So for some of you, this may be your first visit to the site. For others, who are regular visiters, I will confess something you may not know. I have been a wrestling fan for over 34 years now (holy crap!). It all started for me when I was 10 years old and my maternal grandmother, Corene Bunton, took me & my cousin to the Savannah, Georgia Civic Center for a night of action. She had no way of knowing the profound and unique impact that she was making on my life that night. My grandmother was an incredible woman. She was almost a force of nature. She could enter a room and dominant the conversation. I mean that quite literally. If you were having a conversation about something that she either did not know about, or wasn't interested in--she had no problem asking you to change the subject. She died in October of 1987, and for the last few years of her life, after having lost my grandfather--the only man she ever loved--in 1979, wrestling was one of the things that I have no doubt kept her going. She was a real lady, but had no trouble on Saturday evenings at 6pm watching wrestling and cursing at the television (within reason naturally). The last two years of her life were spent supporting her two favorite wrestlers--Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson, the Rock N Roll Express.
She had a life sized poster of them on the back of her front door. No lie. I can remember calling her and talking wrestling, with her asking me when Ricky & Robert were finally going to give it to that no good Jim Cornette....or what about what that Ric Flair did to Ricky? By this point, I had been smartened up to the business, but there was no way I would have ever ruined the fantasy for Corene. She believed by God---and probably wouldn't have believed me even if I told her.
So this past weekend, I took a journey back to my younger days. I had the chance to renew some old friendships, tell some old stories, share a couple of laughs, make some new friends, and maybe get a chance to settle an old debt long, long overdue. So on Friday morning, I headed to Tampa with my friends Greg "Cable Guy" Goode, Bob "Lil B.A." McKeon & Robert "Mr Sexay RPM" Mitchell for Wrestlereunion. The trip began with Greg somehow slamming a car door into his head and opening a nice little gash across his forehead--we told him he was just trying to look like one of the boys. After a quick couple of hours, we arrived at the Doubletree Hotel in Tampa and began to see a slew of old faces--some friends some wrestlers. I ran into guys like Harry White, Shannon Rose and Barry Rose--who I hadn't seen in over 10 years. We both have a little less hair, but he still weighs the same as he did 10 years ago, the no good son of a bitch. After finally getting to check in, I went into the main room for the first autograph signing. The first afternoon? Huge clusterfuck. The lines were hours long, people were cutting in and out of line, the event sponsors didn't want people snapping photos because they had a booth set up for portraits, and then there were the fucking idiots who wouldn't honor the "two items autographed per person" limit that had been set. Man do I hate the assholes that hand some guy 25 items to be signed so they can run out and try and make a living on EBAY. Every damn thing I got signed over the weekend I had personalized and if I was one of the boys and someone handed me a stack of shit to get signed, I would've probably blown them off. Anyway, it was pretty cool to see some of the old legends and what time had done to them. There was Dusty Rhodes, Tully Blanchard, Harley Race, Mick Foley, Terry Funk & Rick Steamboat, another of my grandmother's old favorites. There were merchandise tables set up by Highspots.com, wrestlingclassic.com (featuring our favorite webmaster Mark Nulty), a table selling replica belts, a table with lots of memorablia from the old Los Angeles territory and even one that featured some rather pathetic merchandise with Lex Luger on it. Luger even made a fairly underwhelming appearence at the event, although as usual, he appeared to not really want to be there---that Lex, he's consistent. Always hated the business that probably made him a millionaire, always will. What a piece of dogshit. We then followed that with a great Q&A session with Ted Dibiase & Rick Steamboat. Really good stuff. I hadn't heard that Steamboat was back working with WWE and truthfully, his stuff wasn't good as Dibiase's, although it wasn't bad. After that session was over they had one with Diamond Dallas Page & Jake Roberts--uh, no thanks, I'll pass. I happened to be hanging off to the side when Dibiase came walking by. I stopped him for a moment and called RPM over. I explained to Ted that RPM was the world's biggest mark for the late Terry Gordy, and that it would make his whole weekend if Ted would share a story from the road about Bam Bam. Ted was totally gracious and said sure. He then told us a great story from Japan where (here's a stunner) Gordy got drunk, broke the key off in his hotel door and ended up getting literally thrown into another room. He wakes up the next morning, calls Dibiase and asks if he did something wrong the night before.
"Why do you ask?" Dibiase questions.
"Because I woke up and all my clothes are gone. Am I in the wrong room?"
What made it even better was listening to Dibiase do a dead on Gordy impression.
RPM was suitably impressed. We stopped by the hotel bar, which for some God forsaken reason was closing at midnight on a Friday night when your hotel is at 100% capacity. Go figure. Anyway, we went in and got to enjoy what I suppose could be called the "Chavo Guerraro Experience". Poor Chavo, he was such a mess in Vegas last April and things weren't looking up this weekend either. What was hilarious was when a half in the bag Chavo came up to RPM & myself and asked if he was really that bad in Vegas. I finally told him that I didn't really think he was in that bad of shape until he went over to Danny Hodge and told him that he really wasn't all that tough.
The expression on the face was priceless.
"I didn't REALLY do that, did I?"
After a short while some of the gentlemen I was with--no names naturally--decided to visit some of Tampa's finer....hmm...."adult" establishments. Now mind you, I'm no prude, and truth be told during the course of THREE bachelor parties before each of my marriages, I have even visited these places (shocking, I know). However, I really didn't feel like being brow beaten into going to a nudie joint by someone telling me that I was a typical married guy, whipped and afraid to go.
So almost out of spite I stayed in. Those that went out (again--no names) spent far too much money, let's just say that.
The next morning we got up for another autograph session that featured Sir Oliver Humperdink, Jimmy Garvin w/Precious, Dory & Terry Funk & Roddy Piper--amongst others. The lines were slightly were more organized than the day before but were still way too long. I think if there's one thing the coordinaters figured out too lateis that they just had too many damn guys booked for the event. It made long lines and ended up pissing people off. The afternoon started with a Q&A session with Bruno Sammartino, who, other than a shaved head, looks to be in great shape for a guy his age---or mine. He had his usual bitches about Vince Jr but also told some good stories about working with Gorilla Monsoon & Bill Watts. It was a really cool moment later that afternoon to see Bruno & Watts see each other for the first time in what must have been forever. These guys had a huge program in the northeast in the mid part of the 60's and seemed genuinely happy to see each other.
I was able to get a snapshot taken with Watts in the lobby, which was pretty cool because I was always sort of a mark for Watts & Mid-South wrestling. Later that afternoon we sat in for another Q&A session featuring a rather eclectic crew of
Dusty Rhodes, Terry Funk, Mick Foley & Kevin Von Erich. Hmmm....lessee here.
We have Dusty, the Funker & Foley---legitimately three of the greatest promo guys in the history of the industry---and KEVIN VON ERICH??? I mean, no offense to Kevin--who certainly has his place in wrestling history along with his family---but what in the blue hell was he doing on the stage with three of the greatest talkers ever? Was this some cruel joke? However, to his credit.....Kevin made sense--some of the time. During a discussion of Flair's book, KVE addressed the comments that were made about Kerry. He said that he wanted to say something about what was said:
"You know, my brother did take drugs.....he even enjoyed taking them. He wasn't an addict though." Huh? His only moment of lucidity was when he told the crowd that he didn't want anyone in the crowd to feel sorry for him. He said that even with his brothers deaths that he been blessed with a great life, and that his brothers had also. I had to give him props for saying that. Of course, it was funny when he began talking about his son, who he said was 16 yrs old, ripped to the bone, played RB for the state champion football team and ran like a 4.4 forty. Its good to see that the sins of the father haven't been visited on the son. (Cough, cough) At this point Bill Apter points out Steve Dr Death Williams sitting in the audience and there was a very emotional pop from the crowd as Doc made his way up to the stage. I talked to Doc later (he speaks with the assistance of a voice enhancer) about his throat cancer and told him that my mother and sister were both cancer survivors and that he shouldn't stop thinking positive. Doc said it was all about the man upstairs.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch--Dusty, Mick & Terry were hilarious. Someone asked Mick what would happen when Vince turned the company over to the children. Mick says---"Well, I think you'll probably see a few more HHH title runs."
Later in the afternoon there was another autograph session, again better run than the first one, that featured Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Magnum TA (and I can't begin to tell you how sad it is to see Magnum), Barry Windham (looked bloated and heavy), Playboy Buddy Rose (looked EE-normous), Bob & Brad Armstrong (and by the way these two guys were just as nice as you could be--I went up to Bob and told him that I had never forgotten that "a jackass can't run with a racehorse" and "that its like mind over matter.....I don't mind, cuz you don't matter". Brad really popped when I repeated his dad's old catchphrases. We ran into Bill Eadie as he was walking in--real pleasant guy. And ya know, its funny. We're standing over by Nulty's wrestlingclassics.com table ("We are wrestlingclassics.com......." Man oh man---Mark Nulty is the Herb Tarleck of the hardcores. That man could sell ice to eskimos) and this guy is looking at some of Nulty's merch. I swear to God, we all thought it was Bob Armstrong. So we're like....let's go over and meet the Bullet.
So I walk over, and ask Mark to introduce us. He starts looking around asking where he is. I'm like--he's right in front of you dipshit. Nulty busts out laughing and tells me that its Gene Ligon, who was one of the Thunderfoots for Crockett. I'm totally thinking that its a rib, and that Nulty is trying to put one over on me. Then he calls out Ligon's name and introduces us. Here's the neat part of the story (did I just say "neat"?).....I sat and shot the breeze with Gene Ligon for almost 30 minutes, and the guy couldn't have been any nicer or fun to talk with. Turns out he's a big Packers fan and since I've followed the Vikings for over 30 years it gave us something to talk about--plus wrestling. I just found it interesting that here I had a great time talking with a guy that I probably wouldn't have spent 10 seconds with otherwise. Funny how that works. We then had a break before the evenings legends matches.
That night, the evening started with us finding out that Lance Russell (who it was great to see by the way) & Jimmy Hart were there to call the matches. Jimmy was another guy who came off as a real good guy, going out of his way to thank everyone for showing up. The ice storm in the Atlanta area had apparently kept some people from getting to the convention, and it was announced that AJ Styles would not be appearing. Nulty was working the ring announcing duty, and we did our best to give him a rash of shit. There were some presentations made to the daughter of Gordon Solie, Mike Graham on behalf of his dad and finally to Bill Apter for all his years of pushing the business. Then they dragged up Roddy Piper and Jimmy Snuka to rehash the coconut angle for what must have been the 600th time....couldn't they have invited Don Muraco and rehashed an old Georgia angle instead? Anyway, the first match had Piper, Snuka (replacing Rocky Johnson--don't know the story there) & Jimmy "Maybe those tattoo's weren't such a good idea" Valiant taking on Buddy Rose, Derek Draper (looks like he could go to work for a promotion today and wouldn't look out of place) & Bob Orton Jr (who may have been the grumpiest guy around all weekend--just had this look like he didn't really want to be there). Good fun all around. Next up was Lanny Poffo taking on Adam Windsor. There is only one thing to talk about in this match, and it wasn't how high up Poffo's tights were. He took a monkey flip during the match, and lets just say that Jeff Jarrett's old expression of "slapnuts" could certainly apply. The 3rd match was Missing Link vs. George South. Okay, so George supposedly provided the ring so I can understand using him based on that--although apparently the idea of using a LOCAL ring must have slipped the event coordinaters mind. And you know what I love? George South comes to the ring...plays the heel, starts to give the fans some grief and all the while is sporting the "John 3:16" on his trunks. Man oh man, nothing makes me boo a guy like scripture. The Link appeared to be trying to start some crap with someone just about everytime we saw him. He came up to Dusty during his autograph signing and asked him where he got that body. Then he asked him if his hair was natural. It didn't look like it was a rib. Then during the last Q&A of the event with Bill Watts, Jim Cornette & the Midnight Express he came up again and looked like he was trying to get Bill Apter to ask an embarassing question. And for all around weirdness---how about the fact that the Link brought his own chair with him to the show. I don't mean from the hotel room. I mean he brought a chair on the PLANE with him. Cue the Norman Bates music. Next up was a 6 women's tag match, and truth be told....the women all busted their collective behinds. Wendi Richter (not looking too bad), Malia Hosaka (as RPM would say--"beefing up for the winter") & Bambi took on Sherri Martel & Team Blondage managed by longtime women's veteran Joyce Grable. No kidding, Joyce was tremendous at ringside. I was giving her heat during the whole match, and finally she turns around and gives me....uh....the slightly lewd gesture. The crowd just exploded. I asked my old friend Pete Lederberg to look for her after the show and later when I saw her Joyce gave me a big hug and I thanked her for making my night. Seriously. It was an absolute blast. After that we had Jim Duggan taking on the equally old and washed up Kamala--who did provide a couple of moments of real fun. During one spot Duggan called Kamala "yellow" and Kamala says....."no I'm not. I'm black."
A couple rows in front of us even got the crowd to chant "UGANDA, UGANDA".
Wow. The look on both guy's faces was good stuff. Next up was Barry Windham & Mike Rotounda taking on Ron Bass & Larry Zybysko. Let's just say there was not much similarity between this match and the Bass-Windham match I saw in 9/86.
Time marches on folks. I heard an unconfirmed rumor that Blackjack Mulligan was put in the hospital on Saturday, but I'm not positive about that. The 7th match was the mask vs. mask match, with Masked Superstar unmasking the Grappler--who of course no one knew. The Superstar's mask still looked awesome though.
8th on the show was the tag match between America's Most Wanted & the Funk's.
Wow, how sad is this. I didn't even know who AMW was. That's how much I watch wrestling on television now. Dory LOOKED terrible, but man oh man, when the bell rang he could still go--just at about 1/4th thespeed. His legs look awful and he needs to get the leggin's. 9th match was Marty Jannetty vs. Gary Royal. They went 9 minutes--which was about 8 1/2 minutes too long. Royal looked like a cross between Liberace & former Greensboro hardcore Obin Johnson (sorry Obin!).
Next up was what could well have been one of the worst battle royals in history, with the unbelieveable result of Greg Valentine going over. What made it amazing was that I was told that a week before the show Greg was still trying to get booked on the show. Then he wins the battle royal and is declared the promotion's world champion? What up? That was followed by the reason that we came to the matches, as we got to see one more match between the Rock N Roll Express & the Fantastics taking on Jim Cornette and all the members of his Midnight Express.
Cornette saw me in the autograph line and says......"Jeff Bowdren? Damn son....its been years! And....you've put on a little bit of a gut since then Jeff." He said it so honestly even I had to laugh--even though all the while I wanted to strangle him.
Bobby Fulton looks like an accountant. Bobby Eaton could still work for Titan if he wanted too. He's still in great shape and his timing looked good also. The only disappointing aspect was that I didn't get to see the trademark moment during the match with Morton & Eaton are punching it out in the corner. Next up was Christopher Daniels taking on Pat Tanaka--replacing AJ Styles. Honestly at this point I went looking for Cornette and the Midnights so I couldn't tell you much about this match. This was followed by the Jeff Jarrett vs. Tully Blanchard match with the big surprise being the appearence of Baby Doll, perhaps no longer a perfect 10. I'm not sure about her booking appearence, but she literally showed up for the show and was gone right after. Kevin Von Erich was the referee and it looked like he sorta screwed up the finish (whatta the odds of THAT happening?) with Jarrett going over. The final match of the evening was Dusty, Mike Graham & Dustin taking on Kevin Sullivan, CM Punk & Abdullah the Butcher. Couple of hilites. First of all, Abby has new tights! Mark Nulty introed the match and called it originally (since it was supposed to be a tag match in a cage) as being a "Double Surprise Partner" match--with Dustin & Abby beingthe surprises. Dustin hit a huge gusher and needed something like 8 stiches afterwards. All in all though, it was a whole lot of fun.
Amazingly, afterwards the hotel decided that it might be an intelligent idea to keep the bar open until 2am, since it was packed with people. We hung out and ran into our old friend Alex Marvez from the south Florida Sun-Sentinel, who was making a pitstop before the Super Bowl in Jacksonville next weekend. A group of us ended up doing the midnight run to Denny's, which is always a great idea until the next morning, when you go reaching for the Prilosec. We're joined by Norman Smiley (that's pronounced Smile-LAY) and have a great time swapping stories and watching the drunks come stumbling in. We literally got to see a couple passed out in the doorway--too funny. Man oh man, I bet working the late shift at a Denny's leaves you with a lifetime of stories. Anyway, after we get back, there is yet another run to one of the seedier establishments in the Tampa area, where my sources indicate that one person (names? Well of course not) dropped almost $500 over the course of two evenings. If I had done that, I would've been so pissed at myself.
But hey, I'm not judging. I'm sure those guilty parties had reason to enjoy the company of someone named Ambrosia or Fantasia or Champale or something like that. Ah, a "rose" by any other name. Ahem. And then there was the moment earlier in the evening, before the matches, when the Cable Guy and myself were sitting outside on a balcony while he fed his nicotine habit and I see him looking off into the distance. I asked him what he was looking at and when I turned, we both laughed as we got to see one of the boys enjoying a little of the evil weed--right there on the balcony. I also need to mention that for the first time in forever I got to see my old friend Jim Berkley, former WCW troubleshooting referee. Jim came over on Saturday morning and left early Sunday--I wish we could've hung out more because Jim's a great guy and its always good to see him.
So finally it was Sunday morning, the last day of the event. The crowds on Sunday were probably the smallest of the weekend but there were still new legends appearing even then. Buddy Colt, Bugsy McGraw & Brian Blair were among the names that showed up to sign. The unquestioned highlight of the day, and perhaps the weekend even, was the Q&A with Bill Watts & Jim Cornette...joined by all the members of the Midnight Express (okay, there was no Norvell Austin or Randy Rose for you really picky folks). Let me just say that at the end of the conversation in which nearly everything you can think of was touched on, I turned to RPM and told him that I would've spent $250 just to sit in on that Q&A. That wasn't me being a mark (well, I suppose it was) as much as it was me just showing an appreciation for how much I enjoyed it. Its obvious that, petty b.s. aside, the guys who worked in Mid-South have a real respect for Watts. Now, I'm sure that the legendary Cowboy was blowing some smoke up some derriere on some things....but I tell you what....when he talks to you, he has a way of making you believe it. I made some purchases the final day also. Picked up a trio of DVD's on St Louis wrestling which the Cable Guy had recommended, the JJ Dillon shoot interview, the Tommy Young shoot interview, the DVD that Kevin Von Erich had and finally, the Gordon Solie book that his daughter was selling there. I probably should make mention of this.
I really don't think that his family fully grasped the impact that Gordon had on so many lives, and I think she really was touched by the outpouring of emotion and support that the fans gave her. When RPM and I went up to purchase our copies of the book "Something Left Behind", we both told her that literally a day does not go by that we do not in some way reference Gordon, whether in casual conversation with each other, or in thought or gesture. He was such a part of the fabric of Florida wrestling that it was impossible to grow up in this state as a fan and not be affected by the guy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment