Past the Canvas w/Nemesis
Mar 9, 2015 13:31:17 GMT -6
Head Booker, Icon Lord Leon Corbin, and 1 more like this
Post by Icon Lady Eva Hikari on Mar 9, 2015 13:31:17 GMT -6
You could be forgiven for assuming you were walking into a museum. The big old manor house seemed a relic of England’s glory days. Lords and Ladies ruling over small villages, a world with a very strict upstairs downstairs divide. It had a sense of grandness to it, of shooting weekends and sprawling lawns. It was an almost imposing set amongst fields of green and woodland. The small family of gnomes in residence beside the front steps took some of the edge off. The smiling young woman opening the door took the rest. With her long black hair falling over her shoulders, her make up free face was open and relaxed. This was her world, her space and she clearly felt at ease. Her faded jeans, bare feet and black jumper were more casual than most would expect from the first Lady of the Coliseum. The sounds of life coming from inside were a stark contrast to the near silence outside. Somewhere in one of the many rooms Lord Corbin could be heard, his laughter joining that of children. Whatever the world may suspect of the man, he sounded just as at ease here as his wife. The living room she led me to lacked the expected skulls and chains. The gothic glamour the woman draped herself in hadn’t touched this room, or indeed any of the house I’d so far seen. White walls were decorated with family portraits, adding colour in the form of primary backdrops and smiling faces. A vase of daffodils sat on the oak coffee table, it was clearly a home made vase. The creative paint job a splash of pink and blue. It was a huge room, with an open fire and towering bookshelves against the walls not covered with pictures. Two leather and cord grey and black sofa’s lined the coffee table. The biggest one had been claimed by an elderly looking black cat. The raven haired beauty, the Lady of the Coliseum, former Unified Champion, Nemesis of the wrestling world and one of its one time darkest entities looked over with great affection at the grumpy fluff, oblivious to its death glare as she dared to perch on the edge of one of its cushions. Taking a seat on the safer looking sofa, we caught up briefly. This wasn’t the first time I’d interviewed this determined young woman, but it was the first I had been allowed inside the inner sanctum.
Rumours often lead the way in this business, what you think you know often becomes the fact held above anything else. It’s a dangerous game to play in a world full of half truths and blatant lies. Over the decades there have been more than a few thrown at Hikari. From the subtle and believable to the downright outrageous, she has heard them all and, if we are really going there, possibly created a few of them just for her own amusement. From the enigmatic youngster, to the cynically twisted Nemesis and beyond, the rumours have always followed, mixed in with just enough fact to throw you off entirely. Laying them all to rest had never been the plan, and it's clear from her smile she still rather enjoys the mystery tied to some aspects of her life. Yet in a place where she had all the control, you gotta wonder just how much she’d be really willing to let you have.
Eva, it's an honour to get the opportunity to interview you again. The fact that it’s here in your own home makes it no less daunting I tell ya. It’s not what I expected, but it is a beautiful house.
Aye, it’s an old manor or something. Full of hidey holes and secret rooms. It's worse than Hogwarts navigating this place after you’ve had a few.
Did you buy it for the seclusion?
No, I didn’t buy it. I inherited it. The seclusion was just a welcome perk. In our line of work you need a corner of the world you can retreat into. Somewhere you can just be you, not the you that you need to be to survive in front of the cameras. The children too, they rely on the stability. It’s not really a huge deal to be travelling all over the world if they have somewhere to call home there. I think this has become the main house.
How did they adjust to life on the road again?
Better than I did…..Lucy and Daniel are growing up so quickly it’s almost impossible to lie to them. They don’t believe the little booboo’s are so little anymore. They’ve seen the big slips and the results. It’s a weird feeling to be lectured by your kid I’ll tell you that much. They are very smart, too smart sometimes. The travelling doesn’t bother them, neither does watching us work. It’s been the life they’ve always sort of been aware of. It’s just harder to convince them that everything’s okay after a particularly bad fight. Leon breaks his nose they barely register it, anything else and they are on your case.
What about the smaller children?
Absentmindedly stroking the cat the raven haired beauty smiled briefly. The sounds of the youngsters playing could still be heard. Whatever else you might have to say about this family, they were clearly happy.
They would find it a lot more difficult if they didn’t have such an amazing support net of people. The kids all look out for each other. They have us too, but sometimes it’s easier to accept something coming from a big brother or sister figure.
Is there any resentment between your biological and adopted children?
That’s an adult concept…..resentment. You have to seriously screw up a child to make them hate that much. They love each other. Both of the bigger kids were awed by the twins, such tiny things they couldn’t believe it. They wanted to know everything, be involved in everything. Watching them get excited over something small……they’d argue over whether the baby had gas or was smiling. It was sweet. Even now, they accept their siblings can be bloody annoying, and as their mother I can say that. Love them to bits but tiny terrors throwing matching tantrums in a busy restaurant because the peas and carrots are touching? Yeah, any parent who claims their kid doesn’t do that? They’re full of shit. They have arguments and moments, but deep down they love each other. Even when claiming they don’t like each other, upset one and all of them jump on your case. You can’t ground Daniel with Lucy, Lucan and Georgia arguing as to why you’re mean. Even if one of them is the direct cause of him getting into trouble in the first place. It’s like, they’re this super stable. You mess with one of them, you deal with them all. I hope they hold onto that as they get older. Sometimes, family is all you really have. A bond like that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
You mentioned bonding, it's no secret that you are incredibly close to your adopted daughter. Given the circumstances surrounding the twins birth, did you find it difficult to bond with them in the same way?
Pushing her hair away from her face she left the cat in peace. Taking objection it manages to stretch onto her lap too. She didn’t seem to notice it had latched into her hand, or that it was vigorously washing it.
Yes and no…..Lucy was my first baby, despite not actually giving birth to her. She was only just two and very inquisitive about her Dad’s weird looking friend. We bonded way before me and Leon ever did. Wherever I was, she wanted to be. The relationship just happened…..I never asked or forced her to think of me as her mother, but it felt pretty great when she did. It’s an honour to have played any part in her life, but to see the smart, freethinking young lass she’s becoming? I have a different bond with each of my children. I do things with Danny that Luce has no interest in. Same with Zippy and George, I love them all equally though. I will however admit…..I did struggle to connect to the twins at first. Especially Georgia…….god she was so tiny. She just looked so fragile. I was afraid of her….
You must have blamed Davina for that?
Not really, not at all to be honest. I blamed myself…..part of me still does. As a parent you acquire this amazing ability to transfer all guilt onto yourself. Your kid sneezes? Then you somehow let them get too cold, or too hot, and you find yourself Googling symptoms and convincing yourself you’ve caused your kid to have some horrifying illness. With Georgia I think it was actually Leon who kicked my arse into gear. Assured me she wasn’t about to shatter. You should see her now, lass is constantly tearing it up with her cousin. At the moment she thinks she’s a pro skater. She stands there with one foot in a roller skate, the other up in the air in some ballet pose, and Daniel holding her and pushing her around. She’d be the first skater in history to shout “wheeee” while displaying moves.
So there’s no ill will towards Ms Cameron?
The smile curling her lips was genuine, there was a darkness to it though. It wasn’t a happy smile, more tolerate. Like something you’d see on a lion before it charged at you.
Plenty, you think just because she’s still breathing it’s all water under the bridge? I can’t forgive the things she’s done. Nobody she’s touched with her spite ever will. No matter what she does, what improvements she makes, or new goals she finds. She will never be a welcome part of mine or my children’s lives. She’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I don’t hate her, I don’t think enough of her to even grant her that. I hate what she does, I hate her selfish actions, but the woman herself? I don’t care enough to hate. She wants that bitterness, then she can have it. Hold it close along with the self pity and fragile ego. It's pretty much all she has left now.
Until GZW your personal life and professional life never crossed over. You were an enigma, and that seemed deliberate. What changed? Why did you give more of who you really are? Was that down to Ms Cameron?
Hmm…..No, I think I can blame Leon for that one. Relationships on camera for me were different from off camera. Didn’t matter who I was with, the fans didn’t know for the most part and when push came to shove I’d probably throw them under the bus in the name of the sport. Mixing work and pleasure is never a good thing, it gives you one very obvious weakness and a whole lot of extra stress. You don’t just feel your own match, you feel theirs and all the wonderful repercussions from their actions too. Leon blurred the lines…….invited the world in, because for him it was all one and the same. The cameras never stopped rolling, so if he was going to lay his heart on the line he was going to do it where he felt most comfortable.
The cat had rolled itself entirely onto her lap now, curling up and glaring at me in much the same way the young woman was. She remained good natured in her replies though.
In the middle of a ring surrounded by millions?
Yep, is it any wonder people thought it was an act? Hell, even I wasn’t too sure what he was thinking.
You honestly had no idea?
Exhaling heavily her eyes briefly searched the room. There had been plenty of clues to the wrestling world back then. The couple had become the hottest gossip before they themselves ever acknowledged anything between them. A big part of that reveal had always been considered a rating’s stunt. Why else would two of the hottest stars at the time suddenly hit it off? Especially considering their past histories of partners.
On some level…..maybe? We were close, but….. spending so much time with someone. Working, travelling, on the road….You rely on the people the travel with more than you’d expect. If nothing else to give you a little bit of sanity back. On long car rides between states there is only so much I spy you can play with someone before you want to throw them under the wheels of their own damn car. I’d always felt comfortable around him. I’m not a fan of people touching me in general but it wasn’t unusual to be sat on his lap as we talked or for his arms to be around me and that was fine. He was safe, and off limits. So while there probably had been moments of “are we flirting right now?” or looks that said just a little too much. I kinda presumed it was all in my head. He was married and historically, preferred guys.
Was Vernon that big of a concern, considering you two ended up together after that show anyway?
Huge…..Yes I came back, yes we talked it out, yes we decided we needed to see where it took us. At the back of your mind though there are always doubts and questions. I was staying in his house at the time. It took more than I’d ever tell him to go back that night. A big part of me wanted to walk away. He’d opened a door I don’t think either of us would have gone through given the choice. That’s just it though, there was no real choice. You can deny how you feel but you can’t change it. It took me a long time to get over the whole “home wrecking whore” part of our relationship. Didn’t matter what Leon said or did, there were enough folk out there to back up my own sentiments. I was essentially destroying his marriage, unhappy or not. It was still a sacred vow not to be taken lightly. It was…..hard. I mean no new relationship is easy but this was something else. I backed off from Leon, put up walls that had never been there before. There wasn’t a single harsh word or thought anyone had to offer that I hadn’t already covered myself. I beat myself up way more than anyone else ever could have. It reached the point where I could just smile and nod. I couldn’t disagree and at that stage in the relationship you shouldn’t have to fight that hard.
So when Vernon came back?
I expected it. By then I was already firmly in my foxhole, somewhere I’d lost my helmet and was down to my last few bullets. I had very little desire to stick my head out. I’d have stepped aside, waved the white flag. I was the imposter after all and at that point I was running out of fight. It made it worse at times that Leon seemed so…..undecided. In an ideal world I think he’d have happily had us both in his life. This world is anything but ideal though. Being with him meant everything was always so public. Sometimes stepping into the ring was the lesser evil. Give me Raze, no DQ, barbed wire ropes and a whole array of weapons, over any of the drama being with his Lordship generated. Either way I’m going to end up f****d up, at least with Jerry it would have been expected. By the time things had settled to a relative calm there seemed no point in creating the divide between who I am and who the fans see. They’d already seen more than I’m normally comfortable with. For some reason they connected with that. My fans have always been some of the most loyal and devoted, for some the ice queen thawing was too much, but for every one I lost I gained three more by being myself. Showing them the humanity behind it all.
Do you miss the days where you lived the Gimmick?
That’s just it…..I lived it. There was no off switch, the lass you saw on camera was all there was. You can’t walk through life with so much anger. You can’t surround yourself with so many walls. Not only is it a very lonely existence is also self destructive. The people in my life back then were kept close because they were useful distractions; they were discarded when they lost that use. It was very much live for the moment. It was all so cheap, so easy. It didn’t stop just because the camera did and it’s only through some very good lawyers and very understanding fans that I never ended up getting in serious trouble.
What would you say the worst thing you ever did was?
Visibly thrown off by the question Lady Hikari actually wrinkled her nose at the question. Whatever place her mind was about to go, she wasn’t going to enjoy it. Her reply came slowly, deliberately as if she was going to make you feel her words along with her.
That’s a difficult question. Up until recently I wasn’t a very nice person……I’m still not. Now I just save it for work, back then? Hmm, I guess it all depends on perspective. I suppose the one I feel most guilty about would have been Hayden. The real Hayden I mean…..driving her out of our first company together. It was an “I quit”, the loser had to sign away their right to be there. There was a whole lot of messy drama involving an ex. I didn’t care that he’d essentially cheated……he was the only one who considered what we had a relationship. He was a plaything for a little while, that’s all. Management got wind of potential drama, spun it into a story where he turned on his mistress. I think Hayden may have actually cared about him…..It’s actually the match where I got all the pretty little scars on my arms…..Of course she wouldn’t willingly sign the contract….I beat her so badly she couldn’t stand. Broke every finger on her left hand and a few on her right, left just enough for her to still be able to sign her name. The ink hadn’t even dried, her voice still ringing around the arena begging me not to make her do it. The very same mic I had used to make her quit, I delivered a scathing rant, and called quits on my own time in that company. There was no risk for me at all going into that. I’d already handed in my notice, that match was my last under contract.
Why did you choose then to leave? How long before she was back wrestling?
Sometimes you just know when it’s time to move on. Professionally I had achieved everything I was likely to in that place. Personally I was finding it harder to be interested in the talent around me. I’m not elitist, I will work with anyone and everyone and have over the years. Marketing me as a “Diva” or any variation, putting me in matches where winner is determined by who ends up least naked and hiring models to play wrestler, cause how hard can it be? That’s just not cool. It’s kind of a deal breaker for me. Up until that point I’d done some pretty crappy matches. Paddle on the pole, gimmick versus gimmick…….eugh I even wrestled in custard…..to this day I still can’t stomach the bloody stuff. The owner wanted a female division, he wanted to appeal to the young male market and he wanted birds who had no issues ragging each other around and undressing for the crowds. The girls weren’t allowed to play with the boys unless it was some sort of softcore porn act. I wish I was joking on that one. Throw the extreme tag onto something and you can get away with a lot. Other talent did…. Me? I never dreamed of faking it while writhing round on some frat boy with frosted tips and more muscle mass than brain cells. I wanted to be a wrestler, I wanted to be a Globalstar. I was done and so was Hayden, whether she wanted it or not.
You disappeared off the radar for a while after that. Where did you go?
At last a smile from the young woman. Genuine enough to disarm the hostile tone to her voice from the last question.
Asia, I was a free agent. For the first time in a long time I was free to grow. I was surrounded by new and interesting people. I was eager to learn and they were willing to teach. It opened my eyes to a whole new world, not to go all Disney on you. I embraced it and they embraced me. I’m a bigger star over there than I ever will be in the states. I learned so much personally and professionally. The gimmick started to slip while I was there, there was no need for it. They didn’t want me because I had tits they could market. They wanted me because I had passion, and drive and no matter what bumps I took or how much they threw at me, I’d get back up and ask for more. I was so hungry and anxious to know everything back then. I’d watch someone pull off an amazing aerial move and be blown away. I’d be like “I want to do that!” Didn’t matter how many times I had to fall down I wasn’t happy until they were. You can’t just take someone else’s move and do it badly, that’s an insult. Asking them to show you and working with them to perfect it? That’s different. I was so alive over there, it was…..something else. I eventually did sign a contract, but it was the best three years of my life.
Why did you come back to the states?
I still ask myself that sometimes you know. I suppose it’s because no matter where you are in the wrestling world, GZW will always be the holy grail. To the indy guys it’s some mythical thing that they will never see. The more you learn the more you work the more real it becomes. Being able to see it, touch it, be part of it. That’s the be all and end all for a lot of the talent. I guess, until you make it there. Until you’re able to say you’ve at least walked the halls of the Globalverse part of you will always feel like you’ve not really made it. It sounds nuts, considering the success I’d had else where. That was my dream though. To stand on the same stage as the people I’d idolised. To play on the stage of the wrestling gods. My first company back stateside was nowhere close. It was big, but it was Xtreme….with an X. The X is very important, it made us edgy or some shit. Don’t get me wrong, people could wrestle. The emphasis was never on that though, it was a nice afterthought. The main point was to see how much damage you could do to each other with whatever weird and wonderful objects you had. Munin was there for a little while……Before most shows management would give us a hundred dollars to go shopping. Our goal was to blow the lot in any thrift shop or dollar store we could find. Whatever random crap we brought was turned into a weapon. That’s how you ended up with an inflatable cactus costing someone the world title.
When the company folded under the pressure of the lawsuits and declining roster. You took some time away from the business?
Aye, I became a trainer for a little while. It gave me time to heal properly, let me be closer to home and still let me be part of something I had loved. I’ll be honest, after my brush with twenty four seven extreme. I had become a little disillusioned with the business. I’d suffered my first big injury with little pay off. I mean, if you’re going to be a dick and break something, at least have the decency to use it to push yourself. I was seriously contemplating a move to Japan……That’s when Jericho got in touch.
You knew Jericho before GZW?
You could say that. Our styles seemed to compliment each other in the ring. He was the hard hitting tank. I was quicker and high flying. We had all bases covered, and throwing in the extreme element was something we both played to naturally. We worked together in the past. It’s a small world really, even if you don’t remember them you’ve probably crossed paths with most folk before. We teamed, we worked against each other and apparently he’d still heard my name being thrown about. Which was cool, but at that point I was done. I wanted no part of another American company, even the Globalverse had lost some of its shine for me.
He clearly talked you into it….
He didn’t actually. Jerry doesn’t ask twice, he left it hanging there. Made his suggestion then left it. He knew the idea would grow, he knew what kind of competitor I was. It took me a while to get in contact. I needed to get my head back in the game before I could walk back into it.
Your first big title in GZW was the Television Title. Is that why this title holds so much significance to you?
Possibly. The saying goes you always remember your first, right? For me it was the confirmation that all the sacrifices were worth it. I’d made it to GZW and the management had enough faith in me to give me that kind of chance pretty early on. It was the validation I needed, and as hard as I worked to get that far I knew it was about to get a whole lot harder.
You’ve gone on record to say the HKWF belt was the one you felt you worked hardest for. That it’s your favourite, even compared to the TV title?
See, that’s a different kinda love right there. The TV title was the first big thumbs up I got from the US crowds. Up until GZW, I had fans but I wasn’t the one selling out arenas. The HKWF belt, that was the nod to all the fans who had helped make me who I was. Those in China, Korea, Japan, those who had packed out whatever makeshift arena we found to perform in and supported us. I wouldn’t say I won everyone over…..I was a Brit wrestling for an American company, and the belt changed hands in Brazil of all bloody places. It was a big honour for me though.
Didn’t you drop the belt centre stage when you walked away from the company?
Eugh, one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I was injured, had been for a long time. I’d been under pressure from the powers that be to get it sorted for a while. One of the joys of having Monarch as a father in law in means when he nags, I get it both from a professional standpoint and a personal one. I’d injured my knee weeks before and it was one of those nagging things. Us wrestlers are horrible like that. If you can walk it off you will, glue or tape yourself back together and job's a good one. This is fine sometimes, not when it reaches the point where it could become career ending…..My options were to either, try and wrestle a match with my bloody knee braced and hope for the best, or drop the title and create heat for a later return. I wasn’t happy to give a half arsed performance for my title. It was all or nothing. So if for a little while I had to appear the bastard, if I had to leave under a dark cloud to allow myself to heal, then so be it. As it happens I never got to be the heel, not even on my return.
Which is a bit of a new thing for you. We’ve watched Nemesis stalk through the wrestling world, taking no prisoners. How strange is it to now be considered a face?
Shades of grey sweetheart, it’s all shades of grey. I can lower the tone and break rules, but I’m more often than not caught between two bigger bastards. It helps that I’ve grown up a lot since then too. It’s sometimes easier to be the bad guy, it’s a lot bloody harder to try and remain calm and reasonable in the face of it all. Don’t get me wrong, I can get a sly low blow in when the ref’s back is turned, or introduce a weapon, or wear my steel toe capped boots. I’m not out there to destroy though, I’m there to put on a bloody good show. If I can work with my opponent, awesome but I can work against them just as easily.
You’ve gone out of your way to try and remain at least on civil terms with a lot of your colleagues. Who has been your favourite to work with and why?
God I hate this question. Kandi was my superfan moment……and if you think that’s bad imagine marking out over your Mum in law away from the ring. I think I actually elbowed Leon, whispered loud enough for her to hear “Oh my gods it’s Kandi! Lets go say Hi!, no wait, don’t! What would I say?” I was pretty much hyperventilating and my face was rocking a wonderful shade of crimson and it dawned on me, that was his step mother. There’s a little voice in my head telling me to play it cool when meeting people, who to me are the be all and end all. I mean, I had these people’s posters on my wall as a kid. I practised their poses, never thinking I’d actually meet them. Then I do, and all pretence of cool fails me. I’m that awkward kid, blushing and trying to wrap my head round the fact that these folk are real people. When it comes to titles though, I had some pretty interesting battles with Sean Locke. Our fights over the Television title were pretty intense.
You mentioned Hayden a little while back, and unfortunately I have to ask. She broke your neck in what appeared to be a very deliberate slip. At the time it didn’t seem there was any coming back from that. How did it feel at the time to be betrayed like that?
No matter what animosity there is going on with people, you have to grant them a certain amount of trust to step into the ring with them at all. Professionally there are just some lines you don’t cross. No matter how big the bastard, no matter what the issue. If nothing else, respect for the sport should ensure it. I knew when she hoisted me in that move it wouldn’t end well. Somewhere between her letting go and my neck hitting the mat there was a horrible moment of clarity. I knew what was going to happen before it did. Not fast enough to be able to react though. It was deliberate and done in a way where she could at least try and pretend the guilt wasn’t hers. It’s how she works. In the end it did work for her because anyone who may have condemned her for it wrote it off as a hazard of the business. It wasn’t a bad break……well obviously not as bad as it could have been. I’m still walking and I’m in better shape now than I ever was. The nerve damage was the scary part. Not being able to feel almost killed me. At that point it was screw the business…..I was imagining my babies learning to walk without me. Not being able to hold them, run around with them. After the whole sister betrayal, there wasn’t really a low she could reach.
That reveal was…..odd. How do you spend so much time with someone you were so close to without realising its not them?
Who ever said I was close to my sister? When we were little guys, when all we had was each other, before the care system pulled us apart and put us back together slightly differently, maybe. I’m closer to William and Munin than I ever will be Hayden. The last time I saw her was at that horrible match where I forced her to quit. That was over a decade ago, people can change a lot in a decade. Helena grew up with us, she was our adoptive mother's biological spawn. The only one of us to actually have a stable home life during the early years and I dunno, maybe in her messed up way that made her feel left out. We’d always treated her as a sister anyway, why she felt the need to act the part I don’t know…..She must’ve done her homework though, she had a lot of the mannerisms down to an art….but they were old mannerisms. As I said it’s a small world, didn’t take long for her name to get thrown around. Hayden was still around, still causing misery. I’d love to claim I met up with my real baby sister, we hugged it out and decided get all get together every Christmas like the good old days. Somewhere over the years life had twisted her into something I’m not sure I like. She rewrote history to reflect her as a victim and used that as fuel and justification to act like the biggest c**t there is. There are still shades of her under all that hair dye, the tattoos and angst. It’s just hard to get past the smell of JD and self pity. She wasn’t much bothered by any of what had happened, even seemed pleased to hear some of it……and that hurt. Even if nothing else did, the fact that she hated me enough to enjoy it all…..
The hurt was evident in her hazel stare even now. Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug her attention no longer with he, instead it rested back on the cat.
She wanted Helena, by then I saw no reason to let her have her. Let them do their worst to each other and get the f**k outta my life. Didn’t quite work out like that though.
Are you still in contact with both women?
Hayden is beyond contacting. Helena…..It’s best for everyone involved if I know where she is.
As the adoptive mother of her son, does it bother you that she has contact with him?
Nope, Lucy was very, very young when Davina stepped out of her life. I’m the only mother she’s ever known. To Danny I have always been Aunt Eva, and that’s cool. As long as his memories of his Mum are good ones I’m happy to let her create more. Her visits are supervised very strictly and it doesn’t happen unless he wants it to. So it’s fine.
Did you ever picture yourself where you are now? A wrestling Icon, married to wrestling royalty with four small children?
I was a realistic kid, the last time I pictured myself married before it happened was to Prince Adam after my love cured him of being a beast. Marriage was never on the cards as a realistic option, as for kids? Not even close. If you’d have asked me at the start of my career where I saw myself in ten or so years time, I wouldn’t have even gotten close. In my world I was married to the business. It was the be all and end all, and the only way I was leaving it, would be on a stretcher or in a box. I knew I’d achieve great things, the realist in me knows when to quit if I’m bad at something.
You were training to become a nurse before joining the wrestling world. Why didn’t it work out?
It never could have. I was good at it, over the years I’ve become even better at masking my annoyance at bloody awful human beings. My heart wasn’t in it though. It was a back up plan, if all else failed I have something real to fall back on. I’ve used the skills over the years too, but those guys and girls are a lot stronger than I could ever be. I wouldn’t be able to face what they do on a day to day basis.
Going back a few questions, you said you were a trainer for a little while. Did that help influence your decision to help Leon with his?
Wasn’t my choice, it was his. I thought the idea of putting my name to anything like that seemed a little…..cheesy. It’s like claiming to be a Jedi master before you learn the mind trick. I’m still learning, as long as I am in this business I’m still learning. I was always hanging round the school anyway, these kids are die hard. Seriously, to even get access to the Corbin Academy there are tests. You don’t get to just walk in off the street and ask to be made a wrestler. I honestly didn’t think I had anything to teach them. Call it a downer, or a crisis of faith, whatever. I sparred with Leon a few times and apparently our naturally competitive natures drew a crowd. It’s the strangest thing in the world to see these people obsessing over you the way I did for Kandi. Together we’ve created something special though. The GZW folk are always welcome, some of them even host….I don’t want to call them classes but they essentially are. It's like we’ve created the place as an extension of the GZW family.
Those random downers you mentioned seem to have resurfaced recently?
Yep, depression's a fun one. You have good days and bad days, but it doesn’t quite leave you. On a bad day it’s very bad, no matter what you may have achieved in life you feel worthless. You’re a waste of humanity, space and time. You and everyone around you would be better off if you didn’t exist. Every flaw, every imperfection that you know so well become more glaringly obvious and blown out of proportion until that’s all you see. You become convinced the people around you would be better off without you so you push and prod, lashing out with spite or just turning off entirely. You want to do something selfish, sometimes even catch yourself thinking of ending it all. What difference would it make? To them, they’d miss you at first of course and you feel a little bad at the thought of causing them you love pain. Yet by continuing to do this, the constant up and down you are causing them more. Eventually you’ll push everyone, push them so far they never come back, and then you can do it. Then you won’t have to feel anymore, though by then it only really changes between all out pain and loathing and the comfortable numb you’ve come to recognise as a good day. Grim right? I haven’t had a bad day in years. I’m always aware though. Depression's quite often misunderstood. It's easy to live with because most people don’t realise that’s the issue. As I said though, good days and bad where the latter are very few and far between. GZW has a great team of people willing to help you work through anything. Once I got over the painkillers, the paranoia and depression mostly went with it.
Her look warned me to drop it, whatever train of thought I was heading down. Whatever attempts on her own life I was going to question was apparently the line. It would take a braver man than I to cross it.
Just how bad was your painkiller addiction? Is it fairly common in the industry?
Depends where in the industry you look…..and just what you mean by bad. I didn’t even notice it to be honest. It was just something I did. It starts off with a nagging injury that wont go away and you don’t have the finances or time to fix. You’re working every night for a company where if you don’t perform you don’t get paid and someone else will get your spot. In the little leagues the spot is all you have. You don’t know who is going to be in the audience, it might only be six people, but one of those six could be a curious exec. He could be your ticket out of the crap heap. Testing is less compulsory in the indy places, they don’t have the budget and as long as you perform they don’t give a shit. Most habits start there, mine did. Even with a high pain threshold there is really only so much you can take. You go out there, you give your all, by the weekend you are black and blue and still having to show up to the crappy waitress job you do to be able to afford petrol for the week. You might not eat but you can get to your next show. You start to flag and someone hands you something. No questions asked, you take it and you get your arse back out there. I would like to point out that GZW has a very strict wellness policy and although I have relapsed on one occasion I am now and have been for years, clean.
When was your relapse?
Just over three and a half years ago……
She let that hang in the air, not quite meeting my stare but not looking away either. Any mistake she had made she had clearly owned and still carried with her.
Ahem, between yourself and Leon you have had some pretty aggressive fights. Both in the ring and in the promo room you have torn each other apart. How hard is it to do that?
It’s not. The promo’s aren’t all make believe and lets us be mean because it makes this interesting. A lot of it is like therapy, you mix the truth in with just enough crap and people are left guessing. There’s truth in all of those rants if you know where to find it. Real life is hard and I’m not going to pretend our relationship hasn’t had its issues. Neither of us is perfect, but I’d rather be screaming at him in the promo room than the living room. After most of those horrible promos, the ones with the “oh no she didn’t just say that” moments. We will talk, air out things and on a few occasions reassure the other person that we were just acting up for the camera. In the ring he is still one of the greatest performers of our time. I treat my matches with him as I would any other match, the only real difference because we train together I know some of what to expect.
How has being with Leon changed you?
Erm…….That’s a good one. I know more submissions now? Seriously, him and Jerry made it their goal to teach me at least one I didn’t hate. I guess if anything I’m more accepting of who I am now. I try and talk about things more rather than locking them up and pretending things aren’t happening. He’s become my support net I think. Shown me that it’s okay to be weak sometimes. He comes across as this big, selfish man child and sure he has the ability to be that. We all do, I don’t want to say it’s the nature of the business…..but it totally is. He’s actually quite a sweetheart. He took the walls down and I’m totally okay with that.
How does the man we see tearing it up on TV differ from the man he is?
Can you not hear him playing with the kids? That’s him telling the lame arse jokes, not them. As I said he’s a sweetheart, right up until you point a camera at him. Then he leaves his humanity at the door and turns into a shark.
Ms Hikari, Eva it has as always been an honour and a privilege. You are a former champion, a current Icon, the first Lady of the Coliseum and the newest and only female Grand slam champion. What does the future hold for you?
A smile brighter than anything I’d witnessed since my arrival lit up her face. It added warmth and humour to her eyes.
That’s the beauty of it all m’love. The sky is very much the limit.
Rumours often lead the way in this business, what you think you know often becomes the fact held above anything else. It’s a dangerous game to play in a world full of half truths and blatant lies. Over the decades there have been more than a few thrown at Hikari. From the subtle and believable to the downright outrageous, she has heard them all and, if we are really going there, possibly created a few of them just for her own amusement. From the enigmatic youngster, to the cynically twisted Nemesis and beyond, the rumours have always followed, mixed in with just enough fact to throw you off entirely. Laying them all to rest had never been the plan, and it's clear from her smile she still rather enjoys the mystery tied to some aspects of her life. Yet in a place where she had all the control, you gotta wonder just how much she’d be really willing to let you have.
Eva, it's an honour to get the opportunity to interview you again. The fact that it’s here in your own home makes it no less daunting I tell ya. It’s not what I expected, but it is a beautiful house.
Aye, it’s an old manor or something. Full of hidey holes and secret rooms. It's worse than Hogwarts navigating this place after you’ve had a few.
Did you buy it for the seclusion?
No, I didn’t buy it. I inherited it. The seclusion was just a welcome perk. In our line of work you need a corner of the world you can retreat into. Somewhere you can just be you, not the you that you need to be to survive in front of the cameras. The children too, they rely on the stability. It’s not really a huge deal to be travelling all over the world if they have somewhere to call home there. I think this has become the main house.
How did they adjust to life on the road again?
Better than I did…..Lucy and Daniel are growing up so quickly it’s almost impossible to lie to them. They don’t believe the little booboo’s are so little anymore. They’ve seen the big slips and the results. It’s a weird feeling to be lectured by your kid I’ll tell you that much. They are very smart, too smart sometimes. The travelling doesn’t bother them, neither does watching us work. It’s been the life they’ve always sort of been aware of. It’s just harder to convince them that everything’s okay after a particularly bad fight. Leon breaks his nose they barely register it, anything else and they are on your case.
What about the smaller children?
Absentmindedly stroking the cat the raven haired beauty smiled briefly. The sounds of the youngsters playing could still be heard. Whatever else you might have to say about this family, they were clearly happy.
They would find it a lot more difficult if they didn’t have such an amazing support net of people. The kids all look out for each other. They have us too, but sometimes it’s easier to accept something coming from a big brother or sister figure.
Is there any resentment between your biological and adopted children?
That’s an adult concept…..resentment. You have to seriously screw up a child to make them hate that much. They love each other. Both of the bigger kids were awed by the twins, such tiny things they couldn’t believe it. They wanted to know everything, be involved in everything. Watching them get excited over something small……they’d argue over whether the baby had gas or was smiling. It was sweet. Even now, they accept their siblings can be bloody annoying, and as their mother I can say that. Love them to bits but tiny terrors throwing matching tantrums in a busy restaurant because the peas and carrots are touching? Yeah, any parent who claims their kid doesn’t do that? They’re full of shit. They have arguments and moments, but deep down they love each other. Even when claiming they don’t like each other, upset one and all of them jump on your case. You can’t ground Daniel with Lucy, Lucan and Georgia arguing as to why you’re mean. Even if one of them is the direct cause of him getting into trouble in the first place. It’s like, they’re this super stable. You mess with one of them, you deal with them all. I hope they hold onto that as they get older. Sometimes, family is all you really have. A bond like that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
You mentioned bonding, it's no secret that you are incredibly close to your adopted daughter. Given the circumstances surrounding the twins birth, did you find it difficult to bond with them in the same way?
Pushing her hair away from her face she left the cat in peace. Taking objection it manages to stretch onto her lap too. She didn’t seem to notice it had latched into her hand, or that it was vigorously washing it.
Yes and no…..Lucy was my first baby, despite not actually giving birth to her. She was only just two and very inquisitive about her Dad’s weird looking friend. We bonded way before me and Leon ever did. Wherever I was, she wanted to be. The relationship just happened…..I never asked or forced her to think of me as her mother, but it felt pretty great when she did. It’s an honour to have played any part in her life, but to see the smart, freethinking young lass she’s becoming? I have a different bond with each of my children. I do things with Danny that Luce has no interest in. Same with Zippy and George, I love them all equally though. I will however admit…..I did struggle to connect to the twins at first. Especially Georgia…….god she was so tiny. She just looked so fragile. I was afraid of her….
You must have blamed Davina for that?
Not really, not at all to be honest. I blamed myself…..part of me still does. As a parent you acquire this amazing ability to transfer all guilt onto yourself. Your kid sneezes? Then you somehow let them get too cold, or too hot, and you find yourself Googling symptoms and convincing yourself you’ve caused your kid to have some horrifying illness. With Georgia I think it was actually Leon who kicked my arse into gear. Assured me she wasn’t about to shatter. You should see her now, lass is constantly tearing it up with her cousin. At the moment she thinks she’s a pro skater. She stands there with one foot in a roller skate, the other up in the air in some ballet pose, and Daniel holding her and pushing her around. She’d be the first skater in history to shout “wheeee” while displaying moves.
So there’s no ill will towards Ms Cameron?
The smile curling her lips was genuine, there was a darkness to it though. It wasn’t a happy smile, more tolerate. Like something you’d see on a lion before it charged at you.
Plenty, you think just because she’s still breathing it’s all water under the bridge? I can’t forgive the things she’s done. Nobody she’s touched with her spite ever will. No matter what she does, what improvements she makes, or new goals she finds. She will never be a welcome part of mine or my children’s lives. She’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I don’t hate her, I don’t think enough of her to even grant her that. I hate what she does, I hate her selfish actions, but the woman herself? I don’t care enough to hate. She wants that bitterness, then she can have it. Hold it close along with the self pity and fragile ego. It's pretty much all she has left now.
Until GZW your personal life and professional life never crossed over. You were an enigma, and that seemed deliberate. What changed? Why did you give more of who you really are? Was that down to Ms Cameron?
Hmm…..No, I think I can blame Leon for that one. Relationships on camera for me were different from off camera. Didn’t matter who I was with, the fans didn’t know for the most part and when push came to shove I’d probably throw them under the bus in the name of the sport. Mixing work and pleasure is never a good thing, it gives you one very obvious weakness and a whole lot of extra stress. You don’t just feel your own match, you feel theirs and all the wonderful repercussions from their actions too. Leon blurred the lines…….invited the world in, because for him it was all one and the same. The cameras never stopped rolling, so if he was going to lay his heart on the line he was going to do it where he felt most comfortable.
The cat had rolled itself entirely onto her lap now, curling up and glaring at me in much the same way the young woman was. She remained good natured in her replies though.
In the middle of a ring surrounded by millions?
Yep, is it any wonder people thought it was an act? Hell, even I wasn’t too sure what he was thinking.
You honestly had no idea?
Exhaling heavily her eyes briefly searched the room. There had been plenty of clues to the wrestling world back then. The couple had become the hottest gossip before they themselves ever acknowledged anything between them. A big part of that reveal had always been considered a rating’s stunt. Why else would two of the hottest stars at the time suddenly hit it off? Especially considering their past histories of partners.
On some level…..maybe? We were close, but….. spending so much time with someone. Working, travelling, on the road….You rely on the people the travel with more than you’d expect. If nothing else to give you a little bit of sanity back. On long car rides between states there is only so much I spy you can play with someone before you want to throw them under the wheels of their own damn car. I’d always felt comfortable around him. I’m not a fan of people touching me in general but it wasn’t unusual to be sat on his lap as we talked or for his arms to be around me and that was fine. He was safe, and off limits. So while there probably had been moments of “are we flirting right now?” or looks that said just a little too much. I kinda presumed it was all in my head. He was married and historically, preferred guys.
Was Vernon that big of a concern, considering you two ended up together after that show anyway?
Huge…..Yes I came back, yes we talked it out, yes we decided we needed to see where it took us. At the back of your mind though there are always doubts and questions. I was staying in his house at the time. It took more than I’d ever tell him to go back that night. A big part of me wanted to walk away. He’d opened a door I don’t think either of us would have gone through given the choice. That’s just it though, there was no real choice. You can deny how you feel but you can’t change it. It took me a long time to get over the whole “home wrecking whore” part of our relationship. Didn’t matter what Leon said or did, there were enough folk out there to back up my own sentiments. I was essentially destroying his marriage, unhappy or not. It was still a sacred vow not to be taken lightly. It was…..hard. I mean no new relationship is easy but this was something else. I backed off from Leon, put up walls that had never been there before. There wasn’t a single harsh word or thought anyone had to offer that I hadn’t already covered myself. I beat myself up way more than anyone else ever could have. It reached the point where I could just smile and nod. I couldn’t disagree and at that stage in the relationship you shouldn’t have to fight that hard.
So when Vernon came back?
I expected it. By then I was already firmly in my foxhole, somewhere I’d lost my helmet and was down to my last few bullets. I had very little desire to stick my head out. I’d have stepped aside, waved the white flag. I was the imposter after all and at that point I was running out of fight. It made it worse at times that Leon seemed so…..undecided. In an ideal world I think he’d have happily had us both in his life. This world is anything but ideal though. Being with him meant everything was always so public. Sometimes stepping into the ring was the lesser evil. Give me Raze, no DQ, barbed wire ropes and a whole array of weapons, over any of the drama being with his Lordship generated. Either way I’m going to end up f****d up, at least with Jerry it would have been expected. By the time things had settled to a relative calm there seemed no point in creating the divide between who I am and who the fans see. They’d already seen more than I’m normally comfortable with. For some reason they connected with that. My fans have always been some of the most loyal and devoted, for some the ice queen thawing was too much, but for every one I lost I gained three more by being myself. Showing them the humanity behind it all.
Do you miss the days where you lived the Gimmick?
That’s just it…..I lived it. There was no off switch, the lass you saw on camera was all there was. You can’t walk through life with so much anger. You can’t surround yourself with so many walls. Not only is it a very lonely existence is also self destructive. The people in my life back then were kept close because they were useful distractions; they were discarded when they lost that use. It was very much live for the moment. It was all so cheap, so easy. It didn’t stop just because the camera did and it’s only through some very good lawyers and very understanding fans that I never ended up getting in serious trouble.
What would you say the worst thing you ever did was?
Visibly thrown off by the question Lady Hikari actually wrinkled her nose at the question. Whatever place her mind was about to go, she wasn’t going to enjoy it. Her reply came slowly, deliberately as if she was going to make you feel her words along with her.
That’s a difficult question. Up until recently I wasn’t a very nice person……I’m still not. Now I just save it for work, back then? Hmm, I guess it all depends on perspective. I suppose the one I feel most guilty about would have been Hayden. The real Hayden I mean…..driving her out of our first company together. It was an “I quit”, the loser had to sign away their right to be there. There was a whole lot of messy drama involving an ex. I didn’t care that he’d essentially cheated……he was the only one who considered what we had a relationship. He was a plaything for a little while, that’s all. Management got wind of potential drama, spun it into a story where he turned on his mistress. I think Hayden may have actually cared about him…..It’s actually the match where I got all the pretty little scars on my arms…..Of course she wouldn’t willingly sign the contract….I beat her so badly she couldn’t stand. Broke every finger on her left hand and a few on her right, left just enough for her to still be able to sign her name. The ink hadn’t even dried, her voice still ringing around the arena begging me not to make her do it. The very same mic I had used to make her quit, I delivered a scathing rant, and called quits on my own time in that company. There was no risk for me at all going into that. I’d already handed in my notice, that match was my last under contract.
Why did you choose then to leave? How long before she was back wrestling?
Sometimes you just know when it’s time to move on. Professionally I had achieved everything I was likely to in that place. Personally I was finding it harder to be interested in the talent around me. I’m not elitist, I will work with anyone and everyone and have over the years. Marketing me as a “Diva” or any variation, putting me in matches where winner is determined by who ends up least naked and hiring models to play wrestler, cause how hard can it be? That’s just not cool. It’s kind of a deal breaker for me. Up until that point I’d done some pretty crappy matches. Paddle on the pole, gimmick versus gimmick…….eugh I even wrestled in custard…..to this day I still can’t stomach the bloody stuff. The owner wanted a female division, he wanted to appeal to the young male market and he wanted birds who had no issues ragging each other around and undressing for the crowds. The girls weren’t allowed to play with the boys unless it was some sort of softcore porn act. I wish I was joking on that one. Throw the extreme tag onto something and you can get away with a lot. Other talent did…. Me? I never dreamed of faking it while writhing round on some frat boy with frosted tips and more muscle mass than brain cells. I wanted to be a wrestler, I wanted to be a Globalstar. I was done and so was Hayden, whether she wanted it or not.
You disappeared off the radar for a while after that. Where did you go?
At last a smile from the young woman. Genuine enough to disarm the hostile tone to her voice from the last question.
Asia, I was a free agent. For the first time in a long time I was free to grow. I was surrounded by new and interesting people. I was eager to learn and they were willing to teach. It opened my eyes to a whole new world, not to go all Disney on you. I embraced it and they embraced me. I’m a bigger star over there than I ever will be in the states. I learned so much personally and professionally. The gimmick started to slip while I was there, there was no need for it. They didn’t want me because I had tits they could market. They wanted me because I had passion, and drive and no matter what bumps I took or how much they threw at me, I’d get back up and ask for more. I was so hungry and anxious to know everything back then. I’d watch someone pull off an amazing aerial move and be blown away. I’d be like “I want to do that!” Didn’t matter how many times I had to fall down I wasn’t happy until they were. You can’t just take someone else’s move and do it badly, that’s an insult. Asking them to show you and working with them to perfect it? That’s different. I was so alive over there, it was…..something else. I eventually did sign a contract, but it was the best three years of my life.
Why did you come back to the states?
I still ask myself that sometimes you know. I suppose it’s because no matter where you are in the wrestling world, GZW will always be the holy grail. To the indy guys it’s some mythical thing that they will never see. The more you learn the more you work the more real it becomes. Being able to see it, touch it, be part of it. That’s the be all and end all for a lot of the talent. I guess, until you make it there. Until you’re able to say you’ve at least walked the halls of the Globalverse part of you will always feel like you’ve not really made it. It sounds nuts, considering the success I’d had else where. That was my dream though. To stand on the same stage as the people I’d idolised. To play on the stage of the wrestling gods. My first company back stateside was nowhere close. It was big, but it was Xtreme….with an X. The X is very important, it made us edgy or some shit. Don’t get me wrong, people could wrestle. The emphasis was never on that though, it was a nice afterthought. The main point was to see how much damage you could do to each other with whatever weird and wonderful objects you had. Munin was there for a little while……Before most shows management would give us a hundred dollars to go shopping. Our goal was to blow the lot in any thrift shop or dollar store we could find. Whatever random crap we brought was turned into a weapon. That’s how you ended up with an inflatable cactus costing someone the world title.
When the company folded under the pressure of the lawsuits and declining roster. You took some time away from the business?
Aye, I became a trainer for a little while. It gave me time to heal properly, let me be closer to home and still let me be part of something I had loved. I’ll be honest, after my brush with twenty four seven extreme. I had become a little disillusioned with the business. I’d suffered my first big injury with little pay off. I mean, if you’re going to be a dick and break something, at least have the decency to use it to push yourself. I was seriously contemplating a move to Japan……That’s when Jericho got in touch.
You knew Jericho before GZW?
You could say that. Our styles seemed to compliment each other in the ring. He was the hard hitting tank. I was quicker and high flying. We had all bases covered, and throwing in the extreme element was something we both played to naturally. We worked together in the past. It’s a small world really, even if you don’t remember them you’ve probably crossed paths with most folk before. We teamed, we worked against each other and apparently he’d still heard my name being thrown about. Which was cool, but at that point I was done. I wanted no part of another American company, even the Globalverse had lost some of its shine for me.
He clearly talked you into it….
He didn’t actually. Jerry doesn’t ask twice, he left it hanging there. Made his suggestion then left it. He knew the idea would grow, he knew what kind of competitor I was. It took me a while to get in contact. I needed to get my head back in the game before I could walk back into it.
Your first big title in GZW was the Television Title. Is that why this title holds so much significance to you?
Possibly. The saying goes you always remember your first, right? For me it was the confirmation that all the sacrifices were worth it. I’d made it to GZW and the management had enough faith in me to give me that kind of chance pretty early on. It was the validation I needed, and as hard as I worked to get that far I knew it was about to get a whole lot harder.
You’ve gone on record to say the HKWF belt was the one you felt you worked hardest for. That it’s your favourite, even compared to the TV title?
See, that’s a different kinda love right there. The TV title was the first big thumbs up I got from the US crowds. Up until GZW, I had fans but I wasn’t the one selling out arenas. The HKWF belt, that was the nod to all the fans who had helped make me who I was. Those in China, Korea, Japan, those who had packed out whatever makeshift arena we found to perform in and supported us. I wouldn’t say I won everyone over…..I was a Brit wrestling for an American company, and the belt changed hands in Brazil of all bloody places. It was a big honour for me though.
Didn’t you drop the belt centre stage when you walked away from the company?
Eugh, one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I was injured, had been for a long time. I’d been under pressure from the powers that be to get it sorted for a while. One of the joys of having Monarch as a father in law in means when he nags, I get it both from a professional standpoint and a personal one. I’d injured my knee weeks before and it was one of those nagging things. Us wrestlers are horrible like that. If you can walk it off you will, glue or tape yourself back together and job's a good one. This is fine sometimes, not when it reaches the point where it could become career ending…..My options were to either, try and wrestle a match with my bloody knee braced and hope for the best, or drop the title and create heat for a later return. I wasn’t happy to give a half arsed performance for my title. It was all or nothing. So if for a little while I had to appear the bastard, if I had to leave under a dark cloud to allow myself to heal, then so be it. As it happens I never got to be the heel, not even on my return.
Which is a bit of a new thing for you. We’ve watched Nemesis stalk through the wrestling world, taking no prisoners. How strange is it to now be considered a face?
Shades of grey sweetheart, it’s all shades of grey. I can lower the tone and break rules, but I’m more often than not caught between two bigger bastards. It helps that I’ve grown up a lot since then too. It’s sometimes easier to be the bad guy, it’s a lot bloody harder to try and remain calm and reasonable in the face of it all. Don’t get me wrong, I can get a sly low blow in when the ref’s back is turned, or introduce a weapon, or wear my steel toe capped boots. I’m not out there to destroy though, I’m there to put on a bloody good show. If I can work with my opponent, awesome but I can work against them just as easily.
You’ve gone out of your way to try and remain at least on civil terms with a lot of your colleagues. Who has been your favourite to work with and why?
God I hate this question. Kandi was my superfan moment……and if you think that’s bad imagine marking out over your Mum in law away from the ring. I think I actually elbowed Leon, whispered loud enough for her to hear “Oh my gods it’s Kandi! Lets go say Hi!, no wait, don’t! What would I say?” I was pretty much hyperventilating and my face was rocking a wonderful shade of crimson and it dawned on me, that was his step mother. There’s a little voice in my head telling me to play it cool when meeting people, who to me are the be all and end all. I mean, I had these people’s posters on my wall as a kid. I practised their poses, never thinking I’d actually meet them. Then I do, and all pretence of cool fails me. I’m that awkward kid, blushing and trying to wrap my head round the fact that these folk are real people. When it comes to titles though, I had some pretty interesting battles with Sean Locke. Our fights over the Television title were pretty intense.
You mentioned Hayden a little while back, and unfortunately I have to ask. She broke your neck in what appeared to be a very deliberate slip. At the time it didn’t seem there was any coming back from that. How did it feel at the time to be betrayed like that?
No matter what animosity there is going on with people, you have to grant them a certain amount of trust to step into the ring with them at all. Professionally there are just some lines you don’t cross. No matter how big the bastard, no matter what the issue. If nothing else, respect for the sport should ensure it. I knew when she hoisted me in that move it wouldn’t end well. Somewhere between her letting go and my neck hitting the mat there was a horrible moment of clarity. I knew what was going to happen before it did. Not fast enough to be able to react though. It was deliberate and done in a way where she could at least try and pretend the guilt wasn’t hers. It’s how she works. In the end it did work for her because anyone who may have condemned her for it wrote it off as a hazard of the business. It wasn’t a bad break……well obviously not as bad as it could have been. I’m still walking and I’m in better shape now than I ever was. The nerve damage was the scary part. Not being able to feel almost killed me. At that point it was screw the business…..I was imagining my babies learning to walk without me. Not being able to hold them, run around with them. After the whole sister betrayal, there wasn’t really a low she could reach.
That reveal was…..odd. How do you spend so much time with someone you were so close to without realising its not them?
Who ever said I was close to my sister? When we were little guys, when all we had was each other, before the care system pulled us apart and put us back together slightly differently, maybe. I’m closer to William and Munin than I ever will be Hayden. The last time I saw her was at that horrible match where I forced her to quit. That was over a decade ago, people can change a lot in a decade. Helena grew up with us, she was our adoptive mother's biological spawn. The only one of us to actually have a stable home life during the early years and I dunno, maybe in her messed up way that made her feel left out. We’d always treated her as a sister anyway, why she felt the need to act the part I don’t know…..She must’ve done her homework though, she had a lot of the mannerisms down to an art….but they were old mannerisms. As I said it’s a small world, didn’t take long for her name to get thrown around. Hayden was still around, still causing misery. I’d love to claim I met up with my real baby sister, we hugged it out and decided get all get together every Christmas like the good old days. Somewhere over the years life had twisted her into something I’m not sure I like. She rewrote history to reflect her as a victim and used that as fuel and justification to act like the biggest c**t there is. There are still shades of her under all that hair dye, the tattoos and angst. It’s just hard to get past the smell of JD and self pity. She wasn’t much bothered by any of what had happened, even seemed pleased to hear some of it……and that hurt. Even if nothing else did, the fact that she hated me enough to enjoy it all…..
The hurt was evident in her hazel stare even now. Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug her attention no longer with he, instead it rested back on the cat.
She wanted Helena, by then I saw no reason to let her have her. Let them do their worst to each other and get the f**k outta my life. Didn’t quite work out like that though.
Are you still in contact with both women?
Hayden is beyond contacting. Helena…..It’s best for everyone involved if I know where she is.
As the adoptive mother of her son, does it bother you that she has contact with him?
Nope, Lucy was very, very young when Davina stepped out of her life. I’m the only mother she’s ever known. To Danny I have always been Aunt Eva, and that’s cool. As long as his memories of his Mum are good ones I’m happy to let her create more. Her visits are supervised very strictly and it doesn’t happen unless he wants it to. So it’s fine.
Did you ever picture yourself where you are now? A wrestling Icon, married to wrestling royalty with four small children?
I was a realistic kid, the last time I pictured myself married before it happened was to Prince Adam after my love cured him of being a beast. Marriage was never on the cards as a realistic option, as for kids? Not even close. If you’d have asked me at the start of my career where I saw myself in ten or so years time, I wouldn’t have even gotten close. In my world I was married to the business. It was the be all and end all, and the only way I was leaving it, would be on a stretcher or in a box. I knew I’d achieve great things, the realist in me knows when to quit if I’m bad at something.
You were training to become a nurse before joining the wrestling world. Why didn’t it work out?
It never could have. I was good at it, over the years I’ve become even better at masking my annoyance at bloody awful human beings. My heart wasn’t in it though. It was a back up plan, if all else failed I have something real to fall back on. I’ve used the skills over the years too, but those guys and girls are a lot stronger than I could ever be. I wouldn’t be able to face what they do on a day to day basis.
Going back a few questions, you said you were a trainer for a little while. Did that help influence your decision to help Leon with his?
Wasn’t my choice, it was his. I thought the idea of putting my name to anything like that seemed a little…..cheesy. It’s like claiming to be a Jedi master before you learn the mind trick. I’m still learning, as long as I am in this business I’m still learning. I was always hanging round the school anyway, these kids are die hard. Seriously, to even get access to the Corbin Academy there are tests. You don’t get to just walk in off the street and ask to be made a wrestler. I honestly didn’t think I had anything to teach them. Call it a downer, or a crisis of faith, whatever. I sparred with Leon a few times and apparently our naturally competitive natures drew a crowd. It’s the strangest thing in the world to see these people obsessing over you the way I did for Kandi. Together we’ve created something special though. The GZW folk are always welcome, some of them even host….I don’t want to call them classes but they essentially are. It's like we’ve created the place as an extension of the GZW family.
Those random downers you mentioned seem to have resurfaced recently?
Yep, depression's a fun one. You have good days and bad days, but it doesn’t quite leave you. On a bad day it’s very bad, no matter what you may have achieved in life you feel worthless. You’re a waste of humanity, space and time. You and everyone around you would be better off if you didn’t exist. Every flaw, every imperfection that you know so well become more glaringly obvious and blown out of proportion until that’s all you see. You become convinced the people around you would be better off without you so you push and prod, lashing out with spite or just turning off entirely. You want to do something selfish, sometimes even catch yourself thinking of ending it all. What difference would it make? To them, they’d miss you at first of course and you feel a little bad at the thought of causing them you love pain. Yet by continuing to do this, the constant up and down you are causing them more. Eventually you’ll push everyone, push them so far they never come back, and then you can do it. Then you won’t have to feel anymore, though by then it only really changes between all out pain and loathing and the comfortable numb you’ve come to recognise as a good day. Grim right? I haven’t had a bad day in years. I’m always aware though. Depression's quite often misunderstood. It's easy to live with because most people don’t realise that’s the issue. As I said though, good days and bad where the latter are very few and far between. GZW has a great team of people willing to help you work through anything. Once I got over the painkillers, the paranoia and depression mostly went with it.
Her look warned me to drop it, whatever train of thought I was heading down. Whatever attempts on her own life I was going to question was apparently the line. It would take a braver man than I to cross it.
Just how bad was your painkiller addiction? Is it fairly common in the industry?
Depends where in the industry you look…..and just what you mean by bad. I didn’t even notice it to be honest. It was just something I did. It starts off with a nagging injury that wont go away and you don’t have the finances or time to fix. You’re working every night for a company where if you don’t perform you don’t get paid and someone else will get your spot. In the little leagues the spot is all you have. You don’t know who is going to be in the audience, it might only be six people, but one of those six could be a curious exec. He could be your ticket out of the crap heap. Testing is less compulsory in the indy places, they don’t have the budget and as long as you perform they don’t give a shit. Most habits start there, mine did. Even with a high pain threshold there is really only so much you can take. You go out there, you give your all, by the weekend you are black and blue and still having to show up to the crappy waitress job you do to be able to afford petrol for the week. You might not eat but you can get to your next show. You start to flag and someone hands you something. No questions asked, you take it and you get your arse back out there. I would like to point out that GZW has a very strict wellness policy and although I have relapsed on one occasion I am now and have been for years, clean.
When was your relapse?
Just over three and a half years ago……
She let that hang in the air, not quite meeting my stare but not looking away either. Any mistake she had made she had clearly owned and still carried with her.
Ahem, between yourself and Leon you have had some pretty aggressive fights. Both in the ring and in the promo room you have torn each other apart. How hard is it to do that?
It’s not. The promo’s aren’t all make believe and lets us be mean because it makes this interesting. A lot of it is like therapy, you mix the truth in with just enough crap and people are left guessing. There’s truth in all of those rants if you know where to find it. Real life is hard and I’m not going to pretend our relationship hasn’t had its issues. Neither of us is perfect, but I’d rather be screaming at him in the promo room than the living room. After most of those horrible promos, the ones with the “oh no she didn’t just say that” moments. We will talk, air out things and on a few occasions reassure the other person that we were just acting up for the camera. In the ring he is still one of the greatest performers of our time. I treat my matches with him as I would any other match, the only real difference because we train together I know some of what to expect.
How has being with Leon changed you?
Erm…….That’s a good one. I know more submissions now? Seriously, him and Jerry made it their goal to teach me at least one I didn’t hate. I guess if anything I’m more accepting of who I am now. I try and talk about things more rather than locking them up and pretending things aren’t happening. He’s become my support net I think. Shown me that it’s okay to be weak sometimes. He comes across as this big, selfish man child and sure he has the ability to be that. We all do, I don’t want to say it’s the nature of the business…..but it totally is. He’s actually quite a sweetheart. He took the walls down and I’m totally okay with that.
How does the man we see tearing it up on TV differ from the man he is?
Can you not hear him playing with the kids? That’s him telling the lame arse jokes, not them. As I said he’s a sweetheart, right up until you point a camera at him. Then he leaves his humanity at the door and turns into a shark.
Ms Hikari, Eva it has as always been an honour and a privilege. You are a former champion, a current Icon, the first Lady of the Coliseum and the newest and only female Grand slam champion. What does the future hold for you?
A smile brighter than anything I’d witnessed since my arrival lit up her face. It added warmth and humour to her eyes.
That’s the beauty of it all m’love. The sky is very much the limit.
