Jay Phoenix
Career Highlights

Phoenix was brought up by his grandfather after his parents were killed while he was still a small child. His grandfather wanted him to follow in his own steps and become a both a shaman for their tribe and a political/business player with the Native American community. Phoenix had other ideas. Well, actually, he had three:

1 - stay best friends forever with Rick James his (obviously) best friend. Promises made, even before reaching double figures in age, are still promises after all.

2 - go to college and and get a couple of degrees - one in social anthropology and one in pyschology.

3 - represent his Country in the Olympics at Archery.

One and two were easy to do but it was while at College with Rick that number three changed; so did his whole life. Rick James got an internship with Vanilla Networks, a multi-media agency that just so happened to have a TV station that owned a wrestling franchise. Always athletic Phoenix was immediately hooked on the sport and even though it meant giving up his Olympic dream (one thing that his grandfather - grudginly - admitted was a worthwhile goal ... he wasn't too sure about the other goals) he started training to be a wrestler. Training hard.

Fast forward a few years - ok, more than a few, but you know what I mean ... we don't have time to to an autobiograhpy here folks! - and goals one and two were still firmly established plus his new and improved goal of 'making it in wrestling' was pretty much a success too: six World level titles in six different PTC federations with Phoenix also being the only wrestler to appear in all six GTTs, plus the only man to ever reach the finals twice (losing - controversially - to Vampir Nosferatu in GTT1 and Dave Snow in GTT6) meant that Phoenix was a household name whereever he went.

The only problem was that - currently and since the end of GTT6 - the only place that Phoenix wanted to be was ANYWHERE outside of wrestling. The sport that he had once loved, the business that had been his life, had broken him. For nearly two years he had lost himself under the mask of a wrestler known only as Ember - everything that Phoenix was Ember was the opposite; vain, eogmaniacal; viscious; selfish; evil. A strong word, perhaps, but to Phoenix himself he believed - totally - that Ember was nothing more than evil personified. Obviously, to his 'doctors' Ember was just a personality Phoenix's pysche had come up with as the result of a psychotic break - a completely seperate personality that allowed Phoenix to play out his repressed desires. To Phoenix himself, though - and to his grandfather, the mystical shaman - they knew better. Ember was the non-born soul of Phoenix's own twin brother who had died in the womb ... someone who had never managed to have a life of his own and so, bitter and twisted in the spirit World of the Native Ancestors, Ember had possessed Phoenix's body and trapped his mind in a small, dark, corner of his own psyche.

... still with me? Well done!

Either way - medically and emotionally boorken with a pyschotic break induced split personality or spiritually possessed by the soul of his never born twin - Phoenix had been through Hell and had called it quits on wrestling entirely. He walked out on a lucrative contract with PRIME (a contract he claims isn't his anyway, it is Ember's) as well as all PTC tournament appearances, Phoenix seemed pretty set to quietly fade into retirement.

Best laid plans, and all that ... he got an invitation to take part in the NFW Grand Prix - a tournament which had one of his personal heroes taking part - and he got a gleam of desire back in his eye. A gleam that turned into even more when he found out that his best friend - his soul mate and the one man that stood beside him throughout the whole Ember ordeal - Rick James had accepted on his behalf.

Phoenix may have been done with wrestling but it seemed that wrestling wasn't done with him.

... and, to add to any other problems, someone has been emailing Phoenix with 'allegations' that there may be more to his relationship with his 'friend' Rick James than is public knowledge. Dealing with your sexuality is confusing enough when you KNOW what you are doing - in this case it seems that others want to make it their concern before Phoenix himself has come to terms with where his and Rick's journey is taking them.

Oy vey!

Disposition: Ladi back, easy going and one of the 'good guys' .. oh, and a complete and utter 'baby face'

Gimmick: He lives the gimmick in that Phoenix is a Native American with a Shaman for a Grandfather - what you see is what you get. He is both highly focused, and highly spiritual. Looks towards the Native American spirits to guide him ... very open and trusting, with an attitude of seeing the best in everyone until proved otherwise.

Strengths

Experience, Resilience, and Versatility.

Phoenix is a veteran of the business and, because of that, is both extremely experienced and has built up a high level of resilience. There is little that he hasn't seen - or been faced with - inside the ring so not only has great ring awareness but little rattles him and just when you think that you have him beaten, just when you think that he has to be finished, is normally the time when he surprise you with one last burst of energy or a move that he doesn't normally do.

Weakness

Trusting, Injury Prone and Mental Stability.

Despite all of his experience, despite what has been done to him in the past, Phoenix tries to see the best in everyone, even his opponents. This means that he can be lulled into a false sense of security quite easily. On top of that it won't matter if someone is using a steel-chair and a cattle-prod against him Phoenix refuses to use weapons - or cheat - to win a match unless there really is no other recourse ... and even if he is forced to defend himself by using a weapon he won't take a win that way.
His body has ben batterred and broken over the years and some people in the know have even targeted certain areas deliberately (his knee, for example). On top of that there is a 'question' about his mental stability (see BIOGRAPHY for details).






Ember bio: Ember was a 'complicated' individual. Never, ever, seen without his face masked - and a sibilant whisper of a voice - it is hard to known very much about him apart from the obvious physical facts:

Male, about six foot tall, and extremely athletic and toned. His age, his race, his nationality and all other details are impossible to know … and to make matters worse Ember seems to delight in playing mind games with everyone.

Brash, egotsitical and enigmatic he joined hte ranks of the WWA just over eighteen months ago with no known background in wrestling - at least none that he cared to acknowledge.

From the moment that he stepped foot inside the WWA ring it was obvious that either Ember was a savant in wrestling or someone with vast experience behind him. In typical fashion, however, Ember refused to deny or confirm anything.

A year to the day after joining the WWA Ember fought off the competition of every other active wrestler to capture the WWA World Title

… and that is where things went wrong.

With his ego running wild he accpeted a challenge for the title and underestimated his opponent and the title was taken from him only three months after winning it. To regain it he put the one thing that he treasured above all others on the line - his mask.

… and he lost the match and the mask both!

A small line of print in the contract - written by his laywer - enabled Ember to remain masked, but this mask … featureless and blank … didn't seem to 'fit' and Ember's mental state came into question when he stated that he was hearing and seeing a woman that no-one else could.

Disappearing from active competition in the WWA Ember made a couple of appearances in the PTC's Infinte Gauntlet and decided the apply once more for the GTT with two questions hanging over his head.

Can he regain even a semblance of his former glory or is he doomed to continue to fall from grace?

… and, more importantly, is his mind broken beyond repair or - as impossible as it seeems - is he really being haunted by something from his past?

While on a winning streak in the GTT Ember has made his, unnanounced and unherladed, in PRIME where he has targetted his old WWA fed-mate, Jonathon Winters.