ARTICLE: The First Jobs Of Pro Wrestlers
Janai Kai & Devlyn Macabre - Hostess
Credit: @jayleephotographyac/@beauty_in_combat
Janai: “Never again. I can’t work with food, I’m not a picky eater but man, it’s just a breakfast. The place I worked had dinner but everyone came for breakfast. I don’t know how people do it.”
Devlyn: “It was absolutely awful, I hated it. I was 16 and I was getting yelled at by some old people like ‘where’s my table’. I had to be like ‘I told you, it’s a thirty minute wait…fuck off’”
Che Monet - ASOS (sort of)
Credit: @richardlundysport
“I worked in KFC when I was 15, but I do not count that, that was horrible. I don’t trust the KFC’s around here, that chicken is not chicken…So I always tell people that my first job was ASOS, I got 25% off all outfits.”
Kira Chimera - Babysitter
Credit: @matravenphoto
“My first job was a babysitter. But I’ve been on a French TV show when I was a student, it’s a famous TV show, and all the contestants all had night jobs and day jobs and the guest had to guess who was doing what…and I was put in the category of someone who was selling sex toys, when I was a babysitter. I was like ‘I don’t know what to think about that’.”
Riley Thee NBF - Starbucks
Credit: @britwrespics
“This one person complained that their coffee wasn’t hot enough, but sometimes when the coffee is really hot we double cup it. I took it back and my hand was sore, it was so hot it was burning my skin. I was like ‘are your fingertips burnt off?’. Then I had someone order a latte and complained it was milky…”
Dean Allmark - Market Stall
Credit: @carlgac
“My dad has a market stall in Stoke. The first day we went to this market it was the coldest day for thirty years and we didn’t sell a single item. There would also be Saturday’s where I’d tell him I was going to wrestling instead of doing the stall.”
Shazza McKenzie & Gideon Grey - McDonald’s
Credit: @shazza_mckenzie/@britwrespics
Gideon: “I think I had that job for approximately one week, I thoughed it out for a while.”
Shazza; “My first job was Macca’s. I worked there for about a month when I was 13. I don’t remember much but a girl stole $200 out of my till and my manager thought it was me. It wasn’t me, I wish it was me cos then I’d have $200. So I walked out and didn’t turn up to my next shift.”
Wild Boar - Bartender (but could’ve been a Bowls champion)
Credit: @matravenphoto
“I worked behind the bar at a Bowls Club. My family are very much a Bowls family; my grandma, my grandad, my mum. Not a fucking chance [of me being one]. I needed a job when I was younger and my mum got it for me. I more or less knew everyone, or they knew me, and they’d buy me drinks…I had my own tally chart behind the bar. I’d go out with Flash or Brendan after work and I’d already be hammered.”
Choccy Thunder - Wilkinson’s
Credit: @tonyknox99
“It was a part-time Christmas job so I could earn money for Christmas presents and it was as bad as you can imagine. I was on the shop floor and at one point someone asked me for a colander and I had no ideas what that was. It was the first time I’d ever heard that word. I' passed them over to someone else.”
Rhio - Paper Round
Credit: @iwilburnart
“That’s a really bad first job, delivering God knows how many papers before school. for £1 I don’t know who decided that was okay, but whoever it was come and find me…”
Amir Jordan - Tesco
Credit: @scottymeuk
“I had quite a sheltered, strict and traditional upbringing and the first opportunity I had to get out of that was my first job. I stayed there for six and a half years and learned so much. If you work in a Tesco in West Yorkshire you’ll see everything and you can never underestimate those experiences.”
RJ Singh - Waitrose
Credit: @y2grae
“A mate of mine at the time worked in a Tesco down the round and I was always slightly snobby about it, like I was better. I had my yellow discount card too.”
Adam Bolt - Toys’R’Us
Credit: @adamboltwrestler
“I loved it, it was great! You can only imagine my excitement when someone comes up to me and asked for wrestling figures and before their finished I’d go and have a look in the back. I just liked going through them. A lot of people will say ‘everything we’ve got is out’ but that’s a lie, it frustrated me so much like ‘bitch you’re lying, I know we’ve got a Kurt Angle in the back’.”
Rayne Leverkusen - American Eagle
Credit: @blueradical
“Everywhere I’ve worked goes bust. I won’t tell any promotions that I work with…I shouldn’t have said that. Literally every real job I’ve worked has gone bust. Actually I was a personal trainer at Nuffield and they haven’t gone bust.”
Lizzy Evo - Milkshake shop
Credit: @richardlundysport
“My mum and dad came in on my first day and I didn’t know what I was doing. I only filled the milkshake up halfway and my dad said, in front of my manager, ‘I’ll come back for the other half later’ and I was like ‘I’m gonna get sacked on my first day’.”
Charlie Morgan - Making beds
Credit: @theheaddrop
“Not making beds as in putting them together. I was 14 or 15, I was working with my mum, she’s a big influence of why I work so hard because she did the same thing (not jumping off balconies and stuff). She owned a guest house and I’d go down and clean the rooms and make the beds, but I didn’t last long cos my mum said I was a prat. But I obviously make my own bed now…I don’t want people jumping all over me thinking I don’t make my own bed.”
