I was to fly out, the only thing on television was
memorial programming from the tragedy. I ended up flipping to
something on the Discovery Channel, only to find it was a show about
airplane malfunctions.

I must say that the morning of my flight, when I arrived at Winnipeg
International to see that the airport was literally only about 10 or
20% as full as on any other morning, I was a bit disturbed. It was
clear that many had made the conscious decision not to fly on that day
which made me wonder if I should have changed my ticket after all.

Not to sound sappy, but it suddenly hit me that changing my ticket
would have been the worst reaction I could have, because it would be
exactly what the perpetrators of 9/11 would have wanted: to change the
way all of us conduct our daily affairs and to take the enjoyment out
of life. You see, I generally find air travel quite cathartic, a time
when there is no phone ringing or places to go, when one can just
catch up on reading or relax. I decided at that moment that the best
thing I could do is just enjoy my trip and not change the way I
normally behaved.

Wrestlers probably log as many or more miles then even the most
seasoned business travelers. Performers' jobs depend largely on being
able to get to the towns and give the fans the shows they deserve. I
personally am very happy that I didn't change my ticket that day
because it restored a sense of normalcy to the day. When you think
about it, what could be safer than being on a plane full of wrestlers?

K-5 News 

I just returned from a trip to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla where I did colour
commentary for a new group called MXPW (Maximum Pro Wrestling). The
card was a star-studded one with such names as Shane Douglas, D.Lo
Brown, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Chris Sabin, New Jack and
Sandman to name just a few. The group returns to Ft. Lauderdale in
November for more television tapings ... If you are interested in
training to be a wrestler, manager, valet, announcer, referee or
writer then contact the NHB Training Centre at Cyrusofecw{at}shaw.ca for
details ... I enjoyed watching Lance Storm work as a babyface lately.
It was just like our days on the Northern Tours.


--- Internet Rex 2.29