I coulda been a contendah ...

In my sophomore year of high school, because of a stupid schoolyard brawl, I lost my shot at fulfilling my dream. I dislocated my shoulder trying to throw a guy I had picked up into a wall when he slipped out and my arm hit the concrete wall at an odd angle. In retrospect, it's probably lucky he slipped out, or I would have probably been arrested for assault or murder or something along those lines.

Anyway, for the next several years, my shoulder chronically would dislocate whenever I extended my arm past 90 degrees straight out to the side of my body — past 90 degrees up or back — and it would pop out of its socket. I dislocated it playing basketball, football, play fighting, rolling over in bed wrong, trying to avoid someone poking me.

That kind of chronic problem prevented me from entering the profession of my dreams, kept me from doing what I wanted to do for a living for most of my childhood, adolescence and teen years.

No, I didn't want to be a professional football player. I did want to play football at a top-level college, and wouldn't have said now if I did and then had been drafted, but what I really wanted to be was a wrassler.

Not a wrestler ... a wrassler.

I wanted to be a pro wrassler, like some of my favorites: Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan, Bruno Sammartino, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, the Road Warriors, etc.

Yes, I know it's not REAL, but damn it always looked so fun and cool and dangerous and wild. I actually went to a few matches when living in Texas, as wrestling was huge then, way before the WWF (now WWE) and WCW became really huge. I got to meet a bunch of wrestlers, some who became famous in the bigger organizations laters.

Watching pro wrasslin' was a family event — we all loved it. My dad loved watching it, so did my brothers and sisters. Guam loves wrasslin' — it was great Saturday afternoon viewing.

But wrasslin' involves a lot of shoulder work — body slams, nelsons (both full and half), chicken wings, even basic thrown-into-ropes stuff. So I had to give up the dream.

Never would ...
... The Mighty DZER

stalk the rings and strike fear into the hearts of his opponents.

*sigh*

c'est la vie ...

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• The Chamorro word for "wrestling" is "áffulo'."