The meeting is rather special. Nicolas Dansereau waits for us in a conference room of a downtown hotel, in a jacket, his face uncovered. In fact, we deduce that it is him, simply because it is towards this type of very banal appearance that the publicist directs us.
If we don’t recognize him, it’s because as soon as he climbs between the cables, whether televised or not, Dansereau always wears his mask. He then becomes Evil Uno.
Colleague Martin Chamberland should arrive in a few minutes to photograph the Quebecer. Will we be able to pose without a mask? He hesitates, before saying that he prefers not to show his face.
Dansereau puts his mask back on even before Chamberland arrives. He will keep it after he leaves too. After all, for 20 years now this skin has been an extension of his person.
I was 16 and I don’t know if, legally, I had the right to wrestle. I told myself 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 big opportunities and I said to myself: I’m going to 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 anchored in the culture. However, some local wrestlers have had some success by borrowing this Mexican symbol. Before seeing his popularity explode under the name Sami Zayn, Quebecer Rami Sabei wrestled under the name El Generico. In WWE, he put his mask away.
“Sami, in Montreal, cannot go to a café without being arrested,” recalls Dansereau. Not that I would mind if people stopped me. But then they will know who my mother is, who my wife is. And it’s 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 Mankind. “Foley spoke like a real person. He had emotions, 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
AEW has allowed Nicolas Dansereau, for almost five years, to realize one of his dreams: to make a living from wrestling.
Paid to fight
As talented as he is, Evil Uno isn’t one of the faces of AEW either. This role is occupied by Maxwell Jacob Friedman, a young champion with charisma comparable to that of The Rock. Veterans Chris Jericho, Sting and Adam Copeland (formerly Edge) are some of the most recognizable names to the average sports fan.
There can be several weeks between Evil Uno’s appearances on AEW shows, a role he took “a while” to accept. “The first year, I was on television almost every week. But there were 55 wrestlers,” he recalls.
AEW now lists 128 male and 34 female wrestlers on its website. The company produces two weekly two-hour shows, Dynamite on Wednesday and Collision on Saturdays, and some secondary broadcasts. In short, “ice time” is limited, but the AEW authorizes wrestlers to work in so-called independent organizations, less known, obviously.
“I can’t be on every show. If you have the choice between Sting, Adam Copeland and me, I understand if you choose Sting and Copeland! », agrees Dansereau.
Despite this limited role, AEW has allowed him, for almost five years, to realize one of his dreams: making a living from wrestling. Previously, he worked in IT for the federal government, to make ends meet. He now achieves this with his wrestling salary, as well as with his wrestling school in Gatineau. There are not even 10 of them in Quebec who can make a living from this profession.
Apart from that, no other Quebecer makes his money strictly from wrestling. That was my goal. When I started, if you weren’t 6’4 and 300 lbs, it was unthinkable to make money from wrestling. But I told myself that I was going to devote 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. Aside from the fans who followed him in the local federations in the 2000s, few fans know that a local guy is hiding under the mask.
“It intrigues me to see how much people know that I am Quebecois, because I don’t often speak French, especially on TV, and I don’t wear the colors of Quebec. » Raised in a bilingual environment, married to an English-speaking woman, he still admits to a certain 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 would wrestle at the Bell Center one day. I already wrote my wishes in the fight and it wasn’t there. It sounded so big league, I thought I’d never make it there. »
It’s quite a journey for the man who first became known under the name Player Uno, a playful character, inspired by the world of video games, his other passion, which he continues to nurture in parallel.
“In wrestling, they say that you no longer age from the moment you start wrestling. I started as a teenager, I’m now 36, but in my head, I’m a teenager. I’m still the 15, 16 year old guy with the same dreams. I wasn’t a party guy, I wasn’t a sports guy, I wasn’t popular with the girls. My life was wrestling and video games. Over the years, I have put these two worlds together. »
Incursion into enemy territory
The Montreal market has always been very loyal to the all-powerful WWE. Even WCW, WWE’s main competitor in the 1990s, never officially came to town. Earlier this year, WWE made a splash with the presentation of two shows in two nights at the Bell Center, with Sami Zayn as headliner. For AEW, ticket sales have gotten off to a slow start, 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 are able to watch both shows!” Me, I watch 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, we’ve got it. If you like lucha libre, we have some of the best luchadors in the world. If you like New Japan, we have guys from New Japan. If you want to see high caliber wrestling, you’re guaranteed to see it. »