I was told by a few fellows in the community that I should go ahead and write an introductory blog, so that’s what I’m doing.

In case you didn’t get the hint from my username, my name is Dustin Thomas. I’m from Franklin, Ohio, which is right smack dab in the middle of Cincinnati and Dayton. My gaming career began at the age of 3 when I received my first NES in 1988. Super Mario Bros. 3 holds a special place in my heart. My house burned down in 1990 and everything was lost except my copy of SMB3, but I didn’t expect it to work due to the excessive smoke damage. My mothers co-workers all pitched in money to help purchase a new NES for my brother and I, and I’ll be damned if that blackened copy of SMB3 didn’t still work!

My favorite game of all-time is Super Mario World on the SNES. It may be a generic answer, but it’s a game that I played a ton as a kid, and I still play it a ton now, usually coming back to it every few months. I just love it because it’s the kind of game you can beat in ten minutes, or you could spend a couple hours going through every level. I grew up on Mario, I’ll die on Mario.

I could name all my favorite games, but no one wants to read a huge list, so I’ll just say my top 5 franchises are 1. Mario, 2. Metal Gear Solid, 3. Resident Evil, 4. Castlevania, 5. God of War.



As for my personal stuff, I graduated high school in 2003, where I was a mixture of a nerd and a jock. I was a gamer but I was pretty good at basketball and baseball. During my freshman year in college, I saw an ad in the paper for a pro wrestling training school. I spent $900 of my student loan money to pay for the 15 week course, which was run by TNA wrestler Shark Boy. After the “Shark Tank” concluded, I continued my training with the Northern Wrestling Federation (NWFWrestling.com) under the tutelage of former WWE referee Roger Ruffen, who previously trained TNA’s Abyss, “Wildcat” Chris Harris, and New Japan star Karl Anderson. People often ask if I’ve wrestled any big names, the answer is yes. I’ve been lucky enough to have gotten in the ring with the likes of Tatanka, Al Snow, Abyss, Chris Harris, Shark Boy, Billy Gunn, Kevin Thorn, among others. And lastly, every year I the Cole Gray Memorial Wrestling Show, which is a benefit event for my best friend who passed away a few years ago from Cystic Fibrosis, all money going to the C.F. Foundation.



Due to the fact that I’m a very large person (6’6, 250 lbs.), I was told that I had a better shot at making it big than most. So I made the mistake of quitting college and devoting all my time to wrestling. It didn’t work out quite the way I planned, and I spent a lot of time pondering what I wanted to do with my life. I came to the realization that two things that I’ve always loved and know a little bit about are video games and writing. So I decided to retry college in the fall of 2008. Over the past year, I contacted a lot of video game journalists and asked for advice about how to break into the gaming journalism industry. Most of them told me that although it could help, gaming journalism is a lot like wrestling, in that it’s more about being a unique writer, writing all the time, and being discovered, rather than having a piece of paper saying I graduated college. Thus, I quit school (again), and I’ve just been writing and writing and writing whenever I can. And I must say, I’m much happier since I made that decision. I’m currently looking into the possibility of starting up a site with a few of my buddies.

When I first created my account here on Destructoid, I got some heat from people for spamming. I apologize for this. The truth is, I work full-time at a 24 hour gym, and part time at a GameStop. I work about 60 hours a week, and spend most of my free time either gaming or writing about games. I have a lot of free time at the gym, and that’s where I do a lot of my writing, but since the gym doesn’t have internet access, I usually have a stock pile of stuff I’ve written that I post all at once when I get home. So, sorry about that bullshit. I’ll be more considerate in the future.

I post my stuff on multiple sites: Destructoid, Screw Attack, Cheap Ass Gamer, 1UP!, etc. I’m just trying to get my blogs out there and hopefully I can catch someone’s eye. I’ve tried to be active in other communities, but for the most part they’re filled with a lot of people leaving comments telling you how wrong you are about everything and why. That’s the main reason I really like it here, people disagree, sure, but at least nobody here (at least from what I’ve seen) is a douche about it. So I do plan to become active here on Destructoid, but because of my work week, and my wrestling weekends, don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for a while.

I’m an avid game collector. In my younger days, I was a big trade-in guy, so I’ve had to buy back a lot of games and systems I used to have. Overall I have about 15 systems and about 400 games, and I have no intention of slowing down,

I tell people that I have 4 passions in my life: Video Games, The Simpsons, Pro Wrestling, and Heavy Metal. Video games and wrestling I’ve already covered. When it comes to the Simpsons, I honestly believe that if there were a worldwide Simpsons trivia contest, that I would place in the top 10. I’ve spent about as much on Simpsons memorabilia as I have on video games. As for heavy metal, most of my favorite bands are Christian metal bands like As I Lay Dying, August Burns Red, etc. As much as they suck now, my favorite band of all-time is Korn. They were just such a big part of my life that I just can’t hate them.

I’m also a collector of action figures: Gaming, Simpsons, Wrestling, and Movie figures mostly. I also have a large DVD collection.

I’m a big dog lover, I have a boxer who I named Muldoon, after my wrestling persona. And yes, I will always hate Michael Vick.



I’ll end by listing my top 5’s just so you can get some kind of understanding about me.

Games:
1. Super Mario World
2. Resident Evil 4
3. Metal Gear Solid
4. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
5. God of War
Sidenote: Despite the lack of NES games on the list, the NES is my all-time favorite console.

Movies:
1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
2. Rocky
3. Spaceballs
4. The Simpsons Movie
5. The Wizard

Bands:
1. Korn
2. Pantera
3. Machine Head
4. As I Lay Dying
5. Tool

So there’s a little something about me. I look forward to chatting with everybody and hopefully you guys will enjoy my stuff.

-Dustin