Goo-goo ga-ga, wrestling fans. Big Baby Brody here, about to hit you with some real baby talk: After three decades of toiling in indie wrestling obscurity, I’m unlacing my booties and hanging up my bonnet for the last time. Reality has me in a headlock called “middle age,” and I’m tapping out.
That’s right, Babymaniacs. I’m retiring. Your support has meant the world to me, but I have to face facts: wrestling fans don’t seem to want an aging superstar who dresses and acts like a baby.
There’s so much I’m proud of in my career: I was the first wrestler to land a Gymboree endorsement, the first to use a rubber ducky as a foreign object, and the first to launch a line of protein-fortified baby food.
I also sold out the Scranton VFW once. It was my hometown debut and my dad got everyone at his job to come. He had never seen me wrestle before. From the moment I crawled out in my diaper and bib, his coworkers went nuts: “Look at Gary’s kid!” they cheered. And, “That’s your son, Gar? In the diaper?!?” He must have been so proud.
I remember this one time, after a particularly brutal match where my opponent choked me out with my pacifier. I was nursing a cold drink from my baba backstage when this shy kid approached me. “I snuck backstage to meet you, Big Baby. My friends say you’re weird. But I think you’re cool.” It’s memories like these I’ll cherish as I crawl into the sunset.
Still, I wish I knew why I never broke through and became a big star like John Cena or The Rock. Or even a medium star—a Total Divas reality-show-level star. Where did I go wrong?
Was it my entrance music? “Lullaby and Goodnight” seemed perfect to pump up the crowd. But not only did it not pump them up, it put them to sleep. My opponent and the ref usually conked out too. So I’d get stuck fighting myself while everyone else napped. If you’ve never thrown yourself through a table in front of a snoring Legion Hall audience, it’s very dispiriting.
Was it my moves themselves? A wrestler’s finisher should electrify the crowd, but any time I hit my signature moves like the Diaper Lock, the Atomic Diaper, or the Top Turnbuckle Diaper Drop, they booed me! “No more diaper-based moves!” they’d shout. “They are gross!” Another move, not an attack really, was I would suckle on my opponent. Or sometimes, I’d act colicky, and my opponent would put me on his shoulder and burp me. And of course, not a match went by I didn’t fill my Pampers. But with every move, more boos. “No more suckling!” they’d shout. “And what did we say about diapers?!”
Did I do something wrong the time I landed an audition with WWE? As soon as the bell rang and my opponent, the monstrous Kane, charged me, I pulled out the big guns: crawling, crying, and crapping myself. A visibly queasy Mr. McMahon rejected me on the spot. “Gimme one more shot,” I pleaded. “Let me fight The Undertaker! As a baby, I have no conception of death, so his creepy powers won’t phase me. I’ll give him the biggest suckle you’ve ever seen!” But Mr. McMahon refused, then threw up, then refused some more.
There’s so much I never accomplished: I wanted to throw Mick Foley from a twenty-foot-tall high chair, face Triple H in a steel crib match, and convince Brock Lesnar to trade me his championship title for my puffy book about zoo animals. So many dreams unfulfilled. It seems life amounts to little more than the accumulation of regret. Thank god for my comfort blankie, or I’d really be depressed.
And that’s just the emotional stuff. The physical toll of portraying Big Baby Brody is even worse: bruised fontanelle, dislocated bib, baby powder addiction, chronic swaddling of the limbs, torn onesie, and severe mobility issues from when the Dudley Boyz broke my stroller. It adds up. My noggin rattles worse than my actual rattle, and there are some boo-boos even Mama can’t kiss and make better.
Still, I wouldn’t trade all the bumps and bruises for anything. It was an honor to portray the wrestler known as “The Teething Titan.” “The Babyfaced Babyface.” “The Indomitable Infant of the Squared Circle.” And “Hey, who’s that freak in the diaper?”
I could keep going over the highs and lows of my career, but we’d be here all day, and it’s past my bedtime. So let me close by saying thank you to all the members of the Official Babymaniac Fun Club. Thank you, Todd in Tusla, and you too, Boyd in Sheboygan. I did it all for you, Babymaniacs.
What’s next for me? A movie career like Dave Bautista? A podcast like Steve Austin? Or just a really long naptime? Hard to say, but first thing’s first. I’m ready to change out of this diaper once and for all and throw on some undies. I’m a big boy now. I’m fifty-three.