osakarob's blog

I'm the site administrator but I'm lazy to type all that. :)

I've always been far more interested in knowing the story behind your profile photo!

I used to sell Vans

Mine used to be "I rumble"

In a word, MARKETING. Like most of us, I was pretty naive about this "underground" wrestling world when I first started wrestling. I was very enthusiastic and anxious to wrestle as often as possible. The first thing I learned was that not everyone wanted to wrestle me in light of my age (40 then, I think) and weight (and I was much heavier then than I am now). Thus, the segment of the wrestling market who would wrestle me was a lot smaller than the entire membership of the web sites available at the time. So, I asked, how does one attract attention from the biggest slice of the membership willing to wrestle with me?

Remember (or learn depending on your age now), long ago, before things like "past opponents," "recommendations," and "emeets" were available to gain attention from other wrestlers, and before internet speed (remember dial up?) and CPU speed made opening multiple windows, pop-ups with vital info, and text searching practical, I observed that the name was a good starting point to attract attention. By that I mean, when searching for a potential opponent, I naturally started out contacting guys who were geographically close, and it was easy to start with guys who had "NJ" or "NYC" in their profile name since I live and work in Northern New Jersey. So, putting "NJ" in my name I felt was a must. So I tried several names before I settled on NJWoodbridge (NJ_Woodbridge on that other site).

The "Woodbridge" in my name is primarily because it was the location of the motel where my first matches took place because a couple of veteran wrestlers used it. And since it was the only place I knew to wrestle at the time, it seemed logical to put "Woodbridge" in my name. A secondary reason was that Woodbridge being in Central New Jersey might attract attention of wrestlers from South Jersey and Philadelphia (which it did) because back then I was willing to travel that far for a match.

Very interesting response. I have thought about changing mine because I no longer live in Asia and the "Osaka" part of my name probably doesn't assist in any way with marketing me for new matches.

But I really liked the story behind your name. I can't remember the name of the hotel where I had my first match. Very impressed that you did!

When I joined the site I hadn't done any wrestling before, and just assumed that I would get squashed by experienced heels each and every time.... I still vividly recall the shock of actually winning my first match! Not that it's about the winning and the losing, it's totally not, I do this because it's so much fun, not because I feel I need to “win” anything—but it's nice to know that I don't always lose.... But I will always be Squashlad! 👍

PS: Great action pic! 📸👍

Love this "origin story"! Great explanation for the name.

When I got my Lucha mask which was called shocker so got rid of last e in that name and became ShockR

Now *THAT* is an origin story. Sounds almost mythological! Ha ha ha

"When he finally got his mask, he was transformed!"

I'm chubby and live in Shepherds Bush.

Mine is a nickname picked up over the years

Mad though it may be, I enjoy being put in head scissors. (Or maybe not so mad: when all is said and done, I think there are quite a few of us here who like being scissored.) My first name really is Edward. Hence "edscissors", which I thought was rather neat. For reference, though, I do prefer to be called Edward, rather than Ed.

How about "MadScissors"?

That sounds exciting too! And eliminates anyone calling you Ed.

Ed + SCISSORS - sorry but that's me - edscissors. Maybe you'll guess that I like being head (ed!) scissored.
Edward

By the way, I see the phantom "thumbs down" merchant has visited this thread. What on earth is there here to dislike?

18 months after the event (so it wasn't too raw) I thought it would be great to wrestle the guy my fiancee left me for while at Uni.
I lost but it was a great experience with her there to watch us go at it but I had a fairly weird reaction in that I pretty much hero worshipped the guy in the weeks afterwards and he had a bit of fun at my expense having defeated the guy who had been his love rival for so long.
That was my only experience as an adult wrestling when I joined this site so "Once bitten...

I didn't how to wrestle when I first started. I just jumped into it because I always wanted to do it. That is how I came up with the name.

well, you're pretty good at it now!

The Redlands are the nearest nice place to where I grew up in South Florida.