First off..ok…let me think…the trip to Athens was a blast. There is really not a whole lot I can cover here that hasn’t already been said in Brett and Yoshi’s blog. Ole is Ole. I got a real kick out of his demeanor. He told me that anyone under the age of 50 didn’t “know their ass from a whole in the ground” as far as wrestling. He also couldn’t believe that people still came out to see “this stuff”. I agree with him. There has been such a dramatic change in wrestling from when I first started watching it to now. Most of the guys I hang around with now, grew up watching ECW and the Attitude era of WWF – when the true nature of wrestling was acknowledged.
I read a breakdown of a radio interview that Ronnie Gossett just did and he said that Dave Meltzer and the dirt sheets are to blame for the end of the business. Of course,
everything must change with time and in a world of 24 hour news/entertainment etc etc on the internet, the box was going to be opened.
Of course, you all know now that the promoter Ernest “Buddy” Robinson skipped out on the show after intermission. This was the first time I had been a witness to this in person, of course I knew this stuff happened…I had just never been present for it…Of course I have been on shows where no one got paid, but at least the promoter stuck around…Pretty shitty if you ask me…The guy charged $20 a ticket, had a boxing ring for the guys to wrestle in and delays show open for 45 minutes (which really gripes my ass).
Got some great photos of the matches though. Afterwards went to “The Grill” in Athens, which was loaded with college flesh just running over into the highway. There I was witness to a ritual that I have not seen since “Wild Kingdom”.
Saturday was the AWA Power Pro show…we started out in Spartanburg where we filmed a couple of vignettes. I had my first “act” as Commissioner of PPW…I don’t think I did that well of a job…The show was stupendous…matches running on time, a lot of great talent, and a hot crowd. Good to see Ostgard, Jimbo, Tre, Jaime, Muscle Madness, Shea Shea, and all the guys again…Like I said previously, I think I shot some awesome pics on these two shows.
I also want to touch on something that ER and I were discussing the other night…Saturday night, Hendersonville got to see a World Champion in action in the main event…Ric Converse, who is the AWA Champion…won from Shinjiri Ohtani in Indianopolis, IN…The AWA belt has been around the world….Takao Ohmori won the belt in January of 2005 in Japan and defended it until June of 2005 where he lost it to Corino in Bay City, MI….Ohtani beats Corino in Japan in January of 2006…then loses it to Ohmori in April…then to Converse in June….that belt that I snapped a picture of Saturday night is well traveled…that may not mean much to some folks, but I was hoping the fans would have a better appreciation of it…I don’t know…whatever…say what you will, yes I am a belt mark…I have always thought the “sanctioning” and “promoting bodies” etc were important to wrestling…Kirby is doing a great job of defending the Light Heavyweight belt wherever he is called to…
Coming up is another off weekend as I am working…I may pop in at HVW as Johnny Buffett is supposed to be there…
Continued positive vibes to Law!
Ostgard, bring me my stuff!
Blake, I couldn’t agree more about the AWA World Title. I was one of the lucky ones that got to see Corino beat Omori for the AWA World Title in Bay City, Michigan. In fact, I have a picture of Corino and me with the belt about an hour after he won it. It’s on MySpace and it is one of my favorite pics.
I’ve also been honored to have announced two AWA World Title matches now. The first was Corino defending against “Viper” Pete Christie (funny how I always seem to be around Vipers) and the second being this past weekend with Converse defending against Magnum. I have a lot of respect for the tradition and history of that belt.