ringsidephotos.net Blog

Ohhhhhhhhh…..where to begin?

Tuesday, I went to WWC in Greenville. Again, fun show. Ostgard came out, Thomas was there etc etc. Fun little show. Found out an interesting fact on Jordan Richards, and then I wowed him with my knowledge of the British Royal Family in the 1500’s.

Went to the IHOP afterwards. Their pink lemonade was so bad, I dumped it onto ER.

Met up with Thomas, Ostgard, and ER on Wednesday afternoon and we took off to Raleigh for GOUGE. We were able to travel in comfort courtesy of the newest addition to the Arledge Motor Pool.

Got to Kings Barcade about 5pm. Neat little place, had a great garage/basement/dusty hole in the wall fell to it. www.kingsbarcade.com

Got to meet Count Grog – nice guy, he was doing a Captain Lou Albano gimmick. Gimmicks is what GOUGE is all about. To give you an idea, he is a blurb from their premiere show flyer:

“GOUGE stands for Gimmicks Only Underground Grappling Entertainment. There are many promotions in North Carolina and throughout the United States that claim to be old school wrestling, they claim to be wrestling like it used to be. They claim to be the real deal. GOUGE says screw that. GOUGE is a fun approach to wrestling with outrageous characters and over the top gimmicks….in the vein of of HUSTLE in Japan, GOUGE is a fresh look at the fun side of pro wrestling.”

And over the top it was – in places. Funny stuff. The commissioner is blind, Stevie Charles. Thankfully his hearing is well enough to reverse decisions if he must. Hilarious stuff, he would put his hand out to get a high five when the guys are the other side of the ring.

What else can I say about the show? Not sure, it was in a bar so there was a lot of booze and some wild stuff. What happens at GOUGE stays at GOUGE, until you see some of the pictures I suppose.

ER and Ostgard quickly left me stranded in a parking lot to go to some bar. Thomas and I went to an upscale steakhouse and chatted with the Hardy’s – who came out for GOUGE, Jimbo Fox and Shannon Moore. Actually I didn’t do too much chatting, I was sipping another pink lemonade.

Thanks again to Matt for letting us crash at his house for the night. While we were waiting for Thomas to get ready to go, I mistakenly brought a CD changer crashing down on my head. Did my friends E & O spring to my assistance? No. My souvenir from the Hardy House – a Warner Bros. cartoon size knot on my head.

Long trip back home. Very tired yesterday afternoon, I think we all took naps once we got in.

Lets see…some random tidbits….

Harold James now has two fans at WWC! – “Hello Gorgeous”

Ostgard literally brought the GOUGE ring crashing down!

ER’s ring intro for Thomas is great, go to his page and read it.

GOUGE has some smart fans.

The restaurant, On the Border serves fish tacos….yeech…

Raced to WWC last night after work. I got there about 7.50pm. I then took a rather angry phone call from someone who will remain nameless. It was good to be back in Greenville. I have always enjoyed going to Brodie’s, he and Lace are always accommodating to me when I show up. Thanks guys.

Good show last night. I saw the “Porn Star” Robbie Boyette actually in the the ring for the first time. The drop toe hold was spectacular. Ostgard & Ken had a good match against Jeff Lewis and the Shamrock. Regardless of what Ostgard says it was a good match. They worked as babyfaces, which is different for both but they did great keeping the crowd into it.

I have never seen a rabid human being but came very close last night with Mikki Free – green foam coming out da mouth! Great stuff – I’m hoping the pictures I got do it justice. Good main event Mikal Adryan against Austin Creed. Creed is a good looking kid and I don’t know how long he has been in the ring but he seems like a natural. Ostgard and I both had to work today, so we decided to hit the IHOP in Greenville for something quick along with ER and Mr & Mrs Magnum. Ostgard, ever the gentleman gave away one of his wrist bracelety thingys to a waitress.

I didn’t go to the bathroom as I feared some additive added to my drink. Speaking of the IHOP, I drove past the damn thing like twice. I was disoriented and plus listening to Howard Stern.

Why do people always think I am speaking in innuendo? They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and perhaps that would work for some people. People are cramming themselves down certain folks throats. Honey, lighten up!

I hope the HVW show went well. Thomas, you should have come out to the show. Kirby, ER is lost at the dinner table without you. I got some interesting news this morning, from a very reliable source of mine on the street. Everyone get ready, because one of our own will soon be mingling with the powerful up north, you know what I’m talking about. I am going to start on the pictures tonight after work.

Ostgard pointed out that he and I are probably the only two wrestling related persons that actually have to work this morning. Could be true.

Why does the IHOP in Spartanburg serve Pepsi products (which I prefer) and the one in Greenville serve Coke (don’t worry Boomer, I got the pink lemonade)? Wonder what the IHOP on Cox in Gastonia serves?

Watching “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”, waiting on my lunch. I have bombarded a couple of folks on MySpace this morning with Benny Hill clips. Today is my last day at work for an entire week. I already have an invitation to cene en un restaurante mexicano nuevo en la Union tomorrow. Wednesday is the big GOUGE trip to Raleigh.

If Twinkies grew in the ground or on trees, I would have me a Twinkie Plantation….yes sir…..where you could see the golden sponge cake in the morning and smell the sweet banana creme’ in the afternoon…..Yeah…a big open farm with a lot of Twinkies…..

I got my mobile phone bill in the mail today from US Cellular. $181!! Now, for some this may be cheap but for me it is not. I used to paying around $50 for my bill. I discovered that I had went 300 minutes over my package. When I look back over my statement and see this hour long conversations, I can’t even remember what they were about! I had a mobile phone for years and I had the lowest package – 125 general minutes. I paid twenty odd dollars a month for it and never went over. Since getting into wrestling, oy vey! Not that I mind, I am rich (wink, wink!).

There are a couple of big things coming up in June that I want to go to, but I am scheduled to work…real work blows!

So Friday was the extreme hardcore HVW show in Hendersonville. This had the potential to be a giant cluster, but the show did have a progression of its hardcoreness. The main event was the main event where the combatants went all out with the tables, barb wire, pans, traffic cones, and briefly a dildo! Yes…even a rubber phallus, brought from the pocket of Law and nearly inserted into the mouth of James Drake…Har! Then it was hurtled into the crowd by Ostgard.

I posted the pictures from Friday up on Saturday, the pictures from Saturday night are being worked on as I type this.

There was surprisingly little blood at the hardcore show. The most I saw was on Roxi’s injury which was brought about by being slammed through a row of fluorescent tubes. It gashed this elbow and arm pretty good.

ER came out and got the crowd riled up with his anti-hardcore speech. He was not announcing this night, instead he stood in the corner of Ostgard. His opponent – Princess Bubbles. It was the straightest homosexual gimmick I have ever seen.

ER did a great job, I’ve never heard such language from him before – well actually I have, but just never in the center of the ring. The “anti-hardcore” match generated as much if not more crowd reaction than the other stuff.

I’ve already mentioned Roxi’s injury, the other one for the night was Law who suffered a laceration on the top of his head from a chair shot. It took ten stitches to sew him up.

The pictures from Saturday night were taken from the balcony. Yes, I know pure laziness. The crowd was rather small, so I decided to hang out up top with the Balcony Boys et al. The pictures do not have the same “in your face” feel, but fear not it is just a one night exception.

The show ended early so we were able to have supper at a new place – Applebees. We put our favorite wrestler, Ostgard up at the Arledge Mountain chalet for Saturday night, and then gave him the grand tour of Polk County.

Only one show this week, WWC on Saturday night. Then next week will be NWA Anarchy on the 20th.

Finished watching “Elizabeth I” that I had TiVo’d from last week – very good movie. I am a fan of Helen Mirren anyway from BBC’s “Prime Suspect”, and she did great as good Queen Bess.

At home watching “Deal or No Deal”….. Zacarias Moussaoui got life in prison today…how nice, our tax dollars get to keep this piss poor plasma up for the rest of his stanking life…ahhhh….Already for the weekend…HVW, possibly a nice bit o’ Irish afterwards…..

Today is primary day – have you voted yet? I did last week at the early one stop voting.

Busy weekend coming up. Friday is going to be HVW’s extreme adults only bonzer hardcore death strap flashbang hot wax strap on pin cushion show! I hope it will fun. I love seeing hardcore matches every once in a while. I love taking bloody headshot pictures and trying to catch the moment of impact with whatever foreign object is being used. My only concern is that in hardcore matches, because they have been used as attractions to cards in the past – that Friday the first hardcore match will be a balls to the wall blood fest which blows the wad for the crowd and there is nothing to build up to as a “main event”.

I get bored seeing hardcore if it is the same thing over and over again. There will be the inevitable shouts of “boring” when someone doesn’t live up to the violence that has been left dripping and coagulating in the ring before them.

Saturday is a toss up right now, it will either be HVW’s first Saturday show or heading down to Anarchy with ER. Undecided right now.