Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives!
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Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives! |
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Remembering the Past – USWA Hello fans, marks, workers, friends,
Romans, countrymen . . . lend me your ear! Last month, I kind of gave
everyone an idea of what it was like to get into the USWA, but this
month I wanted to go into three specific things, two of which I’m
really going to spend a lot of time going into over these next few
months: Eddie & Doug Gilbert and Tommy Rich. What it was like to
work with them and some of the phenomenal memories I have running up and
down the highways with them, doing shows with them, and just generally
hanging out and having a great time. The other topic I want to talk
about is "The Angle." However, before I get into all of that, I want to extend an
invitation to anyone reading this to please feel free to e-mail
Kayfabe Memories with any questions you have or anything you’d
like to see me write about relating to the USWA of the past. While I
have a limited scope of the company - mainly from 1994-1996, I’ll be
happy to answer any questions I get or talk about anything you’d like
to see. If you want to get a message directly to me, head on over to http://www.thenewfwf.com
and post something on the message board over there. My mom is the
Webmaster of that site and I check that message board everyday. OK, now on to the hot topic of the month: The Angle. After all, they
can’t just throw you on TV with no angle! I’ve got to say, this is
where Jerry "The King" Lawler really helped me out in
developing a good reason for me to be there. Now if this were 10 or 20
years ago, I would NEVER talk about this because this is some of
the backstage stuff, but in today's age it’s very different. Anyway,
at the time, I was working at the Home Shopping Network (HSN), and I had
a very stable job there in management. So Jerry picked up on that and
basically ran with it in order to establish myself as a manager that was
coming in to "shake things up." The angle was going to be that
I was coming in from Florida and was going to basically buy out the USWA
TV show and turn it into my own personal television shopping show.
We’d sell off everything from the ring to the stage area. The talent
would all have to go except for the "boys" that would be under
my wing. We were going to sell everything right down to the wrestling
boots the boys were wearing. That idea was absolutely brilliant - why? - because it got instant
heat. The crowd hated me from the first time we did the gimmick. Who was
this "yahoo" from Florida that was claiming he was going to
buy up and shut down our TV show? There was no way, and the dedicated
fans of the USWA immediately let me know it. Some of the stories I plan
to tell you over the next few months are specifically related to fans
who just went a little too far. I’m lucky that I never had anything
too bad (physically) to happen to me from a fan. But there is good
reason for that: I always traveled with the boys. I either had Doug and
Eddie Gilbert in the car with me or Tommy Rich at all times. Yes, there is
safety in numbers. |
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