“I woke up and I saw the broken glass, and the holes in the wall and I was just like, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t let this eat at me anymore”
It’s easier to try something new when time is on your side. You grant yourself permission to fail, treating losses as lessons to learn from. You correlate the rights of passage of a young adult with being a young artist. Embrace burn out, failure, mistakes with the intention to get them out your system and by the time you’re supposed to take life seriously, that creative endeavour is ready to transition into a successful career.
As you slowly master the fundamentals and explore your limits, you begin to build a platform for your voice. You find out what your voice “is”. All the years of work have given you the skills to show the world thoughts that’ve been bubbling in your brain, ideas that have kept you up at night are now realised.
You make friends with people that are as dedicated and driven as you, they love the craft you love, and you love to see them grow the way you are. There’s a sense of excitement in not only what you’re doing, but you’re now invested for the future of the whole community and art form.
You start to hear from people- keep going, don’t stop, etc.
It feels like all that’s left to do is see the course.
You apply yourself for that transition into career. Put yourself forward for every opportunity available. What you don’t get, your friends do, and that’s a win for everyone. You know the future is bright. With each rejection you learn, adapt, grow. You’re hardened by the rejection, as if you’re an army storming the gates of opportunity, and it’s still only a matter of time.
You keep hearing from people- keep going- don’t stop- etc.
Success doesn’t come overnight. Until -you feel like- for some people-it does! People that haven’t been in the industry for as long get a lot further, a lot quicker. Their work is amazing. They can’t be faulted. All you can do is look inward. What more can you do? Are there mistakes you forgot to make along the way? Are you still… Shit?
You keep hearing from people, keep going- don’t stop- etc. but the stock you had in this encouragement is rapidly falling. If anything, you start to feel like they’re patronising you. They don’t even know what they’re saying, they’re just saying it.
The constant rejection makes you question whether you should be in a place that doesn’t want you there. That if you left, not only would people not notice, they’d breathe a sigh of relief. You’re that guy who’s stayed too long at the house party. While the love for the craft is eternal, you wonder if it’s your place to keep trying. Your house is never clean, your brain is never free and cutting your losses feels like the only way to truly be happy again. So you quit.
Why quitting can be good. Part one: The Professor of Wrestling, Serena Deeb.
After cutting her teeth on the independent wrestling scene for five years, Serena Deeb was told the only way she’d get to on television is if she got breast surgery. She did, and in less than six months was signed to the WWE. Serena’s role on television was CM Punk’s deranged fan, shaving her head on live television to join a faction called The Straight Edge Society.
Serena discovered wrestling in the full bloom of popularity, the late nineties. When the story leading to the match was a bigger selling point than the match itself. Serena watched Triple H, Chyna, Shawn Michaels, and wanted to fill their shoes. Women’s wrestling back then was an oxymoron, unless it came with the stipulation that the loser (and most likely the winner too) would end up in their underwear.
While the WWE in 2010 had a wider space for women in wrestling, there still wasn’t room for women’s wrestlers. In the year Serena was employed, she had just one match, losing in a mixed tag.
Now no longer under contract, Serena went to Japan and discovered an audience who adored the nuances of wrestling. The crowd roar as loud for a perfectly executed side-headlock takeover as they do a shooting star press. She spent five years honing her craft in Japan and across the world, becoming a skilled, cerebral tactician. Serena had been pressed against the glass ceiling for years now, and after suffering from a serious concussion, she decided to retire in 2015, having her last match in Tokyo’s Korakuen hall.
In the very same year Serena retired, WWE’s developmental promotion, NXT, had their first ever women’s main event, with Bayley and Sasha Banks compete in a 30 minute Iron man match. In hindsight, this was the dawn of a new era for women’s wrestling.
when the UFC’s former Bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey signed to WWE in 2017 the women’s division was pushed to the forefront, culminating in Wrestlemania’s first ever women’s main event in 2019. Stars like Becky Lynch, Asuka, and Sasha Banks were now as recognisable and marketable as Stone Cold, Triple H, and Shawn Michaels. The dream Serena had was finally realised, just not for her.
In the middle of this unprecedented boom in women’s wrestling, Serena is teaching as a yoga instructor in LA. She’s become a whole new athlete, focusing on flexibility and core instead of plyometrics and glamour muscles. She lost her bulk and removed her implants. Two reversals of ways she changed herself to fit into the industry.
In 2020 Serena got a call to compete in a one-off televised match against Thunder Rosa. This wasn’t for WWE, but a brand new promotion called AEW (All Elite Wrestling). A company started after Serena retired and was looking to add depth to the women’s roster. Serena and Thunder Rosa brought the house down and Serena was signed there and then.
Serena has been part of AEW for two years now and has been one of the stand out stars in the company. She performs with all the technical prowess learned from her time in Japan with a fluidity between each move that is unworldly. Her body contorts when putting an opponent in a submission hold to make it look career ending. Everything she does is purposeful, from the lock up, to the uppercut, not one moment of action is wasted. She’s earned herself the mantle of “the professor” playing a mean-spirited veteran tactician who’s five moves ahead of every person she faces. The feuds that show this off perfectly are in her series of five matches with Hikaru Shida. Where both wrestlers elevated themselves in a feud that revolved solely around how much pain they could inflict on each other.
For years Serena knew she was good, and she retired knowing she could be better. There was more she cold’ve done. She’s more than done that now, and is still in the prime of her career.
When you look at Serena Deeb’s ringwork after after being fired from WWE in 2011, and see her now, you see someone who never, ever rested on her laurels. In retirement she continued to grow in a different direction, but when she came back all growth was incorporated into a new, bold style. If Serena had never walked away, had never quit, had never fallen in love with yoga and never made the changes to her body for her mental health, we might have never have seen the professor of wrestling.