There’s a video circulating around of a recent WWE house show in Greenville, SC, where a fan rushes the ring to attack Chris Jericho. You can see it here (Chris Jericho Fan Incident -better mute the audio if you value your hearing), with another angle after the fact here (Fan Tries to Attack Chris Jericho).
Some of you may be surprised that the first one to take action and wrestle the fan to the mat was not Jericho, or a backstage worker, or security. It was referee Charles Robinson. This didn’t surprise me at all.
Just a random search of “fan attacks wrestler” pulled up a YouTube video of a match between Eddie Guerrero and Rob Van Dam, where a fan runs in the ring. Who’s the first one to bring him down? Yep, the referee.
Pro wrestling referees usually go through the same type of training as the wrestlers. They learn to take bumps, take punches, and kicks. They may be smaller in size than the workers in the ring, but they can be just as tough.
Several times on the local scene I’ve seen a fan rush into the ring during a match. The first one to take the guy down was the ref. Usually put him in a front facelock (like in the Jericho video) and drove him down to the mat on his stomach and held him there until “security” showed up (a.k.a. the guys who were told to put shirts on that said “security”). They would toss the guy out of the building while his girlfriend chewed him out.
It’s surprising it doesn’t happen more often on a local level, since there are no barricades and not much if any real security. I guess maybe the local fans at the smaller shows “get it” and know they’re being entertained so they shouldn’t get too worked up about it.
I put up a post over a year ago (I’m With the Show) that touched a little bit on how important a referee is to a wrestling match. I guess one thing I left out is how they could save your butt if a liquored-up redneck tries to blindside you when you’ve got your back turned.
Good to see “the wrestler formerly known as” Victoria back on TV. Hopefully in TNA she’ll have more impact, instead of getting jobbed out every week and “retiring” with no previous build up or fanfare (like in the WWE).
One thing I noticed in her debut on the 5/28/09 TNA Impact program was that Victoria and Angelina Love were trading some good punches. That’s a refreshing change from the weak forearms that the female wrestlers normally use. The forearms just don’t look as good- there’s no real connection there. When you throw in a pile of hair it just looks like it’s totally missing. I wonder if that’s a WWE rule (don’t break the merchandise). I’m trying to remember if TNA Knockouts punch a lot. Punching “like a girl” never looked so good.
On the 5/28/09 episode of TNA Impact on SpikeTV, we got to see the re- re- re-debut of Raven and “The Franchise” Shane Douglas. Great. I can’t think of two guys I care about less. Wait a minute… nope, can’t come up with anyone.
But hey, at least I knew who Raven was when I saw him. When Shane Douglas came down to the ring at the end of the Styles/Daniels match (below), I thought it was some reject from the Food Network. Who’s the fat guy dressed like a chef? I was going to upload his picture to enter the Guy Fieri look-alike contest. Looks like Shane’s been hitting a few too many Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
Hey TNA suits- nice work, boys (and girl). Now go give yourselves a bonus for “changing the face of professional wrestling.”
“The Dummy” was sort of like a mannequin, except that it wasn’t the hard plastic kind you would normally see in an unnatural pose in a store window. This one had some kind of a wire-frame skeleton that was covered in padding and wrapped in a skin of fabric. Not quite burlap, but something close. I’m not sure what the official name of this contraption would be, but it looked like it was something that fabric could be pinned to. An oversize pincushion in human form. It had a torso, a head, and some skinny arms and legs that were sort of posable.
The Dummy was ranked just below “the rookie” on the seniority scale of the trainees. If someone was working on perfecting a new move, they might work it into match with one of the “veterans”. If it was the first time trying the move out, the veteran could tell them NO (possibly running the risk of being called a pussy). If that happened, then the move would instead be tried on a rookie. The rookie already got to do fun things like setting up the ring before the shows and tearing it down after (and of course doing the same at the wrestling camp if the camp ring was being used at the show). Why not inflict more punishment to make them “pay their dues” for the privilege of someday also being able to say NO (and also possibly being called a pussy).
However, there was some fine print and a hidden clause in the unwritten rules of the wrestling camp. If the move was potentially too dangerous even for the lowly rookie, the move would be attempted instead on The Dummy.
When wrestling The Dummy, the only person at risk for getting injured was yourself, which was acceptable since you were the one trying to do this crazy thing in the first place. The Dummy could take a punch, although he wasn’t the best at selling. He never refused a beating, probably because he didn’t have a mouth or the ability to do hand gestures.
Some of the better guys, like Austin Aries, could have a pretty entertaining match with The Dummy. It always reminded me of a quote that people had said about Ric Flair 15 or 20 years ago: “Ric Flair could have a great match with a chair.“
The Dummy couldn’t refuse, but that also meant that he couldn’t tell you how much it hurt. That part seemed to be the job of Terry Fox. If you tried a move with The Dummy and it looked like it was really stiff, Terry would shout out, “You kiiiiilled him!“.
Nobody wanted the reputation of working stiff. You wanted to work “snug”. There is a big difference. If you ended up “kiiilling” him, good luck finding someone to take that move in a match. Now would be a good time to look around and see who didn’t show up to camp that day. Maybe they would be willing if you told them, “I worked on it in camp- the guy didn’t complain“.
After forming what wrestling critics were calling “The Tag Team of the ’90s”, and what wrestling fans across the world were comparing to the “classic” tag teams of the Orient Express, The Dynamic Dudes, and the Ding Dongs, the team of Double Penetration (pictured below) split apart when “Playboy” Pete HUGE decided he would be more successful on his own.
The breakup lead to a singles match between the two for the St. Paul Championship Wrestling (SPCW) promotion in the West St. Paul, MN armory on March 25th of 2000. The nine year anniversary of this historic event will be commemorated next week by a three bell salute on WWE Monday Night Raw, just before they go to air.
Tag Team of the '90s
Notice that even in the video Davis is clinging to the tag team picture that he had just ordered 500 copies of.
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The video is in two parts since I couldn’t bear to trim out enough to make it under the YouTube 10 minute limit. Enjoy.
*Video, commentary, and photograph credit: Tim Larson
Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of February 2009, with a special highlight at the end.
Okay, now for the “special highlight”. Let me start by saying that although I like a good comedy spot now and again, I really like the kind of match that makes me “believe”, regardless of the fact that I was actually in the business and know better.
However, I found the clip of the match below from the CHIKARA promotion very entertaining. Forget that it blows the “suspension of disbelief” clear out the window and into the next county, and just enjoy.
This was the Wrestling Video of the Week #3 at Project126 (they also have another video like it in their post), and what they mentioned there I’ll say again: the video itself has not been slowed down. It will take you a few seconds to realize this, but when you do you should get a kick out of it.
As I run across things, I’m also going to be adding them to my Delicious bookmarks page (http://delicious.com/drdarindavis). You can also find the last 10 of them on the right side of the page towards the bottom.
I could talk a little bit about how I thought that the WWE was making a mistake by releasing Bam Neely a few weeks ago. I could also talk about them releasing Scotty Goldman (Colt Cabana) last week. My opinion would not be based on what you saw on TV, it would be based on what I personally saw of their work on the independent scene several years ago, not what we all saw on WWE TV.
If you have two guys that are really good, and how good they are isn’t perfectly clear on your television screen, then I think most of the blame has to lie with the promotion. Enough said.
TNA recently made an even worse decision by deciding to release Petey Williams after he worked his ass off for five years with that company. Some reports said that TNA “wanted to get in some fresh faces” so they didn’t renew his contract. They say that while half of their roster has been recycled from the “good old days” with Steiner, Booker T, Sting, Foley, and Jarrett (I think Angle is still at the top of his game so I didn’t list him along with the others).
In addition to that, TNA could not come to contract terms with Sonjay Dutt, one of the other great cruiserweights and one of the reasons why I started watching this promotion in the first place. Not clear if he was making unreasonable demands or if management was being cheap (I’m assuming this is all over money and not time off), but I’ll assume that management is cheap.
With both of these guys gone, I’ve got two more reasons why my TNA viewership will most likely take a dive.
Tuesday December 9th is the much-anticipated DVD release of the second installment of the revitalized Batman movie series. While millions are getting ready to watch The Dark Night, I thought It would be a good time to remind people that Christian Bale wasn’t the first one to battle the Joker. No, I’m not talking about Michael Keaton or Adam West either. I’m talking about Minnesota’s own Hellraiser Gutz, who is known in the WWE as Bam Neely.
Back around the spring of 1998 (I think), Gutz fought Marty “The Joker” Hamilton at Club Cancun in St. Paul, MN. After working the Joker gimmick for awhile, Marty ended up changing it to “The Jokester“, and then to “The Practical Joker“. I had heard the reason was pressure from DC Comics, that owns the trademark to the name, but I have a hard time believing Marty had enough fame to call the attention of their team of lawyers. Then again you never know.
It’s not the best of Gutz’s matches, but I thought the timing was appropriate. You also get to hear a little bit of his tag partner, Hellraiser Blood, complain about a lack of competition. Sounded like it was originally going to be a tag match, but whoever Marty’s partner was didn’t show up. The Penguin must have been knocking off a bank or something.
Part of why I like watching it is that having wrestled Marty myself, I know how hard it is to “sell” the silly string during a match. Couldn’t have done it better.
This video originally aired on WTW’s wrestling show. Commentary by John Lloyd and “Slick” Mick Karsh. The referee is Eddie Sharkey
Back when I was still participating in wrestling camp, a crew was filming a documentary about one of my trainers, Eddie Sharkey, and about a few other wrestlers in the Minneapolis area. I had forgotten about this, but I just stumbled across it recently.
You can see excerpts of the short film and hear audio clips at the documentary site. It doesn’t look like the film is available for sale or rent, unfortunately. The film is called The Minneapolis Wrestling Club.
You can find an audio clip of Sharkey on their site, where he talks about Harley Race and himself getting in a fight with a couple of people from the crowd in Denver, CO.
Eddie’s bio on the site:
Eddie Sharkey wrestled from the early 1960s to 1972. He retired and stayed out of wrestling for a number of years. Eventually he was lured back into the business by some younger wrestlers who asked if he would train them. These wrestlers – Jesse Ventura and the Road Warriors – eventually went on to some success. Sharkey still runs a wrestling school in the Twin Cities and referees matches throughout the Upper Midwest [at the time the documentary was filmed].
There is also a short video clip of Sharkey available in the excerpts (QuickTime). In the background you can see me wrestling Terry Fox in our training ring. The referee was “Rough Rod”. Over on the far right of the screen you can see Scott Free and Hellraiser Gutz (who is currently in the WWE as Bam Neely) standing on the apron.
The second part of the clip shows a battle royal. If you don’t blink, you can see me for a few frames wrestling in a black tank top. Eddie is the ref in that match.
There have been a few stories going around lately about the WWE pushing harder to get into Japan. The WWE sees Japan as one of the most important overseas markets.
“Japanese fans are changing,” [Funaki] told The Associated Press. “The key is to give them more opportunities to watch WWE. If they see it, they’ll get it.”
and
“Even if you’ve never watched it before, you can jump in and start watching because it’s good vs. evil,” said Ed Wells, Vice President and General Manager and WWE Japan. “We always refer to ourselves as sports entertainment. We created that genre in the U.S. And it’s something that we are now, as of this year, taking really worldwide.”
Is this a good thing?
There have been many times over the years that the WWF/WWE has steered toward the ridiculous, whether it was a particular storyline or a particular character, to the point where I just didn’t want to watch anymore. Not that other national promotions haven’t done some really stupid, embarrassing stuff as well –
Robocop in WCW, I’m talking to you brother!
When you got to the point where you thought American professional wrestling was just unwatchable, you could always get a hold of a Japanese tape and see some great wrestling action without all of the soap opera, crazy product tie-ins, kiddie-safe fare, or black-and-white storylines (e.g. “good” vs “evil). The WWE of late seems to be going back to the ’80s, where apparently everybody had to have a second job to make ends meet. They had garbage men, dentists, clowns, undertakers. Now we’re getting a carny. [Coming from a "doctor", maybe I shouldn't be too critical about that part]
With the WWE trying to become a bigger fixture in Japan, I’m getting a little heartburn. Will it become popular enough in Japan that the other promotions will have to adopt some of the WWE’s format and storylines to compete?
How long before we see Godzilla wrestle Rosie O’Donnell in a “King of the Monsters” match?
Posted by Darin Davis 
Posted by Darin Davis 
Posted by Darin Davis 
