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Robert Martyr has been in professional wrestling for more than a decade and, on Saturday, he looks to score a victory against a “legitimate legend” in Bárbaro Cavernario.
The Martyr and Cavernario match is one of the matches on a stacked card taking place at Pandemonium: Pro Wrestling’s Dismantling Summer event in Portland, Oregon. Martyr told Pak Gazette Digital that he was a little worried about accepting the match before committing.
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Robert Martyr prepares for his next match. (Provided to Pak Gazette Digital)
“I’ve been talking about it over and over again,” he said in a recent interview. “I was going back and forth on the match when it was introduced to me. You always get in your head about things. You always have this level of imposter syndrome. But then I realized, man, I’ve been doing this for 11 years. It’s time to stop being angry. I’m doing this for 11 years. I’m good at what I do. I’m really one of the best on the indies. It doesn’t matter how often or not I’m fighting, but whenever I get in the ring, I make magic.
“I’m very excited. I know a lot about Bárbaro. He’s one of the best in the world. He’s legitimately been one of the best in the world for about 10 years. I’m no stranger to wrestling. I was born and raised in wrestling. I studied it. That was my first style when I learned how to do professional wrestling. So, I’m very, very excited. I’m going to be on a big show with Pandemonium – at this point, my home promotion. The thing about Bárbaro is that He has legitimately fought in the Mexico Arena. He has fought everything. I am going to be able to experience that. I am going to say that I have to get in the ring with a legitimate legend.
Martyr got into professional wrestling when he was just a teenager. He said he got hooked on the sport by watching old Lucha Libre tapes that his grandmother had recorded.
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While others grew up watching WWE (then World Wrestling Federation) and World Championship Wrestling, Mártir said he got hooked on Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA) and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL).
“I started doing professional wrestling when I was 14. I got into this because my grandmother was a big wrestling fan. She always recorded wrestling. She had tapes of AAA and CMLL,” he told Pak Gazette Digital. “Funnily enough, I didn’t grow up on WWE at all. I grew up on Wrestling. That’s all I watched since I was 3 or 4 years old.
Professional wrestler Robert Martyr hits his opponent in the head from behind. (Provided to Pak Gazette Digital)
“Eventually, you know, I got ADHD, I was like, man, I can’t seem to sit still, and my mom was trying to find a sport and nothing was working. And I said, why don’t I just try wrestling? I don’t know if that’s possible. I found a school. They made us sign a waiver and the rest is history. So, that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. I wrestled in high school. I did boxing, Muy Thai. I’m into music. I do a lot of things.”
Martyr said his hope was to provoke some emotion in those watching. He wants people to feel all kinds of emotions when he performs in the ring.
Like most professional wrestlers, it’s taken them a while to get there and the grind wouldn’t be like this if it weren’t for the crazy stories on tour.
Martyr shared his own story about how he was booked for his first show outside of his home state of Florida.
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“The craziest was probably when I drove 20 hours to Chicago to wrestle for three minutes. It was something extraordinary. The professional wrestler, she’s amazing, Janai Kai, was in that car. EK Prosper, from NXT, was also in that car. We were all together,” he explained. “I started with those guys. We got this booking and we were like, you know what? It’s our first out-of-state (Florida-based) booking, we’re going to make this happen. We’re going to go. We’re going to put all our money together and drive there. So, we drive there and it’s just a disaster. It’s like the worst show you’ve ever seen in your life.
“No one knows what’s going on. The promoter doesn’t know what’s going on. He had practically forgotten that he had specifically hired me. He had forgotten that I was there too. So when I showed up, he was like, ‘Wait, I hired you?’ And I say, yes. Here are the text messages. And he says, ‘Oh.’ So he booked me for a squash match and it was literally like two minutes into a 20-hour car trip from Orlando, Florida, to Chicago, Illinois, and back again. “So it’s really 40 hours for a two-minute squash match.”
Independent wrestler Robert Martyr watches the professional wrestling ring. (Provided to Pak Gazette Digital)
Martyr admitted that he took the loss on that trip and may not have even been paid for his troubles.
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In the future, he said he hoped to win some gold in the near future. If he does, it would be the first championship he has earned in his professional wrestling career.
