Charlotte Fanfest....Day #2...the REST of the story!

So after a late evening on Friday night....I had the chance to sleep in a little bit on Saturday...so naturally I woke up at 7am. Hotel beds and I just have never seemed to agree, even one as nice as the Hilton (and it was a very nice hotel, just for the record). It was lucky I did wake up early though, as I wanted a chance to be in line early to get my long awaited daypass. I called Pete, who happened to be on the same floor as I was and around 9am we made our way down to the lobby....where my old friend Howard Baum was waiting to join us.The line to get in was long...but not ridiculous...and after a slight delay in opening I made my way up to the window where the passes were being given out. I was on my own here because, quite frankly, Flaherty was still in his room sleeping off the night before. Such is life when you travel with Dave. So I get up there and mention my situation and told the guy working there that I was told 2 passes were being held for me.I had the money for the two day passes in my pocket (oh, don't worry....I was going to make Dave pay me back when the time came) and the guy checked his tablet and must have saw my name. He approached me with two day passes, handed them to me....and we both just sorta looked at one another."Thanks a lot.""Not a problem."And then I walked in. I kept expecting him to ask me for money (and quite honestly, maybe since Cornette had asked on my behalf they weren't going to charge me for it--not sure either way) but when he didn't....after the aggravation of the day before...I wasn't going to insist he take my money. I walked in and went over and told Jim, who got a pretty good laugh out of it. Most of the rest of the morning was spent going over to the various vendors and checking out what they had to offer.....got some nice stuff from Highspots & TUCOLDVIDEO....and then I walked over to George Mayfield's table. I was glancing at some of his DVD's and I noticed he had a few that were part of a top 100 of the 80's...as seen in the Observer.Hmmm."Uh, hey man. Don't you think that I'm entitled to a discount on this DVD since it was my article that was the one you're referring too?"George sort of gave me a strange look and asked."What's your name?""Jeff Bowdren."He gave me a good laugh and handed me the DVD."Here. You earned it.""Dude, I was totally being sarcastic. You don't have to give me anything."But he did anyway and was really nice about it. Before you go thinking what a huge tool I was for trying to scam the guy out of a DVD, I kept shopping at his table and bought 3 or 4 more---at full price. By the way, George was a real nice guy and it was nice to finally meet him---since he had traded tapes with me around 17 years ago and we never had actually met before this moment.Amazingly, Flaherty finally woke up late in the morning and I gave him his pass and took him into the rooms. Keep in mind...this was the first tiem he had actually seen what was going on. I will say that Highspots had the most for sale...followed by TUCOLDVIDEO....I was a little surprised that RFVideo's table seem to not have as much as some of the other guys. Which is usually not the case at all.Dave and I had the opportunity to go over and have a photo taken with wrestling legend Danny Hodge. What a gentleman. Just as nice as could be. I told Mr. Hodge that I was a member of the CAC and had taken a photo with him a few years before in Las Vegas that I somehow managed to lose...and that I wasn't going to let that happen again. I wondered aloud to Dave whether or not most of the room realized that one of the greatest athletes the country has ever produced was sitting there at a table, graciously taking photos with fans and signing his autobiography.Then came my big mark-out moment of the weekend. I went over and told Dave that I was going to pay to have my photo taken with Tammy Sytch//Sunny, as I've been a big fan of hers since her earliest days in Smokey Mountain Wrestling. Dave joined me and we both got a picture with her. She saw that Dave was wearing a Yankees shirt and mentioned that she was a Mets fan. We started talking sports with her and she told us that she was a Raiders fan (although not currently real proud of the fact) and that the guy she was dating was an Eagles fan. We actually talked some sports with her while I stood there and wondered if I could possible tell my wife that I may have found her replacement. Finally I asked her about the woman who had been in all of those skits with her in Smokey Mountain."Oh! You mean Margie!""Yeah, that was her.""She was just some local fan that we got to do those skits. She was really nice. It was funny because Jimmy kept telling me to just hammer her and be just ruthless to her and she was so nice...it seemed so wrong."We left the future--potentially--4th Mrs. Bowdren and continued to work the room, seeing such wrestling luminaries as Stan Hansen, Vader, the Steiner Bros, the Nasty Boys, Kevin Sullivan, Mark Lewin, DDP, Lance Russell, Dave Brown, Jerry Jarrett.....and then there were the obviously local guys like George South, Mike Jackson & the Italian Stallion. My old buddy and ace wrestling photographer Duane Long was working a vendor booth with Black Bart. The only problem was....he looked nothing like the Black Bart of old. Dave ran into a guy he knew who ref'ed during the glory days of the Florida promotion and while I was standing there with the two of them, one of the Nasty Boys walks over to me.After the activity of the evening before...I half expected to get yelled at but he pointed at my Notre Dame hat."Hey man...did you know that Saggs' daughter got a full scholarship to play softball at Notre Dame?""No kidding.""Yeah...she's actually really good.""Its a good school...he should be really proud."And then I think he turned around and got back into character...screaming and yelling at someone. Or maybe he wasn't in character....after that conversation I couldn't be sure.About dinner time we walked over to a nearby restaurant to have dinner and ended up sitting next to George Mayfield. So apparently it was George's birthday, and the waiter does a full production about it and asks everyone in the general vicinity to sing Happy Birthday to him.So we all start singing and I look over at the bar, and sitting there....singing Happy Birthday to George along with everyone else.....is old Big Nasty himself....Angelo Mosca. I told George he should feel pretty honored to have Canada's greatest athlete singing for him.Later that evening, we went back over to the bar to watch for any more excitement. I saw the passed out guy's girlfriend and asked her if he was feeling better after the night before. And then, who walks in? The passed out guy....obviously walking around this time....although for some reason he was carrying around like 3 or 4 replica belts---in the bar area. Maybe he thought the Nature Boy would sneak back down to the bar on this night after being chased away the night before. So a bunch of us are sitting there at the corner of the bar, and our conversation turns to women's wrestling....and more specifically Japanese women's wrestling, since Howard's friend Koichi has joined us. And as we're talking about the glory days of Chigusa, Dump, Bull Nakano and the rest of them....a woman approaches and orders a drink. I vaguely recalled being told by someone earlier that it was none other than Judy Martin, one time member of the Glamour Girls with her partner Le Lani Kai back in the late 80's.Judy sort of bellied up to the bar with another former women's wrestler Susan Green, who used to be all over the Apter mags in the 70's as the "Tall Teen from Texas" or something like that. So since we had been talking about, among other teams, the Jumping Bomb Angels.....I asked her if she was indeed Judy Martin and she sort of shyly said she was. And this lead to what might have been the best part of the weekend for Dave and I...we spent the next hour and a half to 2 hours talking about the business with Judy Martin. And she could not have been any nicer.Answered every question we posed to her....offered opinions on the different issues we spoke about regarding the business past and present.I couldn't help thinking that it was one of those instances where, when you least expect it...you run into someone and you end up having the most interesting conversation. After Judy left for the evening, we sat around some more and were surprised to see Bobby Eaton come up to us and start talking. Bobby had his son with him (a lot of the workers seemed to have brought their kids with them, from Flair to Baby Doll to Eaton and others) and we engaged in a pretty lively debate about Bobby's early career with George Gulas as his tag partner. Meanwhile, Bobby's son is trying to tell him that its time for him to go home. Bobby sort of laughed and remarked that their roles have switched and now HE'S the one being watched.The next morning I had an earlier flight than Dave, so I got up earlier and walking around when I noticed that Ole Anderson was in his usual spot, sitting on one of the couches in the lobby holding court. I approached him and asked another guy if he wouldn't mind taking a photo of the two of us."Mr. Anderson....do you mind if I get a picture?""Well no...if you have a camera!""Yeah...that guy right there has it.""Oh, okay...I was just giving you a hard time." (NO! C'MON! NOT OLE!)"Hey thanks for the photo....by the way, I really liked your book.""You did huh?""Yep.""Well then...why don't you tell me this. What happened when I was approached by the bully when I was 10 yrs old in the book?""Well....I really don't remember.""Well I thought you said you read that book.""I did.""Well then how come you don't remember?""Because that was about 5 years ago and I've probably read about 50 wrestling books since then.""Back when you were in high school....did you take a history class?""Yes.""And did you learn about Abraham Lincoln being the President?""Yes.""Well then why don't you remember the stuff that was in MY BOOK?""Uh...hey, thanks for the photo."Having heard for years about Ole's reputation....allow me to say....he didn't let me down.I had a good time on the trip. It was nice seeing old friends, old heroes of mine and feeling like it was the late 80's and I was at a PPV. (Which is sort of what the weekend felt like) There were things about the weekend I didn't like....and I've expressed those feelings. I understand that the promoter of events like that are certainly in it to make a profit...and believe it or not, I do not begrudge them for that. I wanted to contribute some money to that profit margin...and if I misunderstood the mechanizations of the event....I guess I'll take a certain amount of the blame.Just for the record...and since someone brought it up....I certainly don't go to these events thinking I'm "cooler" than anyone. My daughter?Now she's cool. Me, I'm just an old wrestling fan looking to have a few laughs. Note in the 5 categories that I listed I didn't mention anything about the amount of fat guys that were there, because, quite frankly....after looking at some of the photos of myself at the event....I definitely need to cut back on my soda and sweets intake because I was completely horrified at the way I looked.Hopefully, Tammy thought I looked okay though. Otherwise....I might have to continue searching for the 4th Mrs. Bowdren.Later,Jeff