Do it for the money, or do it for the love...

[Top Tier Terry]

They say that there is a defining moment is everyone’s life when they realize the path they will take. For me it was the night my grandfather took me to see my first life wrestling card. 

The man known as the “Terrific One” enters an empty school gymnasium. He walks to the center of the basketball court, standing right on top of the school’s mascot, a beaver holding a basketball. 

It was in a gym just like this one and the ring was right here. At first I was disappointed. See I had watched wrestling with Granddad for a while and the ones on T.V. were all in big arenas and there were music and laser lights, and all the men and women wrestling looked like they jumped right out of comic books.


These guys were local. Some use to wrestle in the big time companies but were too old or no longer marketable to most audiences. But one thing that stayed with me was their love of the sport. Match after match they performed like they were on the world stage. I saw things I had never seen before, moves I didn’t know existed. It was like watching the sport for the first time.

And then…the main event…Coco Savage vs. Butcher Bailey in a Grudge Match. Coco was billed from the jungles of Africa. And Butcher Bailey was literally a guy dressed like a Butcher from the meat department of a grocery store. Both these men, well past their prime, put on a match that has stayed with me to this day. It was like they told a story in the ring. There was struggle there was triumph. They battled as if the richest prize in the world was waiting for the victor, and if the fans in that arena could have, they would have given the winner whatever they wanted. But in the end, the match ended, an arm was raised and we all went home happy. Coco Savage, whose real name was Tyrone Jenkins, was a used car salesman, who had never been to Africa, and Steve Chel, was a high school science teacher…and a vegetarian.


Those men loved the sport so much that they climbed into that ring and performed for anyone that would watch them. They didn’t make money doing it. They didn’t get deals, or endorsements, hell they didn’t even get a belt. But none of that mattered. What mattered was simply doing what they loved.

Tillman walks over to the bleachers and sits down. 

After that night I knew that this was what I wanted to do. I started working towards that goal of being able to step into a ring and be the best anyone has ever seen. Years of hard work and dedication, pain, agony, sacrifice. You name it I dealt with it.

A look of frustration masks his previous expression. 

It’s that reason why I have such a hard time with someone like Becker Gaines representing the company I work for. Right now he is THE champ. 3GW only has one title and he holds it. A man that turned to wrestling simply to get his name back out in the public, trying to regain some former glory that he squandered years ago. Times that by the fact that Jordan Cain has decided to hitch his wagon as well has his lips to Gains’ ass, and we have a situation where money greed and power takes precedence over the sport.


Becker Gaines, not to long ago I was being booed out of every arena I entered. I turned my back on the people that got me to the place I am now and I reveled in the fact that I was still able to be the best without the love of the people. I said disrespectful things to the fans and to my opponents, but I never disrespected the sport. I never disrespected wrestling. And even at my worst I never had to cheat to win. I never used a foreign object. I lived or died by my skill.


But that’s just the thing Becky, you don’t have the skill. You don’t have the training, the will to put it all on the line. You don’t love this sport. You think that crash course some washed up fight choreographer gave you is going to get you past me? You are a poser. A bootleg copy of a real wrester and at Red Carpet Rumble my first order of business will be to remove that title from your grasp as well as any credibility you thought you had. Soon you’re gonna wish you were nicer to those stunt doubles back in the day.

Fade