Brandi Mendez
EWF Correspondent
It’s no secret when growing up; we all go through phases in our life when at one point we’re awkward and teased for it. Whether you are the tall, quiet kid in the back of the class who is called “weird” for not being able to mix in well with his cruel classmates; or you were the reserved girl with glasses, braces and her head attached to the books, which was labeled an “ugly nerd.” Even if you were that quirky kid daydreaming of one day gracing the wrestling world on the biggest stages of them all, who’s labeled a “freak,” we’ve all been there. No matter how you slice and dice it, it’s bullying. With the bullying epidemic rapidly rising, this is an issue everyone is advocating against, including us here at Empire Wrestling Federation.
“Ironman” Mike Maze on his way to the ring!
Bullying has taken its toll on many, including EWF’s “Iron Man” Mike Maze. Before winning the American Championship in May 2011, before deciding to pursue his passion for wrestling, he was just like any other reserved kid in class. With a “quirky sense of humor” and small stature, Maze started being bullied in the first grade. He said the bullying began with being called names and eventually stemmed to physical abuse by his peers. “[The bullies] would smack me in the back of my head and flick my ears,” he said. While enduring the treatment from his classmates, Maze said he “just ignored it and tried to be a normal kid.” The former American Champion, like many others who are bullied didn’t say anything about the abuse as it was happening and said that he might’ve been the target for the treatment because he would often relocate schools. “I changed schools a lot as a kid so I guess being the new kid all the time wasn’t the best thing for me,” he said.
Maze experienced verbal and physical bullying. In the case of the verbal abuse, it is the most common case of tyranny and according to bullyingstatistics.org; “about 77 percent of all students being bullied verbally in some way or another including mental bullying or even verbal abuse. Out of the 77 percent of those bullied, 14 percent have a severe or bad reaction to the abuse, according to recent school bullying statistics.” In some cases, the effect of this behavior causes many victims usually to revert back from anything or anyone and will many times disengage in any part of their daily routine. However when these events transpires, the victims will often cause harm to their bullies by retaliating in an extremely violent fashion, or themselves by turning to substance abuse, physical mutilation or even committing suicide.
Mike Maze after defeating Joey Ryan on June 1st
This fortunately wasn’t the case for Maze. At 15, he’d grown tired and fed up with the treatment and he fought back against his bullies, ending the treatment. “Some dude in high school kept picking on me and I snapped one day and I had to beat [him up] for bullying me,” Maze said. Although the physical act of violence isn’t something he condones, Maze now a father of four teaches his children that they need to stand up for themselves against any treatment of that kind and not stay mum, as he did. The foursomes also have been taught that they are to never bully anyone else, around them. “They [his kids] won’t do it. They know I was bullied and it’s happened to my son already, but I’ve taught him to stand up for himself now and not wait like I did,” he said.
With the lesson Maze has learned and passed onto his own children of bullying, he has one piece of advice for anyone going through the same torment; “Don’t be scared, stand up for yourself. Bullies are nothing but scared little trouble-makers who pick on others to make themselves fell better,” Maze said.
