Post by edgehead on Feb 28, 2008 2:12:32 GMT -5
Hello, fellow Edgeheads, and welcome to the first instalment of Rated Real. I know it’s been long overdue for the NWA series but it should come out hopefully sooner than later. In the meantime, I hope to entertain you by sharing my (short-lived) experiences in this world we all bitch and moan about but oh how we love so much, professional wrestling. But before I actually go in depth about this first column, bear with me as I explain how I started getting into wrestling.
You have to understand that I come from a province in Canada (Québec, La Belle Province!!!) where wrestling used to be hugely popular, and I mean huge. You probably know that the late Maurice “Rocket” Richard was the most popular athlete of his generation. Well, former World Heavyweight Champion Yvon Robert was right up with him and was extremely well respected in Montreal. Now, of course I never saw anything from him but I was entertained by my grandaunt who used to babysit me as a kid. I could sit for hours, listening to her telling me stories about how she and her husband were driving regularly to Quebec City to see Killer Kowalski, Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon and Johnny Rougeau in action. In my day and age, as I started watching wrestling on the local scene, it was Raymond & Jacques Rougeau, along with their brother Armand (who saw his career cut short due to a serious back injury), who kept the Rougeau family tradition alive. You can also add to the list the late Dino Bravo, Ricky Martel and King Tonga (Haku). Public enemy #1 back in that time was manager Eddy “The Brain” Creatchman, who would bring all kinds of monsters to feud with them, including his most famous protégé, Abdullah the Butcher. Guys like Jos LeDuc and Richard “The Magnificent” Charland, and even The Road Warriors for a short period of time, were also heels in that day for International Wrestling, promoted by Gino Brito, son of Jack Britton. However, when Vince McMahon Jr took over for Vince Sr. in the mid-80’s, he just did what he did with other territories like the AWA: he raided the Quebec territory and sign all of the top workers. It was the coup de grace for the promotion; when you signed a former AWA World Heavyweight Champion who gave you classic encounters against Nick Bockwinkel and Ric Flair in your territory as well as THE top tag team in the territory, you definitely hurt that small territory. Brito tried to survive as long as he can by striking a partnership deal with Carlos Colon’s WWC in Puerto Rico. Colon sent some of his best workers, including Abdullah & Bruiser Brody but it was only a matter of time before the promotion closed shop.
Of course, I was a WWF fan above all else. I’ve always believed that wrestling has been my saving grace on so many levels. I was diagnosed with a tumor on my intestines when I was 5 years old and I spent 3 weeks in the hospital, and 3 months recovering from surgery. And as much as I can remember, I clearly remember watching wrestling in my hospital bed or at home. As a kid, two things were for sure every Sunday morning: going to church and having lunch at my grandparents’ house. And that also meant watching wrestling with my uncles. I don’t know how exactly it just clicked, but that’s what happened: it just clicked. I cannot pinpoint one match specifically that got me hooked to the sport, but I remember going to my mother’s parents’ house and her brother had that HUGE collection of wrestling tapes that I would sit and watch every time we went. I tried to get a hold of this collection a few years ago, but my uncle got rid of them, which upset me a lot because I would’ve given pretty much everything to get it. I also had the opportunity to watch the NWA as a child, since we had a local TV station who carried NWA programming for a short time. I believe my very first memory of the NWA was that segment where Ric Flair was preparing for a date with Jimmy Garvin’s valet, Precious and got K.Oed by Ronnie Garvin, dressed in drag. Yeop, that’s my very first memory of future Hall of Famer, “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair. I also remember seeing on TV the Cage Match from Starrcade 87 when Flair recaptured the title from Ronnie Garvin and the rivalry between the Midnight Express and The Rock N’ Roll Express. Unfortunately, I couldn’t watch too much longer as NWA programming stopped on local TV stations but I could keep watching WWF for a couple of years, until I was forced to stop watching for about 2 years. When we finally got cable in the hellhole where I live, I was finally able to resume and for 15 years straight, I’m still watching. Thankfully, I was able to keep track of NWA/WCW by reading wrestling periodicals throughout the years, and that’s how I discovered the existence of promotions like the AWA and other promotions like the USWA or UWF (formerly Mid-South Wrestling).
For some reason (fate I guess), my group of friends were also fans of wrestling as well. Not as much as I am though, but still, that played a big part of my social life as I’ve made through the years some solid friendships, even mattering more to me than my childhood friends, which says a lot. A good way for me to make new friends was to take part into fantasy wrestling. That’s actually how I started getting interested on the behind-the-scenes stuff. The booker of the fantasy promotion I was in one day asked me to help him by booking a couple of matches and that’s how I started. Later, I started my own promotion that I ran for 2 years before stopping, since it took way too much time that I could give to it. A couple of years later, one of my friends tells me that she and her boyfriend were taking wrestling classes in Quebec City for a promotion called Canadian Championship Wrestling. Now, I had completely lost track on the local wrestling scene and I basically thought it was dead. I later found out the promotion was run by former International Wrestling journeyman Sunny War Cloud and the nephew of Rick Martel, Kevin Martel. So, my friends started wrestling for the developmental promotion and later, my friend took over the booking for the developmentals, but of course, I started attending CCW shows and got caught back into the local scene, almost more than WWE, WCW or ECW. About 2 years later, the promotion folded and another one took over. Elite Wrestling Revolution (EWR) was a ROH-oriented promotion and brought in some of the biggest names in independent wrestling. In the meantime, EWR also decided to open a developmental promotion called Evolution of Wrestling (EOW) and my friend was in charge of booking. He asked me to write a few columns, which I did for both the main and developmental promotions. Still with me, fellas? Great.
Back home, I had 2 other friends who were wrestling for another local promotion and asked my best friend and I to attend one of their shows, so we did. Truth be told, it was awful. The roster was so small that some of the workers had to wrestle 2 even 3 times on the card to round up the show. Furthermore, they were almost running on fumes. They could hold only 2 or 3 shows a year because they couldn’t afford to rent a ring regularly and the price to rent the venue was still high. But still, they were drawing about 350 to 400 every show. A couple of months later, my friend Eric calls me and asks me to help him to book a wrestling show for a local fair during the summer. Well, not really….he actually wanted me and my friend Seb to be the ring announcers and color commentators for the show. Before accepting, we met with the booker of the promotion and I told him that we could work out a partnership with another promotion (EOW) to book the show. Since the roster was way too small, it would look more professional. So I told Anthony (the booker) that I would call in a favour for the show. A couple of days later, I was on the phone with my friend Mike, the booker of EOW, and we were talking about that show.
Mike: “So you think that this could work for both promotions?”
Me: “Absolutely. Spot shows are always fun to work and plus, you could find some new talent to add to your roster. Let’s just do this once and then, we’ll take it from there.”
So, we hung up and agreed for both promotions, EOW and TUW, to work together for that spot show. I was introduced early to the problems that can happen when organizing these kind of events. Early in the morning, Eric calls me because the staff at the fair weren’t willing to setup the ring under the tent because of the incoming rain on that day. So I made sure that they would comply and they quickly understood that if we cancelled the show, it meant less people and less money for the fair. The rest went pretty much smoothly, except for maybe one or 2 no-shows and an incident during the show. I was inside the ring making the introductions with wrestlers inside. However, the staff didn’t set up any safety barriers so the fans were pretty close to the ring and I had to constantly remind them to back off 10 feet from the ring so nobody would get injured. My friend Mike, in his cockyness (and in-character of course), spat on one fan, who heckled him and grabbed his ankle. Needless to say, things went haywire as the fan picked up the mic and challenged him to a fight after the show! Fortunately, the fan was also a guy with whom I attended high school and I was able to cool him off. All and all, the show was very fun, even though I HATED color commentating. I thought I sucked and I was babbling the same thing over and over again. However, Seb (my Jerry “the King” Lawler) did a fantastic job and we had a blast. Only thing he probably hated was the super kick he received but hey, the crowd asked for it so they got what they wanted!
So about 6 months went by before I heard about another show. In the meantime, Mike had agreed to book sporadically two or three of TUW workers on his show, which gave them some good exposure. I continued the columns for EOW and one night, Anthony showed me the potential card for the February show and asked for my opinion. I told him what I thought about it and dropped a hint that if he ever needed the help with the booking, I could do that. And then it just happened….
Dude, you’re the booking mind that I’m looking for!
So it looked like my dream would finally come true! I’d be a booker! And boy, would I remember that first show. But that’s for another time, fellas!
You have to understand that I come from a province in Canada (Québec, La Belle Province!!!) where wrestling used to be hugely popular, and I mean huge. You probably know that the late Maurice “Rocket” Richard was the most popular athlete of his generation. Well, former World Heavyweight Champion Yvon Robert was right up with him and was extremely well respected in Montreal. Now, of course I never saw anything from him but I was entertained by my grandaunt who used to babysit me as a kid. I could sit for hours, listening to her telling me stories about how she and her husband were driving regularly to Quebec City to see Killer Kowalski, Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon and Johnny Rougeau in action. In my day and age, as I started watching wrestling on the local scene, it was Raymond & Jacques Rougeau, along with their brother Armand (who saw his career cut short due to a serious back injury), who kept the Rougeau family tradition alive. You can also add to the list the late Dino Bravo, Ricky Martel and King Tonga (Haku). Public enemy #1 back in that time was manager Eddy “The Brain” Creatchman, who would bring all kinds of monsters to feud with them, including his most famous protégé, Abdullah the Butcher. Guys like Jos LeDuc and Richard “The Magnificent” Charland, and even The Road Warriors for a short period of time, were also heels in that day for International Wrestling, promoted by Gino Brito, son of Jack Britton. However, when Vince McMahon Jr took over for Vince Sr. in the mid-80’s, he just did what he did with other territories like the AWA: he raided the Quebec territory and sign all of the top workers. It was the coup de grace for the promotion; when you signed a former AWA World Heavyweight Champion who gave you classic encounters against Nick Bockwinkel and Ric Flair in your territory as well as THE top tag team in the territory, you definitely hurt that small territory. Brito tried to survive as long as he can by striking a partnership deal with Carlos Colon’s WWC in Puerto Rico. Colon sent some of his best workers, including Abdullah & Bruiser Brody but it was only a matter of time before the promotion closed shop.
Of course, I was a WWF fan above all else. I’ve always believed that wrestling has been my saving grace on so many levels. I was diagnosed with a tumor on my intestines when I was 5 years old and I spent 3 weeks in the hospital, and 3 months recovering from surgery. And as much as I can remember, I clearly remember watching wrestling in my hospital bed or at home. As a kid, two things were for sure every Sunday morning: going to church and having lunch at my grandparents’ house. And that also meant watching wrestling with my uncles. I don’t know how exactly it just clicked, but that’s what happened: it just clicked. I cannot pinpoint one match specifically that got me hooked to the sport, but I remember going to my mother’s parents’ house and her brother had that HUGE collection of wrestling tapes that I would sit and watch every time we went. I tried to get a hold of this collection a few years ago, but my uncle got rid of them, which upset me a lot because I would’ve given pretty much everything to get it. I also had the opportunity to watch the NWA as a child, since we had a local TV station who carried NWA programming for a short time. I believe my very first memory of the NWA was that segment where Ric Flair was preparing for a date with Jimmy Garvin’s valet, Precious and got K.Oed by Ronnie Garvin, dressed in drag. Yeop, that’s my very first memory of future Hall of Famer, “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair. I also remember seeing on TV the Cage Match from Starrcade 87 when Flair recaptured the title from Ronnie Garvin and the rivalry between the Midnight Express and The Rock N’ Roll Express. Unfortunately, I couldn’t watch too much longer as NWA programming stopped on local TV stations but I could keep watching WWF for a couple of years, until I was forced to stop watching for about 2 years. When we finally got cable in the hellhole where I live, I was finally able to resume and for 15 years straight, I’m still watching. Thankfully, I was able to keep track of NWA/WCW by reading wrestling periodicals throughout the years, and that’s how I discovered the existence of promotions like the AWA and other promotions like the USWA or UWF (formerly Mid-South Wrestling).
For some reason (fate I guess), my group of friends were also fans of wrestling as well. Not as much as I am though, but still, that played a big part of my social life as I’ve made through the years some solid friendships, even mattering more to me than my childhood friends, which says a lot. A good way for me to make new friends was to take part into fantasy wrestling. That’s actually how I started getting interested on the behind-the-scenes stuff. The booker of the fantasy promotion I was in one day asked me to help him by booking a couple of matches and that’s how I started. Later, I started my own promotion that I ran for 2 years before stopping, since it took way too much time that I could give to it. A couple of years later, one of my friends tells me that she and her boyfriend were taking wrestling classes in Quebec City for a promotion called Canadian Championship Wrestling. Now, I had completely lost track on the local wrestling scene and I basically thought it was dead. I later found out the promotion was run by former International Wrestling journeyman Sunny War Cloud and the nephew of Rick Martel, Kevin Martel. So, my friends started wrestling for the developmental promotion and later, my friend took over the booking for the developmentals, but of course, I started attending CCW shows and got caught back into the local scene, almost more than WWE, WCW or ECW. About 2 years later, the promotion folded and another one took over. Elite Wrestling Revolution (EWR) was a ROH-oriented promotion and brought in some of the biggest names in independent wrestling. In the meantime, EWR also decided to open a developmental promotion called Evolution of Wrestling (EOW) and my friend was in charge of booking. He asked me to write a few columns, which I did for both the main and developmental promotions. Still with me, fellas? Great.
Back home, I had 2 other friends who were wrestling for another local promotion and asked my best friend and I to attend one of their shows, so we did. Truth be told, it was awful. The roster was so small that some of the workers had to wrestle 2 even 3 times on the card to round up the show. Furthermore, they were almost running on fumes. They could hold only 2 or 3 shows a year because they couldn’t afford to rent a ring regularly and the price to rent the venue was still high. But still, they were drawing about 350 to 400 every show. A couple of months later, my friend Eric calls me and asks me to help him to book a wrestling show for a local fair during the summer. Well, not really….he actually wanted me and my friend Seb to be the ring announcers and color commentators for the show. Before accepting, we met with the booker of the promotion and I told him that we could work out a partnership with another promotion (EOW) to book the show. Since the roster was way too small, it would look more professional. So I told Anthony (the booker) that I would call in a favour for the show. A couple of days later, I was on the phone with my friend Mike, the booker of EOW, and we were talking about that show.
Mike: “So you think that this could work for both promotions?”
Me: “Absolutely. Spot shows are always fun to work and plus, you could find some new talent to add to your roster. Let’s just do this once and then, we’ll take it from there.”
So, we hung up and agreed for both promotions, EOW and TUW, to work together for that spot show. I was introduced early to the problems that can happen when organizing these kind of events. Early in the morning, Eric calls me because the staff at the fair weren’t willing to setup the ring under the tent because of the incoming rain on that day. So I made sure that they would comply and they quickly understood that if we cancelled the show, it meant less people and less money for the fair. The rest went pretty much smoothly, except for maybe one or 2 no-shows and an incident during the show. I was inside the ring making the introductions with wrestlers inside. However, the staff didn’t set up any safety barriers so the fans were pretty close to the ring and I had to constantly remind them to back off 10 feet from the ring so nobody would get injured. My friend Mike, in his cockyness (and in-character of course), spat on one fan, who heckled him and grabbed his ankle. Needless to say, things went haywire as the fan picked up the mic and challenged him to a fight after the show! Fortunately, the fan was also a guy with whom I attended high school and I was able to cool him off. All and all, the show was very fun, even though I HATED color commentating. I thought I sucked and I was babbling the same thing over and over again. However, Seb (my Jerry “the King” Lawler) did a fantastic job and we had a blast. Only thing he probably hated was the super kick he received but hey, the crowd asked for it so they got what they wanted!
So about 6 months went by before I heard about another show. In the meantime, Mike had agreed to book sporadically two or three of TUW workers on his show, which gave them some good exposure. I continued the columns for EOW and one night, Anthony showed me the potential card for the February show and asked for my opinion. I told him what I thought about it and dropped a hint that if he ever needed the help with the booking, I could do that. And then it just happened….
Dude, you’re the booking mind that I’m looking for!
So it looked like my dream would finally come true! I’d be a booker! And boy, would I remember that first show. But that’s for another time, fellas!