My Knees, The Moonsault And The Ring

There's a lot of the reasons I'm still able to be wrestling in my early 40's. The fact I train regularly, I wrestle a style that doesn't involve crazy bumps and I was never working a full time schedule at any point in my career are factors in my longevity. 
Luck is a factor one can't discount in life. I've just been lucky so far to not suffer any serious injury in the ring. My shoulder has been separated three times over the years and I have plenty of aches and pains but nothing career ending. I've had the good fortune of wresting opponents who valued our health as much as entertaining our fans. 
In the Fall of 2013 I overheard Matty Star tell fellow IPW wrestler Marshall Scott to consider another finisher in the ring. 

For the sake of his knees. 

Matty told Scott "your knees are the first thing to go." Matty then turned to me and said "don't you think Juan?"
I had to pause. I never had knee pain. Never ached. 
Once after a frog splash off the top rope early in my career I felt a twinge in my knee and had difficulty walking. But after 2weeks of rest I was good as new.  

1999 VS James Grizzly in Kansas at a rodeo arena. Barely 50 fans there, 6 hour drive, paying dues.

 
I agreed with Matty out loud but quietly thought to myself, " I don't have bad knees". 
Just a few hours earlier I had a long awaited chance in Algona Iowa at the IPW training center to try a moonsault. 

On a crash pad.

I've had a love affair with the moonsault since the early 90's. It's always been a majestic, magical move to me. It's beautiful really. And if it's captured on film it's a great picture. 
If a wrestler uses it at the right moment I think it's magic as well. Jushin "Thunder" Liger probably had my favorite moonsault. 
The Great Muta had an athletic looking moonsault as well in his WCW days.  

When I was still training with Skandar Akbar in Dallas I never had the confidence to try a moonsault. The ceiling was too low at Dougs Gym in Downtown Dallas. So I spent my time there at Dougs practicing my top rope Frankensteiner. I finally nailed it one day in practice.
Then one day at the Sportatorium I was working out with a fellow trainee Shane. I told him about my crazy move I wanted to try. But we didn't have a crash pad. Shane suggested we get our duffle bags full of stuff and throw them in the middle of the ring as makeshift pads. 
So that's what we did. 

On the hardest ring I have ever been in in my life.

Moonsault after failed moonsault on that rock hard ring. I swear I did at least a dozen of them. Landing hard on my legs, my knees, my wrists and arms. All over the place.
The next day I was somewhat sore but at 22 years old it was no big deal. 
After that afternoon in the Sportatorium though, I pretty much never tried the moonsault again. I always hoped I'd have access to crash pad but it never happened. 
Until that day in Algona. Man, when I saw that crash pad I instantly thought, here's my chance. 
I pulled the crash pad to the middle of the ring, got to the top rope and jumped. I knew what I wanted my body to do and even at 41.... I did it. I hit a moonsault!

With IPW head trainer T.S.

Later that night I was chatting with head IPW trainer Travis Shillington. I asked him if there was anything I needed to worry about doing a moonsault. My biggest fear at that point was my neck. Being able to clear the mat without ever putting my neck in danger. A wrestler always is or should be concerned about his neck. 

"Do you wear knee pads?" Trav asked immediately.

It seemed to be a strange question to me but I told him the truth, no I didn't anymore. 
Trav then proceeded to tell me it was a good idea, necessary, if I wanted to do a moonsault. 
After digging out my knee pads for my next match I tried my very first moonsault in a match. I was going to have my opponent move. I still didn't have confidence I would be able to land safely and accurately on my opponent. I also would do the move off the second rope, not the top. 

The moment I did my first moonsault in a wrestling mat in a match without a crash pad both my knees reverbatated with a stinging immediate pain that lasted several seconds. 
I finished the match and was moving around ok later that night. 
But it was obvious the mechanics of that move were far more damaging to a pair of knees than any splash off the top rope I ever did before. 

It was clear as I analyzed the move that in order to clear the mat so I didn't damage my neck I was swinging my legs and feet with tremendous force to rotate my body over. Rather than land flat spread over my chest, legs, stomach and palms, my knees were landing first.
And landing hard. All kinds of force and weight were impacting my knees. 
Even with knee pads there was no denying it was hard on my knees. 
But being a mark for that move I continued to do it in important matches where it made sense to do the move. 
The routine was the same. I'd pull out the move, feel the intense pain in my knees but be fine after the match. 
Then after one moonsault the ache in my knees hung around for a few days. I still didn't banned the move from my arsenal though. 
A year after trying the move for the first time on a crash pad and about a dozen times in a match I did the move in a match in Des Moines against Nate Alsin. 
No one asked me to do the move. No one pressured me to do it. I offered it up when setting up the match. At the 11:45 mark I went for the moonsault.

After landing on the mat that night I felt the same sharp pain on my knees. 
This time the ache never went away.
My knees were sore that night after I changed. They were sore when I woke up the next morning. And as the week progressed without any relief I knew I'd made a stupid decision continuing to do the moonsault. 
I banned the move from my arsenal and hoped my body that had rarely failed me would heal and recover fully as it oftened had.  
A full six months later I still had pain in my knees. I still ached if I woke up in the middle of the night. I couldn't jump up stairs like I did before. Running became an unnecessary risk. 

Now thankfully I'm better. A knee doctor said my knees were good and suggested some physical therapy and ibuprofen for the pain. But my knees are not what they were before I began using the moonsault.
When we enter the ring as young men we don't always grasp the risk were taking. I took body slams off the top rope like my hero Ric Flair. I did moves on hard concrete I wouldn't even think about today. 
We fully begin to understand the risks we are taking after a few years. We often hear the veterans and old timers explaining why certain moves are risky, dangerous and more often then not...unnecessary. 

But my story of the moonsault and my knees shows we still don't always make the best decisions even when we are older & wiser. Like a 40 year old friend that got popped for a DUI charge I gotta wonder, "what was I thinking?" 
I knew better.

But still to this day, I love that damn moonsault.

Marek Brave with a picture perfect moonsault. Photo by Matt Tucker.