When SlamWrestling.net Producer Greg Oliver asked me for a summation of my internship experience a few weeks ago, I was honestly unsure of what to say. That’s not to say … Wait. Let me start over.
My internship here at Slam (which wrapped up on Dec. 20) as part of my Centennial College Sports Journalism post-grad was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. Challenging, certainly, but I learned a lot about the industry I hope to make it in. As well, I got to meet a lot of genuine and interesting people along the way, such as Masha Slamovich, Sheldon Goldberg, and two wrestlers I’ve looked up to since I was a kid, the Hardy Boys. I’ll be sticking around for AEW Collision reports every Saturday and the occasional interview piece and event recap in and around Toronto.
As I look back on the year that was — as might be customary each year for everyone through the first couple of weeks of January — I’m left with an uneasy feeling. I’m unsure how I’m supposed to reflect on a year that saw so much happen to me. I’m certainly grateful for some things that happened. But other moments in 2024 leave me questioning.
Before I get into 2024, here’s a bit of my origin story, or ‘lore’, if you prefer.
To give readers a sense of my age, Kesha finished the year I graduated high school atop the Billboard Top 100. That’s an intriguing way of saying the year without explicitly doing so. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with my life after that. I’d tried a number of different university programs but never found something among them I wanted to pursue as a career.
In 2016, I finally started a program that I saw through to the end. Graduating during the pandemic was a weird experience but the world was very different in 2021. The use of Zoom has grown on me over the years but I absolutely detested the idea when classes were all online. The only positive I saw at the time was being able to roll out of bed two minutes before class started, log in for the lecture, and brew up some coffee as my brain could get going for the day at its own pace.
Once I finished my undergrad (the word “finally” would have been added, depending on who you asked at the time), I still had no clear direction of my next step. The pandemic certainly didn’t help in that regard.
Then. in the summer of 2023, it finally hit me. Like a full platter of obvious.
You see, I’d always loved sports. As far back as I can remember, there’s a vivid memory of me watching sports. From hockey to basketball, to everything in between. A big in between was the Attitude Era. It finally clicked in my brain: “I love writing. I love sports. I want to get paid to write about sports.” I remember writing that on a Post-it note on my laptop. I wish I still had that note but I’ve long since deleted it.
When I finally connected those dots, I forced myself to not dwell on the fact that it had taken me longer than a lot of my friends to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Sure, it got me down a few times along the way. But I worked really hard to force myself to not give that thought more time than it deserved (which was none, to begin with).
Looking back now, it’s crazy to me that I didn’t come to this conclusion sooner. Hindsight is perfect vision. But even that sort of thought can be dangerous when you dwell on it.
For me, this past year was no run-of-the-mill, routine, ordinary 366 days. Quite the contrary, in fact.
When I figured out that I want to get into sports media in the summer of 2023, I immediately started looking at post-secondary programs. I was mostly looking at programs in the US as sports is just exponentially bigger there. I felt I was ready to head back to school. Except that feeling didn’t last as long as I’d hoped it would.
The start of the year was really rewarding but life outside of school had gotten hectic by the end of March (long before that, actually, if I’m being honest with myself). I’d been dealing with my own self-doubts about being able to stand out from my classmates when it came time to get hired, some who are ten years younger than me. After all, it’s all about being able to separate yourself somehow, right? By late-May, I’d done well to move past that negative thought and was finally able to focus more consciously on school.
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Then, out of nowhere, came the Buckshot Lariat (figuratively speaking, that is).
During the dog days of the pandemic, when everything was closed, a few of my friends were still working as their jobs were in banking and insurance, things that are pandemic-proof. I’ve always enjoyed video games, but League of Legends was one I never quite saw myself playing. It took a literal pandemic for me to finally give that game a chance. There would usually be four of five of us that played daily after they would all finish work.
Me being unemployed at the time due to the pandemic meant I had too much free time, that I honestly did not use as well as I could / should have. Because I had so much free time, I finally gave in and decided to play a game I’d rejected to try for years. Thus began the bonding.
You see, me and this group of friends were already very close. But I always felt like I was slightly less close than the others as they were all business majors in university and I was not. But even now, they never make me feel like I’m different in any way. That’s more my own self-doubt that’s been a life-long battle.
We’d play League of Legends every weeknight. We’d usually start around 6 p.m. and go until the last of us got tired, often as late as midnight. It was no issue for me as I never had anywhere to be those days. But I know some of my friends had mornings where they regretted not sleeping earlier.
When nobody else could join us or after our other friend had signed off for the night, it sometimes would just be me and Harrison. He was honestly the glue of our friend group. I say “was” because on June 16th, he passed away suddenly at the age of 33. I’d found out the morning after, as I was getting ready for school on Monday morning. I did not end up going to school. I needed to make sure this wasn’t the worst nightmare ever. It felt like there wasn’t enough coffee in the world to wake me up that morning.
It still doesn’t seem real. There are often days where I expect to see a message from him regarding a big sports development. He was usually first to message our friend group when big stuff went down, especially in baseball and hockey. Either that or a dumb meme or video. He had the best sense of humor and his laugh would fill any room. The really tough part for me was that we’d all been together at our friend Nikki’s wedding just a week before his untimely death. That would be the last time I’d see Harrison alive.
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Being a pallbearer at his funeral was honestly the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. Picking up the coffin, I couldn’t remember how to walk. Each step was as shaky as could be. It couldn’t be real. But the scary thing about nightmares is that the worst ones are usually ones you can’t wake up from.
Getting back to the responsibilities of school and life after that made the second half of 2024 a complete blur. There were days I often zoned out and thinking it was December … when it was July. I’d lost all sense of time for a while and I’m not quite sure how I got through the rest of my program, but I did. A big shout-out has to go to my classmates who made sure to check in on me and support me when I needed it.
What complicated my year further was, for the next six to eight weeks after my friend’s passing, it seemed like there was someone I knew going through a health scare every week. I can barely remember much of July and August.
The past few months haven’t gotten any easier but I’m learning how to get back up from whatever life throws at me.
All in all, 2024 taught me a lot about life and about myself. I’d like to say I’m stronger now for having gotten up from the metaphorical Buckshot Lariat, but I’m not sure that’s the case just yet. I’d like to think it would be true one day.
I love pro wrestling so much because they never stop fighting. There’s a lesson I’ve learned this past year: just keep fighting.
TOP PHOTO: Sully Khan at the Atlanta Braves’ Spring Training facility in Tampa, Florida as part of his experiential week March 2024.
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