I must’ve probably wrote, deleted and rewrote this piece at least 15 times. I’ve never been one to shine myself in a vulnerable light; especially when my character is known to be vulgar, shittalking and confident.. which is why it’s kinda funny in retrospect when I’m not any of those things. I just wanted to say thank you to The People’s Vampire (Tommy Vachon) for giving me a platform to talk about me.. Ben, behind the ‘wall’ I call TFM and a little bit more about me.. As I think a lot of people will have misjudged me from the get go.
My life upto now.. has been quiet, reading other people’s stories— I’ve not had it so tough, which I should be grateful for but I lived a childhood that was bubble wrapped with love and with that, became ‘blind’ to a lot of real world problems. I never had a lot of money, but I had things a lot of people don’t that considers me rich, 2 parents in the same house that loved me; with that I was very spoilt because I had parents who had nothing, and in turn they didn’t want the same for me. I didn’t grow up with the knowledge of drugs and alcohol, a toxic home life.. I’ve had it pretty privileged in that respect. Life at school was.. challenging but I was never bullied, I’ve just pushed through life as me. I’d like to think I never got bullied because I’m autistic. Which, yes- I know, walking target right? But if school taught me anything, was to study situations.. and mimic everything everyone was doing just to fit in and try my hardest to be deemed “normal”.
Being autistic is obviously a huge part of my life, it’s given me my biggest struggles.. which ultimately have given me my biggest achievements. I’m very much a people pleaser, I’ll say that confidently at least. Not by choice; the one thing I really don’t like doing.. it’s letting people down. I pride myself on the fact, you can sit me in a room with anyone, and I promise by the end of it we’ll find some middle ground and will have something to talk about. That’s my skill. I’m not a people person, but I know how to connect, and that’s why to everyone I have had a conversation with; they’ll always vouch I’m great as shit. I do double doubt myself a lot.. If I’m being too much in myself, but having the TFM character to me; is almost a shield, my second skin. That, and a reason to have that ‘fuck it attitude’, because I feel it’s not coming from me, which again, I don’t enjoy upsetting anyone.
One thing that was consistent through my childhood was wrestling. Although, being British and not having American cable for SmackDown or RAW and not having the money to buy out a Pay-Per-View on Sky TV my only access to Professional Wrestling was TNA iMPACT. The diversity of characters, every wrestler offering something different to the next, it really set the foundation of what grew to be my biggest love in my life. When YouTube picked off the ground; that’s when I really got into WWE as a whole, and never looked back since. I must say; I did own the WWE video games, but at that time I couldn’t tell who any of them were.
Wrestling is a funny thing right? As you age up in life, your love for wrestling stays.. but what that love is will change. 8 year old me loved the action, the intense brawls and the anything can happen feel with every weekly show. I move onto my teenage years, and I focused more on the backstage politics- what it took to put a show together and with that, I started Twitch E-Feds back in 2015 for WWE 2k15. I even briefly did my own show on Twitch, for a year which I very much enjoyed and it really was brilliant to sit down and put ideas and shows together for people to join and watch, that sense of community.
A second passion, is animals. I went to college, studied Animal Welfare which I passed with flying colours.. I could go on to be a vet, or train more to become a zookeeper. That to me would be really interesting as a route to travel down; currently myself and my partner (we’ll get there) have a beautiful Lurcher (Marlo) and Soon to be 32 quails (if the hatching process goes to plan) to go with our already 8 (update, they’re hatching! We’re onto 4 more additions!)
I mentioned my partner; I met him back in 2020 during lockdown, which was the hardest year in probably most of our lives to date. Not being able to actually meet him for the first 5 months since meeting took its toll. But here we are, going into nearly 5 years later. I didn’t want to make this whole thing controversial; but this is my life. I don’t pride myself on being gay, I hate that label alone. I just found my bestfriend, my soul mate and the one person who will forever have my back, and I’ll have his.. he just happened to be a guy. We’ve gone through so much together; and my confidence showing up is a huge thank you to him, as without him.. I really don’t know where I’ll be.
As of this moment; my biggest worry- is probably losing those around me, hitting 25 I’ve encountered some sort of… QuarterLife crisis? Watching times change quicker than seasons often draws me panic and I often stay up late just thinking about the future and I don’t even have a solid plan. But in this life we’re all just a shell just trying to make ends meet and have that happiness with it at the end of the day, we’re all flawed, we all have things in life we can work on. But if this life taught me anything, is that a bit of love, patience and kindness can move boulders from people. We never really know what people are dealing with in the inside, and just a moment to think before we put our mouths into action goes a long way. Look at me HAHA APW’s answer to Ghandi.
Being apart of APW for 365 days; I just wanted to say from the bottom of my heart, to the locker room- to Blaze, to those that love me.. to the ones that hate me.. You’ve given me airtime to really showcase my creative side and in return I truly appreciate each and every single one of you.. Including you Jerzey. I give a lot of shit; and feelings have never been my strong suit as I always described it as “I never know HOW to explain how I feel.. I just feel”. But I feel a lot of gratitude. So thank you for reading my story, and buying into what I’m selling every night on Twitch!
Kindest Regards,
Ben (TFM, the Facelifting, Ferrari drifting.. Uggo beating, Girlfriend to face seating Face of the Franchise).
