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AEW Will Have Sensory Break Areas (pssst… that’s a huge deal)
My first live wrestling event was a house show in Denver. The Ultimate Warrior pinned Ravishing Rick Rude. I was 10 years old. In the years that followed my father would take me to dozens of wrestling shows, from Royal Rumble to Wrestlemania to the night in Los Angeles when we were sure Bret Hart had beat Ric Flair for the title (still my favorite match of all time). These are my most vivid childhood moments of being a son to a loving father.
Charlie and I have been watching wrestling since he was 3 years old, absorbing everything from WWE to New Japan in a makeshift wrestling ring I create from an air mattress that allows him to dive off the couch as though it were the top rope. He started asking to go to Wrestlemania last year.
“It’s pretty far away, buddy.” I usually reply. “Maybe some day they’ll have an event closer to here.”
And they did. Survivor Series, one of the “big four” WWE events was hosted at the Staples Center this past November. As much as I wanted to take him it presented a logistical challenge that is often baked into every activity we look to participate in.
Charlie gets overstimulated. This is common in children with ASD. The sensory input, while enjoyable for him at first, often leaves him distressed after about 45 minutes, and he becomes…
