Year of the snake? Nahhhh…. it’s the year of the heel. Of course my opinion is biased but you’re reading the blog of the best one going still. I’m definitely feeling older, but the wheels haven’t fallen off yet. I’m still wrestling circles around people and enjoying doing it. I’m just more sore the next few days. While I can still physically do this at a high level, I’m going to make an effort to produce more matches in 2025. That’s my resolution. I’d like to say, I’ll write more blog posts, but we all know that’s not likely.
The US tour went pretty well. Overall it was a positive experience, there were a few negatives. I won’t dwell on them, but they’re going to be used as learning experiences going forward. It was great to finally put some faces with names that I’ve seen on video orders, or custom match requests for years. Everybody I did meet was super nice, I didn’t have a bad experience meeting anybody at all. It’s been awhile since I’ve really branched out and wrestled new people, I’ve mostly stuck to the Boston area or places I know and am comfortable with and kept the same circle of regular people. I’ll definitely be doing more tours in 2025, so keep your eyes peeled for announcements.
This tour was pretty ambitious. I knew going into it that it would be challenging. And it was. I was ready for it from a physical standpoint, the wrestling was the easy part for me. Even on days that I did 3-5 matches. It was everything else that started taking a toll on me towards the end of my trip. Between the constant time zone changes, crazy travel schedule, the challenges of eating healthy and regularly, I was thankful to be going back home by the end of it.
In addition to private wrestling, I also met up with some guys to film some matches. One of them is out right now. With the exception of the man under the mask, and Chase LaChance, everybody I filmed with was a first time opponent for me. So I hope you’ll enjoy watching the matches as much as I enjoyed filming them. My biggest regret was not really having a plan heading into the final day of filming. It was my second to last stop and I was pretty close to being mentally checked out after waking up at 5 am to get to the airport and have multiple flight delays before crossing time zones again. The match was this very impromptu 4 person iron man match that we all just kinda naturally came up with the idea of doing on the spot. Even though I think it’s a fine match, it could have been so much more had this been done after a good nights sleep. I do think seeing these guys as they actually are, wrestling how they normally would just for fun and not as scripted does have its appeal. I just wish that I was more on top of my game to help navigate it a little better. I’ll have to go back for rematches to make it up to them.
I didn’t have a lot of downtime to do much in each city, but there were a few highlights. I did take a day out in LA and go check out the Avengers Campus. On a morning out in Pasadena I decided to go hike Mount Wilson. It was spur of the moment, so I wasn’t ready at all. No water bottles, no snacks, not dressed for it, but the views were amazing. Pictures don’t do it justice. Then out in Vegas, Kid Leopard, Kid Vicious and I all went to see the Michael Jackson ONE show, and I saw the Drag Race residency at the Flamingo one other night.
Since being home, I’ve taken some much needed R&R. I had a low key holiday season, I spent the week of New Years down Newport, RI. Even though it’s freezing cold by the ocean in January in New England, it’s still a very charming area. And since it’s the off season, there’s not nearly as many drunken college kids everywhere.
Now that all of that is over, it’s back home and back to the grind. I have a relatively empty first half of January, but then things start picking up. I’ll be in Fort Lauderdale at the end of the month for a small BG East taping. I’m planning on staying an extra few days to film some matches for my site and hopefully film a custom match or two. Maybe on the way down I’ll make a few stops down the coast for private matches if there’s enough interest?
Oh, right. I should’ve led with this, but for those of you who don’t follow me on Instagram, I’ve recently lost a lot of weight! I took a little break from things over the holidays, but I started back on it today. I’m weighing in at 185 lbs. So I’m hoping to be down around 170/175 by the time I get to Florida. Depending how I’m looking and feeling by then, I might switch up my gym routine and focus on packing on some muscle. I haven’t been doing anything crazy, 2-3 gym sessions a week, 20-30 minutes of cardio, 20-30 minute of weight lifting each session. Other than that it’s all been diet. I’ve cut out drinking entirely (well, I drank in Vegas, and had a cocktail here and there while on the road), I don’t eat red meat anymore, I’ve cut out all salt and sugar (as much as humanly possible), it’s lots of veggies, fruits and fish/chicken. Basically, I’m only shopping on the outside isles at the grocery store. So hopefully in another months time you’ll be seeing a leaner, buffer Jonny.
