Calkins: Grizzlies Wrestling Night's hero is real

They sat down in November and talked about the Memphis Grizzlies and Wrestling Night.

It was just the two of them, Tyler Mills and Grizz, one a Grizzlies fan who had acted as a sort of informal consultant for both previous Wrestling Nights, the other that big blue furry guy.

The idea was to get them together to script this year’s Westling Night, and to talk about other stuff, too.

Like cancer. And fighting it. And how to get to the other side.

Grizz was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. Mills, 33, was diagnosed with cancer in October of last year.

So they talked about hope and they talked about fear and they eventually got around to talking about wrestling, as well.

They came up with ideas for this year’s Wrestling Night. They thought of bringing in WWE star Diamond Dallas Page to act as a commissioner.

And sure enough, Saturday night at FedExForum, there was Diamond Dallas Page.

The show was hilarious, the way it always is. It was perfectly over-the-top.

Mills would have loved it, had he been at FedExForum. He died in January.

Indeed, the 18,1119 who watched and laughed and otherwise thrilled to Saturday’s performance might not have known it, but in a very real way the show was a tribute to Mills, and the philosophy by which he lived his life.

The lesson is in the briefcase

So here’s the thing about Wrestling Night. It’s ridiculous. Of course it is. It is a celebration of Memphis and this NBA franchise and the preposterousness of the human condition.

No other NBA franchise would have a Wrestling Night like the Grizzlies. A sense of humor is required.

Mills embraced it, reveled in it, the same way he embraced and reveled in his adopted home.

He may have grown up in South Carolina and gone to school at Clemson, but once he moved to Memphis for work, he and his wife, Brooke, were all in.

“Tyler just adopted Memphis so wholly,” said Jason Potter, who works as director of content and live entertainment for the Grizzlies. “He felt this was his home even though he lived most of his life somewhere else. He so deeply appreciated the culture of this city and the music of this city. He was also a wrestling fan from way back and appreciated the storytelling of this town, the larger-than-life characters.”

Which is how Mills came to be involved in Wrestling Nights, by the way. He and Potter lived across the street from each other.  So when the Grizzlies needed an extra for the first Wrestling Night — against Oklahoma City — Mills was cast as a Seattle Sonics fan. When Potter wanted to brainstorm ideas for the second Wrestling Night, he and Mills would get together on Potter’s porch, over a beer.

“He loved all of it,” Potter said. “He especially loved heel turns.”

And he loved the annual WWE match called “Money in the Bank,” which requires some explanation for those of you who aren’t wrestling fans.

“It’s a fun premise,” Potter said. “A briefcase is suspended high above the ring. And in it is a contract guaranteeing its holder a title match at any time and in any place of their choosing.The match consists of five or six superstars fighting for that contract.”

Yes, it’s ridiculous. We’ve been over this, right? But Mills loved it so much, Potter actually found a lunchbox shaped like the WWE briefcase and gave it to him for Christmas, 2015. Except instead of a wrestling contract, this lunchbox/briefcase contained a contract entitling the bearer the right to bring his friend along on an adventure, any place, any time.

Mills waited and waited. Then, in early October, he texted Potter a photo of the lunchbox and the words, “Tonight’s the night!”

And this, well, this is the part of the story that Potter regrets. Because he was really busy that day. He was actually at the Grizzlies open practice when he got the text. So he begged off, asked if he could do it another time.

Less than a month later, Mills was diagnosed with cancer. There wouldn’t be another time.

Mills never really had a chance in his fight against cancer. His abdominal tumor was so rare, doctors were never even able to figure out what it was. But he lived his remaining months with as much gusto as he could muster, which included planning Wrestling Night.

So it was that Saturday at FedExForum, there was a stunning heel turn. The evil X-Pac emerged with the title. Except — wait! — at the end of the third quarter, Grizz presented X-Pac with a briefcase.

It was Mills’s briefcase/lunchbox, of course. Entitling Grizz to a championship match. Grizz won, X-Pac was vanquished, and all was right with the world.

Wouldn’t it be nice if life were as simple as wrestling? Wouldn’t it be nice if good always prevailed over evil and if friends, neighbors and spouses didn’t die too young?

That’s not how the real world works, of course, and the Grizzlies organization received another reminder recently when yet another young man — Kristopher Peggs, the team’s gifted multimedia manager — died of cancer at age 38.

Potter doesn’t pretend to understand any of this. He’s just doing his best. Mills’s wife, Brooke, gave him the lunchbox after her husband died. Potter couldn’t bring himself to take it out of the closet until he needed it for Saturday night.

But he figures it holds some of the answers, or maybe just some wisdom to live by.

“We're not guaranteed tomorrow, and we never know when our time is,” Potter says. “When I think about saving `No' to Tyler when he sent me that text, and never having a chance to say `Yes' again, it has informed a lot of what I have done since.”

So maybe Wrestling Night isn’t that ridiculous. Not if we learn something from Tyler Mills. Not if we open ourselves to whatever adventures might come our way, any place, any time.