For those of you who don’t know, a Jobber is a wrestler who either
A) Is a young kid, being thrown into a match with a guy 3 times his size or experience
Or B) Is a guy on the low card, who for no good reason, the promoter and booker have decided to make his life a living nightmare, and so they choose to tell him to fight a little, and then fall down and let a lesser man pin him, so that the more talent-LESS man can get closer to a title shot for next week, while the Jobber contemplates seeking better employment.

Most Jobbers are choice A, meaning that for no apparent reason, they get tossed into squash matches.

A squash match is exactly what you think it is. A poor victim getting squashed legitimately by somebody with better experience and/or size.

Most people turn away from these matches, probably because the poor jobber in the ring is a friend of theirs. I on the other hand thrive off of these matches, and take the time to research each jobber I see. Why you ask? It’s simple.

9 times out of 10, the poor sot getting his organs squished today, might be somebody tomorrow! Now, lemme tell you a TRUE story, about a jobber who became somebody.

Once upon a time, when Reganomics made my parents cry, Madonna had a bubble gum voice, and dayglow pink was a color that even MEN found to be cool, I was a little baby. My Mama is a wrestling fan, and since it’s something special she enjoys with her dad, she decided to share it with me as soon as I was born.

When I was a few months old, I can remember seeing a young boy in the ring. Tall, scrawny, but with a twinkle in his eyes, and a bushy head of hair, this young kid stepped in the ring with somebody two times his weight class. The kid was simply named “Jack”, and he was promptly squished. The commentary announced that “Jack” was certainly done for, and that after the referee said “ONE … TWO … THREE” that this was the end of “Jack”’s career. They simply had no faith in the boy.

But … “Jack” came back.

And he kept coming back. Week after week, until one day, he stopped being a jobber.

One day, he started becoming a somebody! He quit losing matches, and started winning, showing the world what he had been hiding all this time.

This boy had MOVES! And what’s more, he started gaining weight. No longer did he have the standard, unhealthy gangly frame, but now he was getting chubby. He had a cuddly frame, almost completely devoid of cellulite, yet round and pudgy. And another thing that people were finding out about him, was that he was great in the mic, and could adapt to any storyline, no matter how silly his older peers thought they were, AND he could make those same storylines marketable!

Soon, he was bouncing around to different promotions all over, gaining a stronger fanbase each show. From there in the early 1990s or so, he was moved to WCW, where he faced off with physical struggles of the bizarre, but still made himself stronger. He kept pushing on, winning more and more matches. During this time, he was given a madman persona, which only drove the crowds to but advance tickets, just so they could see live this little engine that could.

From there, he went on to the original ECW, where he~ along with several other stars his age~ became legends. Each time he stepped into an ECW ring, he was booked in the most dangerous matches of the 1990s, featuring barbed wire, baseball bats, 2×4’s, tables, ladders, chairs (oh my!) and often times these toys of chaos were on fire. The kid was often put into heel storylines, but at each turn, the fans just loved him the more, and couldn’t get enough of this odd but cute attraction.

Then, he managed to climb into WWF (Now WWE), where he was given another persona. A psychotic tortured soul was how it all started, but as the character grew, it manifested itself into a deadly yet playful character, who could jump between nightmare and cartoon with ease, delighting the fans. He tangled with the Undertaker in various feuds, even suffering through matches that would mean the end of the line for most wrestlers. Yet win, lose or draw, he refused to back down. He wrestled against HHH, teamed with Goldust, and tumbled his way through fire, coffin matches, Goth settings, boiler rooms, and a long list of the extreme and unusual. But still, he pressed on and on, until one Monday night, it happened. The one thing I knew would eventually happen if a jobber ever put himself through the abuse this kid had been through … … …

That one Monday night … the jobber, had become a champion. Not just any champion,
THE champion.

One Monday night, the boy whom the commentators laughed at, the boy who’s peers said he’d never last the weekend, held the World heavyweight championship above his head, as the stunned commentators were drowned out, amidst the screeching cheers of not only this boy’s fans, but also the cheers coming from the half a lockerroom of wrestlers, who believed in him, knew he had something, and held him on their shoulders, holding him high enough that the world could see where determination gets you.

Now, it’s been at least a decade since then. I’m in my twenties now, and he’s not considered a little rookie kid anymore. He still wrestles when he feels like it, visits ROH when he’s got the time (since he really loves ROH~ and so do I), but spends a lot of his time tending to his family, and writing books.

When I got his autograph when I was 14, the people ahead of me at the Walden Bookstore called him by many different names. Names that were his personas over the years, from all the many promotions he’s wrestled for.

But the name I called him that day … was Mick Foley.

So the next time you catch a match, where a more popular guy is about to squish up a jobber, get a good glimpse of that boy, and get write down his name if you can.

Because that seemingly faceless little jobber, might be your champion someday!