Jones Zone Edition #3

If you’re coming to see my typical ridiculousness, I’m going to disappoint you.  If you want a deeper look inside my mind and how I view the world, and especially the wrestling world, you’re in the right place.  This has all come about due to recent actions, both on Breakthrough and Twitter.  Before I get into my opinion, I do want to make it clear that I am NOT saying my way is the only way.  Feel free to disagree. In fact, feel free to give me your own opinion, whether publicly or personally.  Twitter is a great way to get ahold of me, whether DMs or publicly like some of you seem so fond of making everything.  Hell, someone may just want to jump me because that’s the cool thing to do in wrestling when you disagree with someone.

So where do I stand? What makes me the man I am?  It may be cliché, but it is just me being me.  I do not know how to be any other way.  That’s not to say I haven’t made mistakes in the past.  People who know my career will remember a time that I was convinced TEW’s owner (and now good friend) Franco Cruz wanted me to fail.  I was absolutely misguided in the stance I took.  People make mistakes.  Eventually, I came to my senses.  Thankfully, I surrounded myself with people who were able to help straighten me out and, even more importantly, forgave me for my idiocy.

That support system is absolutely the most important thing for anyone in a business like wrestling.  This world has so many people hiding their true intentions until an opportunity presents itself to reveal their colors.  People you thought shared your ideals will turn on you seemingly at will.  Luckily, I have not experienced much of this willfully.  Of course, I just happened to pick 2 guys as best friends that have SERIOUS mental health issues.  They both struggle with some sort of psychotic breaks that allow violent, evil alter egos to take over.  I am not sure what either of their real medical diagnoses are. I don’t really care because I know it’s something neither of them can control.  Unfortunately, Drake Blake tried to flirt with their problem to harness its aggression.  It was a mistake, but it was a mistake born of selfish stupidity.  It is absolutely the perfect example of what can happen to people in this business that you have to guard yourself against.  You never know when something will turn someone the wrong way.

I actually blame myself a fair bit for his descent.  I should have noticed sooner what was happening with him.  By the time it came to my attention, he was too far gone to stop from going down that path.  Beyond just surrounding yourself with the right people, you have to hold those people accountable.  Now, everyone else’s friends may not have a second, despicable personality inside their head, but they have their smaller demons.  You need to keep them accountable, just like you want from them.  Don’t wait until you see them beating someone, maybe YOU, down in the middle of the ring to try and help them.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that something as simple as acting out on Twitter can be cause for concern.

Many of you are probably now wondering how a little acting out online can matter to someone who fights for a living.  In the grand scheme of things, those changes in behavior can be the first indications that someone is changing…or may not really be the best friend in the first place.  Uh oh, did I just insinuate that some people have made poor choices in friends? Cue the rage!  PJ is trying to turn friend against friend!  No, I’m not.  Just because you recognize someone isn’t the best person to be close friends with does not mean you have to shut them out of your life, just be wary and understand the influence they may have on you.  I have had to do it.  Remember Drake? Yeah, if you saw how that ended, you would understand that once I saw he was allowing The Sickness (what his alter ego calls itself…so original) to have some control before ultimately taking the wheel completely, it meant he could not be trusted in nearly the same way he had been before.

Even deeper than friendship, some people are in relationships within wrestling and even with VoW.  Before anyone takes up a torchfork (flaming pitchfork) against me, I am NOT saying there is anything wrong with that.  Here’s the thing though.  In this line of work, everything will be turned against you because there are a lot of twisted individuals.  We’ve seen one relationship ruined in the last few months because of rumors started by another wrestler.  Now, I may not have the experience with relationships that others do, but I have watched enough fail. In general, it’s not just about romance.  This goes to friendships too but also to family and friends outside wrestling.  No one in wrestling has really met my family.  I’d be surprised if anyone even knows what my sibling situation is unless I let it slip indirectly.  It is not because I don’t love my family.  I just don’t want them ever being involved or used against me.  They have come to plenty of shows over the years.  They have seen me take some serious beatings and even give out one or two.  I just never acknowledged them from the ring or with other competitors around.

Again, you don’t have to go to the lengths I have.  I’m not even sure it’s the right thing to do. I wish I could share more moments with them, but that might also require me to win more matches especially on big events.  My advice would be that other wrestlers be careful not to turn EVERYTHING into a public spectacle.  Some things are meant to be private.  Relationship spats, whether romantic or platonic, don’t normally need to be made public (exception for issues coming straight out of wrestling, obviously).  The more people who become involved, the more likely one or both of the original parties will get bad advice.  Then the situation is just set up to fail and permanently damage a relationship with doubt or hurt feelings.

So that’s me.  All of these little things are what make me into me.  If we all did things the same way, life would be boring…but understand that people tend to like-minded individuals for friends.  I honestly would have a hard time being too close with someone who wants everything in a public light.  It would make me very uncomfortable. I don’t have a problem being in front of the bright lights or even failing in front of those bright lights.  Others are clearly comfortable with every detail being out there for everyone to see.  That’s their life.  If I can walk into a locker room with Seth Iser for years and not lose it, I can handle someone having some different life choices.

Wooo…okay, hopefully next time this will be more fun again.  And hopefully not 3 days late.  As I said on Twitter, I wanted to be a bit more careful with my words.  This is meant to encourage some people who have seemed a bit lost lately that I think can be some of the really great people in this business, both in and out of the ring.  They just need to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks and each of them needs to find their identity.  Time will tell…