Mike Eagle and Its All Gonna Happen Again
When rapper Open Mike Eagle told his friends and family that he was going to Louisville, Kentucky to get in the ring with a professional wrestler, they were more than a little concerned.
"It's not similar an MMA fight — we're not gonna go in there and actually try to harm each other, necessarily," said Open Mike Hawkeye most what it was like to fight Kentucky wrestler Shiloh Jonze. "But it'south a very dangerous affair — people have actually, seriously hurt themselves wrestling. People have died in the wrestling ring — like a performed match, people died. Every serious injury you can think of has happened. And I wasn't able to really, fully train, then I retrieve everybody around me had a fair corporeality of very understandable concern almost what information technology was I was virtually to practise with my life."
The rapper is no stranger to taking risks in his career. When he went independent by releasing his 2018 EP, What Happens When I Try To Relax, on his ain tape label, it was a run a risk. But late last year, when he decided to get in the ring with a very existent pro-wrestler, he wasn't risking his streaming numbers — he was risking his well-beingness.
Embedded content: https://youtu.be/CzdeG7VICLY
"It was probably one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life," said Eagle of what it was similar to fight Jonze. "A lot of my memory of it is a blur. I call up the lucifer full was like five minutes, only it felt similar an hour to me"
Clapback, a six-part documentary that is bachelor exclusively through his Patreon, documents Open Mike Hawkeye's journey from rapper to wrestler, from the beef that started it all to the total-on match that took place merely a month later. And like most battles, rap or otherwise, It all started on Twitter.
Embedded content: https://twitter.com/mike_eagle/condition/1042608466609823744?s=21
Here'south how information technology went down: last year, Jonze, a pro-wrestler with a rap-shtick, posted a video of him challenging a bunch of actual rappers to a rap boxing (the listing included Eminem, multiple members of Wu-tang, Snoop Dogg and of course, Open Mike Eagle).
Embedded content: https://youtu.be/56I4AVrzKFA
But instead of merely tweeting back at him, Eagle decided to fly all the way to Davis Loonshit in Louisville, Kentucky to face Jonze in person. Then, in the middle of a wrestling outcome that Jonze was fighting in, Eagle walked out ringside, grabbed a mic, and started spitting: "You are non street/ yous've not seen the shots spray/ you're only a jock wearing John Cena cosplay," rapped Eagle to the thanks of the arena. And the residuum is regional wrestling history.
"It wasn't necessarily me existence angry," said Eagle, who trained with former WWF wrestler and promoter Al Snow before the fight. "It was me seeing somebody trolling me and me trolling him back…his trolling seemed to be based on, 'nobody's actually going to respond to this.' Then I responded. His trolling was based on, 'I'll make this video calling him out but in that location's no manner he's actually going to prove upward,' but I showed up. For me, information technology was virtually how far can I accept this."
The answer to that is pretty damn far.
Only in 2019, y'all accept to go far to go your music heard, and no one knows that amend than Open up Mike Hawkeye. Forth with others like Killer Mike, and Danny Chocolate-brown, Eagle helped pioneer the post-Napster, jack-of-all-trades rap persona that nosotros all wait from rappers today. Outside of his twenty-four hour period job every bit a recording and touring rapper, he'south co-hosted multiple podcasts, including Chat Parade, which is about the TV show Risk Time (he fifty-fifty played a rapping gingerbread man on the actual cartoon). He'due south got his hands in the comedy world too — he's a mainstay at Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles, and he co-hosts a sketch/showcase show on Comedy Cardinal chosen The New Negroes.
At present, y'all can add wrestler to that list, though simply time volition tell if he'll get in the ring again. While Hawkeye had a nifty time — "it was actually a high point of my life" — his reasons for wearing spandex and learning how to get out of a suplex were pragmatic, too. With dwindling record sales and a constantly evolving music manufacture, the truth is every bit painful equally a piledriver: these days, a cold 16 bars or a great album only might not be plenty for a rapper to survive.
"The money is dissimilar in music now," said Eagle on the current land of the rap industry. "I recollect the more interesting acts out there are going to try to find ways to get involved in other things that are fun and entertaining that align with their personalities. It's going to partly be what nosotros have to practise as rappers, or any kind of performers, to survive."
Simply instead of wishing for the good erstwhile days of rap, where you could bout on an album for years and brand a living, Eagle takes a glass one-half-full approach to life as a modern rapper: yes, it can be a challenge, but it's likewise an opportunity to try new creative projects and to express himself through different mediums.
"I exercise try to practice the things that are most interesting to me, which typically tends to exist, like, non necessarily what's expected," said Eagle. "Similar, I'chiliad not going to try to do a bungee jumping stunt…I'm not going to attempt to walk a tightrope somewhere. Simply if these interesting opportunities happen to coexist with my fields of interest, that is very exciting."
When Eagle spoke to me virtually his crossover from hip-hop to wrestling, he didn't speak like a marketing wizard or a businessman (though from the mode internet went nuts nearly it, it's articulate that he knows how to pull at our heartstrings). He sounded more similar a fanboy than annihilation else, speaking excitedly most his lifelong love of wrestling, Ric Flair, and The Rock. So at the end of the day, even if he'd lost the match to Shiloh Jonze (he didn't BTW), I get the feeling he'd yet be over the moon.
"I felt similar it was a actually high indicate in my life to even be involved in something like that, yous know," said Eagle about his wrestling debut. "But really exhilarating for me, and I don't know — it was super thrilling, man."
Source: https://blog.patreon.com/open-mike-eagle
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