Published at 1:18 am. Updated at 5:00 am.
The meeting is something very special. Nicolas Dansereau is waiting for us in a conference room at a downtown hotel, wearing a jacket, his face uncovered. In fact, we conclude that he is simply because the publicist points out this kind of very banal demeanor to us.
If we don’t recognize him, it’s because Dansereau always wears his mask whenever he climbs between the cables, whether televised or not. Then he becomes the evil Uno.
Colleague Martin Chamberland should arrive in a few minutes to photograph the Quebecer. Can we pose without a mask? He hesitates before saying he’d rather not show his face.
Dansereau puts his mask back on before Chamberland even arrives. He will keep it even after he leaves. After all, this skin has been an extension of himself for 20 years now.
I was 16 and I don’t know if I had the legal right to wrestle. I told myself that I would wear a mask to hide the fact that I was a child. But I was still built like a child!
Nicolas Dansereau
“It was like my cheat code. Later I had great opportunities and said to myself: I have to keep my name and my mask. And now I can do this interview, I take pictures, and in five minutes I take it off, I go to the grocery store and no one knows who I am. I like having my two worlds. »
Quebec is not Mexico, where the mask is ingrained in the culture. However, some local wrestlers have had some success adopting this Mexican symbol. Before his popularity exploded under the name Sami Zayn, Quebecer Rami Sabei wrestled under the name El Generico. In WWE, he put away his mask.
“Sami can’t go to a café in Montreal without getting arrested,” Dansereau remembers. Not that I would mind if people stopped me. But then they will know who my mother is, who my wife is. And it is no longer my world, it becomes the world of all my loved ones. I do not want that. I want them to have the choice to be a part of it. »
The mask is also a nod to some of his childhood idols, including Mick Foley, who partially hid his face when taking on the role of Human. “Foley spoke like a real person. He had feelings, he fought for his children, for his wife. Like him, I don’t have the usual wrestler’s body, so I identified with someone who seemed normal. »
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
For almost five years, AEW allowed Nicolas Dansereau to pursue one of his dreams: making a living from wrestling.
Paid to fight
As talented as he is, Evil Uno isn’t one of the faces of AEW either. Taking on the role is Maxwell Jacob Friedman, a young champion with charisma comparable to The Rock. Veterans Chris Jericho, Sting and Adam Copeland (formerly Edge) are some of the most recognizable names for the average sports fan.
There can be several weeks between Evil Uno’s appearances on AEW shows, a role he accepted for “a while.” “For the first year I was on TV almost every week. But there were 55 wrestlers,” he remembers.
AEW now lists 128 male and 34 female wrestlers on its website. The company produces two weekly two-hour shows, Dynamite on Wednesdays and Collision on Saturdays, as well as some spinoff shows. In short, the “ice time” is limited, but the AEW allows wrestlers to work in so-called independent organizations, which are obviously less well known.
“I can’t be at every show. If you have a choice between Sting, Adam Copeland and me, I understand if you choose Sting and Copeland! », agrees Dansereau.
Despite this limited role, AEW allowed him to pursue one of his dreams for almost five years: wrestling for a living. He previously worked in the federal government’s IT department to make ends meet. He now achieves this with his wrestling salary, as well as with his wrestling school in Gatineau. In Quebec there are less than ten of them who can make a living from this profession.
That being said, no other Quebecer makes their money exclusively from wrestling. That was my goal. When I first started, it was unthinkable to make money wrestling unless you were 6’3″ and 300 lbs. But I told myself that I would dedicate my time to it because I loved it.
Nicolas Dansereau
The Bell Center
Evil Uno will wrestle at the Bell Center for the first time. This will be his chance to reveal himself to his audience. Apart from the fans who followed him in the local associations in the 2000s, few fans know that under the mask there is a local.
“It fascinates me to see how many people know that I am Quebecois because I don’t speak French very often, especially on television, and I don’t wear Quebec colors. » Having grown up in a bilingual environment and being married to an English-speaking woman, he still admits to some nervousness at the idea of speaking French on the microphone.
Was the Bell Center part of his dreams? “It’s crazy because I never thought I’d be wrestling at the Bell Center one day. I already wrote down my wishes in battle and they weren’t there. It sounded so big that I thought I’d never make it there. »
It’s quite a journey for the man who first became known as Player Uno, a playful character inspired by the world of video games, his other passion that he continues to pursue in parallel.
“They say in wrestling that the moment you start wrestling, you don’t age. I started as a teenager, I’m 36 now, but in my head I’m a teenager. I’m still that 15, 16 year old with the same dreams. I wasn’t a party guy, I wasn’t an athlete, I wasn’t popular with the girls. My life consisted of wrestling and video games. Over the years I have brought these two worlds together. »
Breaking into enemy territory
The Montreal market has always been very loyal to the almighty WWE. Even WCW, WWE’s main rival in the 1990s, never officially came to town. Earlier this year, WWE made a splash by presenting two shows over two nights at the Bell Center, headlined by Sami Zayn. Ticket sales have gotten off to a slow start for AEW and the capacity of the Bell Center will be reduced to around 5,000 seats. But Nicolas Dansereau has a message for wrestling fans. “You can watch both shows!” I look at the competition, I watch Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Gunther. There is good fighting on both sides. AEW has some of the best wrestlers in the world. We have four Quebecers (Evil Uno, Daddy Magic, Cool Hand Angelo Parker and Stu Grayson), a multitude of Canadians: Chris Jericho, Christian Cage, Adam Copeland, Kenny Omega, Taya Valkyrie. If you like pure wrestling, you’ve come to the right place. If you like Lucha Libre, we have some of the best luchadors in the world. If you like New Japan, we have people from New Japan. If you want to see high quality wrestling, you’re guaranteed to see it. »