GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Don’t get him wrong, wrestling on a weekly TV show was amazing, but for Grand Rapids native Ryan Partmeter, the real highlight of his first year in WWE was performing at a Wrestlemania.
In fact, he can recall the instant where the moment finally hit him.
“(Former WWE Superstar) Heath Slater looked at me and he goes, ‘Ry,’ and I go, "Yeah baby?’” Parmeter recalls. “(Heath) goes, ‘Look at us. We are in WrestleMania.’ I was like, ‘Yeah we are. This is so cool.’”
It was 2015 and this was WWE's equivalent of the Super Bowl.
“The energy, the fans, the music is louder,” Parmeter says. “It’s bigger than life.”
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76-thousand were on hand that day at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California and for few minutes, their eyes were glued on Parmeter, or as he was known in WWE as, Konnor of the Ascension.
“My heart was pounding and my energy levels were peaking and I'm just like, ‘Oh man,’” Parmeter remembers.
The former Comstock Park High School student had dreamed of this ever since he was playing with wrestling action figures as a little kid and now suddenly once again, he felt like a little kid.
“You see the Rock and he's pumping up and he's got this aura about him. I say the same thing about Hulk Hogan,” Parmeter explains. “You got to always remember too that you are one of them. It's hard to sometimes because you forget. You get a little ‘fanboyed’ out.”
In all Parmeter participated at five WrestleMania’s and though he never got to be in a main event, he does have memories that are almost to good to be true.
“You get done and then you go to the back and then you sit there and you are like, ‘I trained years, countless years for this,’” says Parmeter before pausing to reflect. “It was worth every second.”
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