When Andy Bird was a kid, every Monday night he would push his little bed out of his bedroom and in front of the TV, so he and his mom could have the coziest possible vantage from which to watch Monday Night Raw wrestling together.
These days, he’s part of the show, in the ring as ‘The Dreadful Bird,’ and he’s putting on a show for charity in Maple Ridge.
His goal is to bring more young people from his troubled home reserve in Saskatchewan to Maple Ridge. He wants to get them out of a rut, help them see their future, show them how to make it happen.
With a wrestler’s flair for promotion, he bills it “Wrestlefest For the Bird’s Nest.”
The Dreadful Bird
“I still watch Monday Night Raw every Monday,” admits Bird.
“I have always wanted to be a wrestler.”
He was raised in Saskatoon, about an hour away from the Montreal Lake Cree Nation reserve that is home to much of his family.
There was no obvious path to wrestling superstardom, so he messaged Canadian WWE superstar Natalie Neidhart, of the famous Hart wrestling family, through social media.
He was shocked when she messaged him back.
She told Andy to take himself to Calgary, and find B.J.’s Gym, where he could get legit training. On New Year’s Day 2010, he resolved to do exactly that. He packed a backpack with sneakers, kneepads and couple changes of clothes, and set out.
He trained at that Calgary gym for 18 months, before moving to Burnaby. He joined Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling and moved into a house with seven other wrestlers.
“That was fun. Lots of things happening there …” he recalls.
Bird is no Hulk Hogan. He doesn’t have the freak muscularity of big-time wrestling stars. Naturally, he became a high flier, launching himself off the top rope, with long dreadlocks streaming behind.
Bird never made it to the WWE, but he’s living the dream. He and ECCW owner Scotty Mac have become close friends, and the ECCW puts on a fun show, he said.
“I get to be Andy ‘The Dreadful Bird’ – I get to be myself and I get to do my own story lines. I love it.”
They sell out venues like Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom. Bird shows a video of himself in the ring at the Cloverdale Agriplex. He’s got a homemade jetpack on his back, and when his Buzz Lightyear wings flip out, the already boisterous crowd goes bonkers. Then it’s time for his patented springboard cross-body takedown, or perhaps a ‘Bird Brain Buster.’
“I’m running around, and my hair’s always flying everywhere.”
Bird says he just wants to entertain people – so they don’t think about their complicated lives for just 10 minutes while they watch him.
“My goal for anyone who sees my show is to forget everything that’s going on. Just sit there and enjoy the show.”
The Bird’s Nest
Bird is recently married to his wife Shana. He’s studying to be an education assistant through Ridge Meadows College.
The first person Andy brought to Maple Ridge was his mother Patti. She has been accepted to go to Langara College to study cooking. Patti is deaf, and she will be provided an interpreter who can sign for her.
Her son could sign before he could speak.
“That’s my first language,” he said. “I learned to speak by watching TV – Sesame Street and wrestling.”
He wants to bring more people, and has established The Bird’s Nest – a registered non-profit society to help the youth of Montreal Lake achieve their goals.
It will also be a house, nearby his own in Maple Ridge, where between six and eight students at a time will be able to live, get academic upgrading, college or vocational courses, their driver’s licences and other things they need to be successful. That’s the dream, anyway.
Bird doesn’t want to make Montreal Lake sound like hell on earth, he just says simply that “there’s nothing there.”
It is a simple residential community for about 2,300 band members who live on reserve, but there is no work, no industry and not even stores.
“There is literally nothing to do and you are surrounded by drugs and alcohol abuse,” writes Bird in a pamphlet about his new project.
“Education is almost irrelevant, even discouraged.”
There are high rates of suicide and teen pregnancy, he said.
“People from your own country assume that you are either lazy or unmotivated, when the truth is that since you have never experienced anything except for your small community, the idea of venturing out on your own is so overwhelming you end up trapped in a life you do not want to live.”
The next person he brought to the Bird’s Nest was his cousin A.J. Charles, who is 21.
In Maple Ridge now, he’s got his learner’s licence, went to the first job interview, and is going to Riverside for adult education. In September, he’ll go to Vancouver Community College for a 10-month hairstyling course. He plans to return to Saskatchewan, and aspires to open his own salon someday.
Bird, his wife Shana, and her family are involved in the project, and their connections in Maple Ridge are opening doors, he says.
He sees the Bird’s Nest students as being able to pick up critical life skills while they live away from home, in a beautiful part of the country.
• The show is happening on Saturday, Feb. 27 at the Greg Moore Youth Centre. The doors open at 7 p.m., and the show is at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $18.