New Year’s Revolutionary

[Shea O’Hara]

SheaOHara.com

Let’s Rock & Roll…Again!

SheaOHara.com/Blogs/Latest

January 2nd, 2024

A New Year Sale Extension!

Happy Holidays & An Even Happier New Year to all my wonderful fans!

Let me start off 2024 the right way, with a huge thank you for the massive response to my site wide Christmas sale, and to reciprocate the sentiment I have decided to extend the store sale to the end of January!

Yes, you read that right. Everything on my personal online store is available signed upon individual request when you order, at an extra 25% discounted rate to the usual going rate for one of my authentic autographs - exclusively until the end of the month!

So ring in the New Year the right way and ensure a kickass 2024 with some even more kickass authentic Shea O’Hara merch!

Find all the details by clicking on the Shop tab at the top of my home page!

🎸🎸🎸

January 3rd, 2024

New Year, Same Goal

There is an old adage in the wrestling business that you’re only ever as good as your last match, and whilst I was not as bad as I feared I would be after five years away from in ring competition, I will acknowledge that as far as the end result was concerned, I could have been so much better.

I don’t think anything went wrong per se, just that I either overestimated how ready I truly was to get back in the ring and compete at the upper echelon of this company or I underestimated exactly what it would take to put the younger Fenix sister down.

Maybe a little of both, honestly.

Still, whilst Jennie Fenix may have forced me to swallow a big ol’ slice of humble pie by not only knocking me out of the Heiress To The Throne in the first round but also blitzin’ her way through the entire thing, I categorically refuse to be denied my ultimate goal.

A brand new year is upon us and with it comes a whole new set of opportunities.

Jennie may have denied me a fairytale comeback story, but that’s okay. Any story worth investing in is bound to have twists and turns and wrinkles along the way. You really can’t win them all, especially in this business, and so whilst 2023 ended as the year of Jennie Fenix, 2024 will begin as the year of Shea O’Hara.

I will be Women’s World Champion again before year’s end, I promise.

It’s not so much a New Year’s resolution as much as it is a guarantee, as I learn new lessons from each and every one of my setbacks in life, and all that loss to Jennie did was renew and reset my focus.

There is always more than one path to the top of the mountain, I just have to find another or better still carve my own.

🎸🎸🎸

January 3rd, 2024

New Year’s Revolution

As much as I love the Imperial Wrestling Federation, and I do love it with every beat of my stupidly over competitive heart, I do question the managerial wisdom to take the biggest stage we as female competitors have ever had in this company and scale it back to a New Year’s Special Edition of Sacrifice on free weekly TV rather than its own dedicated Pay-Per-View as it has been in previous years.

I’m sure the official answer will have something to do with female wrestling being too much of a niche product to justify the extra annual expenditure of a grander show or that historically Diamonds Are Forever has never had the buyrates of the other non-female exclusive premium live events, but I don’t care.

I can’t help but feel that whatever corporate bullshit mandate decided that it was the women’s show that was expendable and deserved relegation this year is not only a giant slap in the face to every woman in the locker room backstage but also a monumental step backwards for a company that used to pride itself on true equity and equality.

Whilst I personally have never cared much for proving myself to men by trying to compete with them physically in intergender matches, I respect those women who finally got it to be an option in this company. It was an overall positive and progressive step for the industry as a whole, but then you pull this bullshit by reducing the only stage we have where men haven’t muscled their way in and taken away our shine so drastically in overall scope.

Way to send the message loud and clear how hollow and surface level your dedication to elevating women’s wrestling as a whole to brand new heights in the industry really is. If it wasn’t bad enough that those of us who don’t want to fight men for what little we already have are reduced to having only one title to fight for, we now have had our greatest annual spotlight taken away because some big corporate dick in a fancy suit somewhere decided that we just weren’t worth the extra investment this quarter.

Fair enough, IWF you want to do this the hard way, consider this my promise to redefine our place in this sport throughout 2024 and force the board of directors to not only give us back our female exclusive Pay Per View next year but also other things we’ve lost that you have never dared to take away from the men, such as secondary championships and a proper equivalent and concurrent Heiress To The Throne tournament rather than the rushed token effort we got at the end of 2023.

You may not have much cause to pay attention to this blog space right now, after all, what’s another complaint online, right? But when I become Women’s World Champion again and you have no choice to acknowledge the pinnacle of female sportsmanship I will represent then, I promise you, it will be a different story.

I will give this company no choice but to rectify a great injustice by becoming the people’s world champion and using my voice to unify the voiceless behind the most important cause in our industry.

The right for women to be recognised as true equals in this industry.

I know Mr Verona has something of a penchant for inciting revolutions within our industry, well, with all due respect sir, prepare yourself for yet another when I am your Women’s World Champion again.

I promise you it will be the single most important period not only in company history but also the professional wrestling industry as a whole. It is 2024, not 1954 and if I have to step up and force some overpaid and overstuffed executives to acknowledge that reality, I friggin’ well will!

~~~

Tight focus on Shea O’Hara squatted down in the corner of a training ring at the fabled premier IWF training facility in Chicago.

Shea’s pale complexion glistened with fresh sweat as she took a moment to catch her breath. She was clad in a turquoise sports bra and shorts combination, with black elbow pads, knee pads and fingerless gloves.

She blew strands of damp, unkempt ginger hair out of her face before she addressed the camera with a warm smile and bright, determined, refocused vision.

Here I am, back to work after the holidays.

Back on the grind, like. I sincerely hope each of my five opponents in this year’s Queen’s Gambit ladder match had a thoroughly self-indulgent festive period ‘cause now it’s over and the real work in our business starts over and if I have anything to say about it that means that the grace I would have afforded each of you in this match once upon a time is a luxury I can no longer afford.

This one match, this golden opportunity at the Queen’s Gambit briefcase ain’t one I intend to let slip through my fingers as easily as I did the first round of last year’s Heiress tournament, so as much as I look forward to facing five of the freshest and hungriest faces that have emerged within the women’s division in recent years, you all should know that the loss to Jennie lit a fire under my fine ass, like.

A female equivalent to the Joker In The Pack is a long overdue revolution in IWF and such a significant revolution demands an even more significant revolutionary to lead the charge. A chance to lead all of female wrestling from the front is a responsibility only I have proven myself capable of shouldering. Y’see, each of my opponents this week may be the brightest of the bright young things in the division but for all their natural gifts, none of them have scaled the mountaintop here in IWF yet.

I have, so I’m the one with every advantage here.

I am the most experienced in an an IWF ring, and I know that makes me the one to beat in this match, but perhaps that too can work to my advantage ‘cause whilst you’re all too busy and too distracted making a target out of little old me, I can concentrate on doing what needs to be done to climb one of the most literal ladders to success I will ever face in my career and truly make a case for why I am indisputably the next World Champion in this company.

I suppose I really should take a moment to thank Jennie here, ‘cause if she hadn’t knocked me out of last year’s tournament, I wouldn’t be in consideration for this prize. A richer prize than a solitary and fleeting title shot, ‘cause with the briefcase I get to call my shot in a very literal sense and define the exact moment of my reemergence, rather than leaving my fate in the hands of The Murder or a certified jinx.

So thank you, Jennie, losing to you really was something of a blessing in disguise. Because now I get to refocus all my attention on my true objective - directly wrestling away absolute control of our division from Rowan’s most devout minions.

I need to find the light in myself to stand against the darkness once more, just like I did five years ago, and that golden briefcase is the key. With it, I get to steer not only my destiny but the destiny of an entirely forsaken and frankly dreadfully apathetic women’s division.

A women’s division strangled from a distance by a devil with a tenuous grasp of her own career. Rowan’s legend now is one more myth than reality, and I for one couldn’t be prouder that so many of you have pushed back against The Murder and not allowed evil to run rampant as it did in the days of The Pack, but with two representatives of her cause still allowed to be in this match, I cannot be complacent, nor can I leave it up to somebody else to continue the fight for me in this instance.

This is my battle to fight, my match to win, and my opportunity to seize.

As much as I respect Zasshu’s ability and Charlotte’s spirit, I know they’re not as well equipped to handle business at the top long term as I am, and given my only other choice would be a privileged part timer who barely goes here as it is in Serenity, I know that if I don’t step up then I let down.

I am the only option for a safer and more secure future.

Stop me from doing what is necessary this week at your own peril. Without me, everything will be squandered if left in the hands of a discount store Mai Everstone or a bargain bin Brooklyn Madrox.

This women’s division deserves a much brighter future and only my victory at Diamonds Are Forever this week will guarantee it. This match, and this entire damn show is mine.

My win is a win for us all, guaranteed.