A question here for folks who are in the know about the Professional Wrestling industry — this is research fodder for a story I’m working on.
If a person is missing the pinky and ring fingers from their left hand (the character is right-handed), amputated as the result of an injury several years prior — would this disqualify them from becoming a wrestler, or otherwise make learning the trade unusually difficult?
Disqualify? No.
Make it harder, absolutely.
That being said, Gregory Iron has one arm that isn’t fully functional, and he’s been wrestling for almost ten years.
Zach Gowen, a one legged wrestler, has been wrestling for 14 years, including a stint in the WWE.
So, anything’s possible. Also, if you’re talking about fiction, it’s your story, write whatever you want.
I’d forgotten about Zach Gowen, good point. Okay, that helps me feel better about this. I was worried that this character being unable to have as strong a grip with their secondary hand might be something that the wrestling trainers would immediately look at and go “nope, not happening”, but now I think that’s not an issue. Thanks!
In an interview I hear with Gregory Iron, he talked about how he basically had to learn how to run the ropes and do basic stuff “backwards” from the American style. That is, because his right arm is his weak one (he has cerebral palsy), he has to use the left side of his body for everything, but general American training treats the right side as primary – when you see wrestlers hit the ropes, for example, they generally hit it with their right side and grab the top rope with their right hand before bouncing off. In Mexico, as it happens, it’s the left, so he actually wrestles as if he was trained in Mexico.
Anyway, it’s an interesting tidbit I’d never known about. For him it meant he had to work harder than everyone else because he had to adapt all the training to fit him, but (in his personal story) that helped him attain success because he got used to working hard. I imagine you could use something like that in your story as well!
Well, this is more of an epilogue detail — I have a supporting character who is a former Army MP, who got the two fingers sliced off by shrapnel from an IED while serving overseas. In the course of the story I’m writing, she gets involved with another supporting character who is an established WWE-with-serial-numbers-filed-off superstar, and it gets her thinking about maybe going that route herself. But before I went down that road, I wanted to make sure that her missing two fingers wouldn’t be an impossible obstacle. And it really sounds like it wouldn’t be. But yeah, this is more of an “what happens to them after this story ends” detail.
There was also the one legged guy who was in TNA. He had the IED exp you’re mentioning Isaac Sher but w/ his leg.
en.wikipedia.org – Chris Melendez – Wikipedia
I hate to say it but I don’t think the physical skills are what would keep her from having a wrestling career, at least in the big promotions. While women’s wrestling has come a long way, the industry is still pretty sexist and the women are judged on their physical appearance in a way that the men aren’t.
That said, if the superstar has enough stroke, they might be able to help her get around that—but what would that do to the relationship, and how would it affect her backstage with the other talent?
True enough, and if I ever do a story focusing on what happens to this character in the wrestling context, I may well investigate all of those, Jeff Johnston. But it would’ve all been a moot point if the amputated fingers would’ve made it a non-starter to begin with, which it’s pretty clear it’s not.