Professional wrestling is quite often a paradox. Storylines between
combatants are intricately scripted by creative writers, refined by the
wrestlers and their assigned agents the day of the match, and performed
live in front of a raucous crowd and world-wide television audience in an
attempt to evoke drama and emotion. It’s scripted. It’s “fake”.
Yet, more often than not, it is the real-life machinations that
happen backstage behind-the-scenes, tales of drama and deceit,
pettiness between allies and adversaries, that often feel as though they
were actually written by Hollywood’s finest scriptwriters. But they are not.

At times the illusion of what happens inside the squared circle feels
more real than the true stories that happen both backstage and in
company boardrooms. Yet the stories I witnessed and tell in my
upcoming book, Backstage Pass: Tales From Beyond The Squared Circle,
are true. Ken Anderson, a former two-time TNA World Heavyweight
Champion, had a motto that sold many t-shirts: “Wrestling is real, People
are fake.” In the world of professional wrestling, that motto truly
describes it all.

Professional wrestling is a world of factions, secret coalitions and
covert liaisons. All at odds with each other. All wanting to diminish and
then defeat any threat to their power. And I’m talking about what
happens backstage, not inside the ring. In a world were backstage politics are deeply entwined in the fabric
of the business, I was a rare babyface in a world of heels. I was different.
I solely cared about all things that helped the product and the boss I was
working for. Nothing else. And I take great pride in still trying to uplift
and inspire people, whether they be crew members or young, emerging wrestlers, and in never diminishing one’s dreams. The eternal optimist
with a glass half full perspective as opposed to the glass half empty.

Terry Taylor once told me a parable.
“David, there are two ways to have the tallest building in town,”
Taylor said. “One is to build it; the other way is to tear all of the taller
buildings around you down.”
From an early age, I chose to be a builder. I learned that from my
beloved father.

The real-life tales from beyond the squared circle, stories that are
often more compelling and dramatic than whatever happens inside the
ring, are fascinating on many levels. They are glorious, nefarious, heart-
breaking and at times truly unbelievable. Mega-matches behind the
scenes between the powers that ruled, those who desire the power to do
so, the leaders and decision makers that were often in agreement but
mostly at odds. Professional wrestling is a business where it’s hard to
truly know who to trust. Betrayal comes in many unforeseen forms.
“Pro wrestling is real; people are fake.”
In ways most don’t know, that encapsulates it all.