Lillian Garcia welcomes Ember Moon to the show.
Garcia mentions that Moon has been working to become a professional wrestler since 2007. She advanced through WWE’s ranks rather quickly, debuting at a Takeover PPV just one year after her signing. She progressed rapidly in NXT, and was called up to the main roster the Monday after WrestleMania this past year. She informs that she found out that she was getting called up the Saturday before WrestleMania, and she didn’t even tell her parents the good news because she knew they wouldn’t be able to keep the secret.
Moon mentions that she takes her job very seriously and she rarely lets her guard down, but when she heard her music play for the first time on Monday Night Raw she was very happy. It was at that moment that she realized she had made it, as that moment signified the beginning of her career in WWE.
Moon informs that she was bullied as a child in school. Wrestling became an outlet for her and gave her something to look forward to throughout the week, even though she was suffering in school and was even scared to go from time to time. She points out that she had some scary thoughts at that time, and even though she doesn’t think she would have been able to go through with hurting herself, she just wanted the pain to stop.
Moon says that she watched wrestling with her grandfather when she was a child. When he passed away years later it really hit her hard. She had a tremendous relationship with him, and she admits that she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to be happy again with him no longer living.
She played soccer as a child but fell out of love with that sport as she grew older. She went to post-secondary school for five years but doesn’t have a degree because she didn’t really enjoy anything that she studied. She made the decision on her own to try professional wrestling and began training with former WCCW Wrestler and Manager, Skandor Akbar.
She points out that Akbar was great to her, and they came up with a price that was reasonable for her since she was living on a budget. After training with Akbar for a while she began training with Booker T in Houston. This entire time she was hiding her training from her family, and she’d say she was working late in order to cover up why she was coming home so late at night.
Moon mentions that her real name is Adrian, but since she was bullied so much as a child she didn’t see strength in that name. She decided to change her name in order to create an alter ego that she was comfortable wrestling as. Her father drove four and a half hours with her to watch her wrestle her first match, and she was paid $10 for that match. Her father didn’t care as long as she continued her education.
Ultimately, Moon realized that she was wasting money in school because nothing made her happy like wrestling did. She didn’t want to work a job that made her unhappy, so she decided to pursue a full-time career in wrestling. Moon mentions that Booker T really added a new dynamic to her in-ring work, and he was the person who convinced her to do her Eclipse from the top rope. She was doing the move off of the second rope initially because she’s afraid of heights.
She informs that she has a love-hate relationship with TNA Wrestling because that company continuously told her that they wanted to hire her and give her a tryout, but every time she’d fly in to do a tryout match something would come up and the match wouldn’t happen. After all of that, Booker T really wanted her to go out and see the world and hone her craft.
She was told “no” by WWE on multiple occasions. She recalls one time when she was told that she didn’t have a “Diva” look. Times were different back then, and the Women’s revolution hadn’t taken hold yet. She points out that she was determined then to go out on the independent scene and make a name for herself.
There were plenty of indie shows when she got paid very little money but she didn’t care because she was doing what she loved. She even worked three jobs at one point in order to pay for her plane tickets to get to indie bookings. She admits she’d wrestle for $5 a show if that’s what it took because she’s truly doing what makes her happy.
That sums up today’s episode of Chasing Glory. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
