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Yep, I’m pretty sure there’s still a little bit left in the year so maybe this is a little premature. And by my MVP, I’m not talking about in-ring work. I’m not talking about mic skills. I’m not talking about overall look or presence or anything else. This wrestler is very good in the ring, better on the mic and has charisma that can take her very far. My MVP of 2013 is Veda Scott.

I’m sure there were wrestlers who wrestled better technically. I’m sure there were some who cut better promos. I’m sure there were some wrestlers who received better reactions from crowds. So please, before you take me apart in the comments, I have a reason for calling her MY MVP for 2013. Hear me out.

My reason for making her my MVP has to deal with her work in Absolute Intense Wrestling. For the past year or so, she worked in a heel tag team with Gregory Iron (you know, the “crippled” guy with cerebral palsy who is the most natural babyface in the world). Being in a heel tag team with a more natural babyface than Ricky Steamboat is not the easiest thing on Earth. But they pulled it off. Well. They had a very successful run as a tag team called Hope & Change. They were tag team champions is one of the best tag team divisions in wrestling (Sex Bob-Bombs, Submission Squad, Youthanazia, The Batiri, The Jollyville F***-Its, #NIXON). Their tag division is so deep, they had an entire iPPV dedicated to it. This tag division was championed at one point by Gregory Iron and Veda Scott.

Now I know that the line between male and female in wrestling is not as pronounced as it once was. Companies like Anarchy Championship Wrestling, CHIKARA (and its many splinter factions), Beyond Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerilla, they are working on blurring those lines more and more. It’s not like when Disco Inferno or Chavo Guerrero lost to Miss Jacqueline and were considered jokes. Our world is changing and, with it, the world of wrestling.

But here’s why this is different. Veda isn’t the tallest wrestler and can look kind of tiny against somebody like a Rickey Shane Page or Evan Gelistico. She’s also a wrestler who held her own against some very stiff competition. During the aforementioned tag team tournament, there was a moment when Veda was abandoned by her tag partner Gregory Iron, and she was on her own against a tag team known as The Hooligans. And they earn their name quite honestly. She suffered what looked like an epic beatdown from both these wrestlers in a two-on-one mugging.

It’s not that Veda won. She didn’t. But I have a 4 year old daughter. My little girl watches wrestling with me from time to time. She calls it “Shimmer,” regardless of gender, company or wrestler. If there is something going on in a wrestling ring, it’s SHIMMER. If you haven’t glanced around the world of teen idols for little girls, things aren’t looking too good. Dora the Explorer takes 22 minutes to accomplish a simple task and can’t do it alone. Miley Cyrus is riding a wrecking ball naked or twerking on Jason Seaver’s son. Within the morality play that can often be a synonym for women’s wrestling, I have some real life lessons I can pass on to her. The lesson here with this match against the Hooligans is that it doesn’t matter how big you are, how strong you are, or even if you win. What matters is the size of your heart. Veda had the most fight I’d seen displayed that night. That’s one of the best lessons I can teach my daughter. It’s not about your size; it’s about the size of your fight. As a dad, what matters to me most is that once my daughter watches this (when she’s old enough), she sees that she has a legitimate chance to stand toe-to-toe with whatever obstacle is placed in her way. Veda gives her one more reason she can.

That’s why Veda Scott is my 2013 MVP. Her theme I got from her matches this year is that it’s not your size; it’s the size of your fight.

One thought on “My MVP of 2013 in the Indy Wrestling World”
  1. My problem with Miss Scott is that no one is challenging her so-called “legal authority” to require a 4-count for Hope & Change. Has anyone seen the legal documents? Who is the judge who made this ridiculous ruling? Why aren’t other tag teams challenging this ruling and taking it to a higher court? AIW already had an entrance ramp put in (I’m assuming for Gregory Iron). Isn’t that enough to fulfill the Americans with Disabilities Act? I’m sorry, but you and your daughter shouldn’t hold someone with excessive litigious tendencies in such high regard.

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