Here's some hodgepodge of things I remember that I wanted to put to writing. So many different little things coming out at once I'll just start with one thing and see where the trip takes us this time.
Oxford, Maine..EWA show there at the fair. I tell you, I've been to some 'strange' towns but the show in Oxford for me was probably the strangest. I had also asked the president of the Farmington, NH 500 boys club to come up there to check out the EWA's product. I was trying to see if I could get them to go with having an EWA show like we did when i was with WWA New England. Had I knew beforehand what it was was going to be like in Oxford, I would've suggest ANY other show than Oxford For him to come to.
You have to remember this is just MY take on it, I was there, I just explain to you what my eyes saw and my opinion of it, not that my opinion means much. But It's just something that sticks out for me.
having a wrestling show at the Oxford Fair is by far the absolute worst place I've ever seen. Name me any shit building you've been in and I bet Oxford can come out looking worse. The "building" the show was in was pretty big, no doubt about it, it could hold acouple hundred people. But..havina wrestling show in this building that had no window glass in the windows and having it right after, a horse pulling contest with the smell of horse crap all over the place, and a LOUD tractor puling contest going on at the same time on one side of the building really can't give you a great "atmosphere' for a wrestling show.
Plus nothing resembling a 'locker room' for wrestlers if memory serves me right two campers were pulled side by side for guys to get dressed in. Oxfoird I guess could be considered a "redneck" town and believe me, me with my Chicago accent got quite the ribbing from locals when i stopped in a gas station to ask for directions. "Yous got a funny soundin accent". well gee, tthhaannk you.. This coming from people that don't say 'water, charge or radiator' but more like "warter, chage and rardiatr", adding r's where they don't belong and taking the r's out where they do belong, but I'm the one with the funny accent mind you.
The show itself was fine, everybody worked hard to get over the product EWA was putting out. Just the circumstances of where this show was held and possibly how it was actually 'promoted' not by the EWA mind you but by the people who run the fair. Maybe taking it to a middle or high school gym, armory, something like that would've given a much better presentation of what the EWA was about.
The president of the 500 boys club was impressed with the show, where it was held he and I had long discussions on, which leads me to the following.
In the EWA I had the function of besides my writing for newsletters, selling my stuff at shows, help set up and the million little other things that I did to help out, I was doing what I was doing for WWA New England which was try and set up shows in NH for them One I did get which I talked about elsewhere was the show at Dartmouth College...The president of the 500 boys club wanted to have wrestling again in Farmington as it was a success with WWA New England. But he was having trouble getting a return date from Fred Sparta's brother, I think it may have been more for the simple fact I lived in the area and they knew that all the hardwork i did for them with the Rochester shows and first Farmington show wouldn't be there because I wasn't with them anymore.
So Joe and I talked, we even went to have me look at the middle school gym as the last show was in the high school gym which holds 700 people. Middle school gym holds 500 people and to me I thought the middle school gym was more nicer to have a show in. so Joe and I started negociating on a date, I forgot who I told but someone leaked the fact I was trying to get an EWA show in Farmington to Fred's brother Mike who handled the shows in Mass. Mike calls me up bitching saying Farmington was 'his' town. hmm...funny, you have to be a resident of NH in order to be a promoter and he lives in Mass while I lived in the next town over from Farmington, Rochester. You do the match and the matter of elimination here and you can see who's 'town' it really was for all technical purposes.
Just to make sure I called a friend I knew who was on the state boxing and wrestling commission and ran it by him what was going on so I could get some input from him.he told me "Bill he carries no weight on what you can do her ein NH, if you wanted to bring ECW to Farmington, you could. I think it would be a great idea for the EWA to run in NH more, and i'll call Mike right now and tell him". needless to say my friend did because I had an obscene phone message from Mike when I got back from running errands. Mike never liked being put in his place by me, directly or indirectly, and he always tried to say "I'm the one who brought you in to wrestling", strange I recall very vividly it was Sivano Sousa that did that.
So with the tecnicalites all out of the way the president of the 500 boys cvlub(who also got a few call from Mike and told him give me a date, or fuck off) and I had talks that if an EWA show was successful here in Farmington he'd be able to get it to where EWA could be here every other month or possibly every month. Which not just for me but more for the guys who wrestled in the EWA that would've been a great shot in the arm. Added pay day, work the storylines, angles to work off of, etc. I was THIS f'n close...and then....
Mike called the president of the 500 boys club and gave him some dates. The president got convinced that the WWA new England was the better show, they'll bring in 'name' guys, etc etc it'll be like before. So Joe chose them over our idea. THIS..was the end result of that convincing....
If you go ahead and advertise "the man from the dark side", who does that sound like to you? Sounds alot like the undertaker, right? well i can tell you for a fact that it wasn't the undertaker that showed up, it was the underfaker Brian Lee. "The Patriot" and "Slavatore Sinciere? gee who was that, oh Tom Brandi wrestling twice. You don't people didn't notice that? same build, same voice. This was the 'name' guys they brought in and the advertising poster had 'the man from the darkside' with a very misleading pic that looked very much like the undertaker. Now I don't know who the EWA would've brought in 'name' wise but I could bet a coffee can full of quarters that the advertising wouldn't have been misleading in the least. EWA used guys like King Kong Bundy, Scott Taylor, Matt Bloom so they had names they could draw on without having to have one guy wrestle under three different gimmicks to convince people that three 'name' guys were on one show, I muself would've loved to see Salvatore Sincire vs The Patriot advertised and then see how they try and pull it off.
I myself didn't go to the show, and thankfully I didn't because it was such a clusterfuck of things going wrong and that some other 'name' guys were switched or pulled at the last second and they never bothered to acknowledge that to the fans who bought tickets. it was horrible from start to finish and so bad from what the president of the 500 boys club wound up telling me, that the whole 500 boys club board of directors voted to never have a wrestling show again. You want to know how to fuck up a town for your wrestling company? You just got a small crash course in it.
Yes I was smiling alot when i found that out, as much as I wanted to say "I told you so". Joe, the president of the 500 boys club knew already so I didn't have to come out and say it. Joe even said it felt 'different' hyping that show and we figured out it was because he and I both, weren't doing it. When we did it the first time he and I were a team, cam up with al sorts of ways to advertise and get the show plugged, he admited he fell short because I wasn't helping and had I, I probably would've told him outright that that particular show was gonna bomb. With many I talked to who I know knew about the whole situation it was a general consenus that that show was basicly what you call a' Resentment" booking. They resented the fact I was doing something with another group and found alittle more success in other areas working for that group over them so they 'wanted to show me'. yeah, they showed me alright. You think I should just go ahead and slit my wrists now?
Ok..Now that we got that talked about, How about some fun stuff?
The night I saw Rick Fuller get a rib pulled on him.
The night before the rochester nh show I helped locally promote, the WWA New England held a show in Milford,Mass. I went and did my usual 'plant' routine, saw the guys I knew and was thanked for getting the rochester show set up as they knew all the hurdles and battles I went thru to get it. Rick Fuller who some know was appearing on WCW shows was on this and the rochester show. After his match I made a crack that 'nobody watches nitro anymore". So he flicked my ECW cap off(which was, what he was supposed to do since he was the heel).
Next day in Rochester while I'm buzzing around doing a kazillion things to make sure everything is alright, put in place, everyone seemingly happy, etc. I go into the mens locker room and walk past Fuller. Rick sees me and as I leave says "I saw that guy last night, I flicked his baseball cap off because he lipped off at me".
I got pulled back into the locker room by Steve Bradley and he said "sshh, just stand here and listen". Every one of the ocal guys started ribbing Fuller. "Oh man you flicked HIS cap off? You don't know who that is"? They jabbed him and he's "no who the hell is he"? they explained that I was the local promoter of the show, the show is actually in my name and not the WWA's so I had the power to say I don'[t want him on my shows so send him home, job him out real bad, etc..Rick's like "are you serious, he can do that"? Fred Sparta even got in on it and said "yeah Billy can say fuck you go home, I can't do anything about it this is NH and he has the power because he's the resident here that qualifies to be a promoter, my hands are tied so you better go apologize to him".
So I wait acouple seconds, open the door to make it seem like I'm walking in and Fuller goes, "Hey, I'm sorry I flicked your cap off last night, I didn't know who you were". I smiled and said "You did what I hoped you do, react to what I said, and of course you didn't know who i was because I never bothered to mention it. I'm not sure I could hold the show up but it's nice to know the theory was there, reality is Fred could get anyone to sign the promoter's licence tonight and sending you home wouldn't be an option I'd be able to get away with".
All of them knew that really, if I did have that kind of 'power' and I never once considered it, it would've burned alot of people so why pull a power play when that afternoon and evening show was what I really really wanted. I thought it was funny they jabbed him using me though. Not an ego thing, just, a highlight I like to remember.
Here's another funny one.
Dave Vicious was a top guy in the EWA, he was going from fan favorite to bad guy. so I believe it was the show at the University of Maine that he came out(after going heel on a show in Mass) to do a heel promo. before the show I'm setting up my tape table. He comes up to me, now all I've ever said to the guy was "hi how ya doing" and left it at that, you know the old school thing, sit down shut up don't say much or say anything unless spoken to. That's how i always went about it so when Big Dave comes up to me I'm like "oh shit".
I asked him what I did to warrant getting his attention and he tell me "It's what you're gonna do". I'm like um, huh? He then informed me he was going all heel and he 'gets to feel my wrath', meaning my yelling at him like I did all the other bad guys.
I told dave I don't preplan anything I say whatever comes to mind doring that spot I say it and he said good I'm sure we'll have some fun with it.. I actually did when the time came and both Dave and Master Sandy seemed to have a ball yelling shit back at me. My friend dave was working security and had to come between both me and Sandy and me and Dave a few times. it was his first night working that spot and dave said "this is going to be a long night with you" but he was having a great time doing that.
After the show I go and ask Dave and Sandy if I can take a pic witrh them, the goal was to hopefully have it printed in Wrestling World Magazine(the editor opted for the pic of me and Damon D'Ar changelo instead). So after I get the pic with Dave done Dave takes one of me and Sandy...right after that and I mean we're talking two f'n seconds after the flash of the camera...Sandy picxks me up like she's gonna bodyslam me on the floor, she picked me up like i was nothing and she's yelling at me, "now what was that you said about me having a flat ass? Say it now come on you're a big boy say it now. Say that flat as a board and hard to screw line now. You think you're funny funny man"!?
What it was was their turn to rib on me, no matter what promotion you work for sooner or later you're gonna get ribbed.
One of the running ribs on me in EWA was which old school wrestling shirt would I wind up wearing to a show, I had so many from a dusty rhodes shirt to a summerslam one to a badstreet usa one, I was at a collectibles convention in Portland Maine with other EWA guys, we had tables set up and such and I was wearing this shirt of Boogie's Training Camp, which is Jimmy Valiant's wrestling school. I got it thru a trade of stuff. So the ribs came and dave Vicious finally decided the time was right to start cracking on me and after he did he looked at me and saud "what, you got something to say say it then". I replied ":Yeah I got something to say", "Well"? "It's about time you said something to me", which started a bunch of chuckles and I went on a rant on how everyone but him had cracked on me and how "now, finally', you jump into the mix, about freakin time geez". that made for a good laugh during a boring moment at the convention.
Finally...who's the pic of you see on this page? That's Dr. Everette Payne and the tag team The Damned.
The one moment that stands out with these guys, and there's several I'll talk about next time...this one it was the birthday of one of the members, so after the show we go to margaritta's, I sit at the other end of the table with the others that don't drink(even if I wanted to I knew when i drove back, when i drove thru the town of Hollis the same York County Sheriff thatalways pulls me over every month was gonna do it again).. So I findout that Vinny loves something called a 'mudslide' (when i decided to test the waters of drinking again and failed, I tried one, uuuggh yuk, then again I was always a beer and vodka/redbull fanatic). So when the waitress gets to me I make my order and order a mudslide for Vinnie, had the waitress give it to him and not say anything. When I first ordered it the group that was near me knew i wasn't drinking andwere about to say something when i said "ssshh, you'll see, trust me when i say, it's not for me".
Watress comes up gives me my soda delivers the other drinks and plops down the mudslide in front of Vinnie..He looks around and the waitress said someone bought it for him but she can't say who.
So Vinny asks who bought it, you hear "not me", "Not me ", "Not me", all the way around the table until it gets to me, I look up from a note I was writing as a mental note to myself and said, "what...shut up". Everyone at the table knew my sarcastic ways very well so they started laughing when i said that, i added "oh yeah, happy fucking birthday". which added more laughter.
Vinnie was shocked and he replied "I don't believe it, Bill's one of the crankiest guys I ever met, he don't drink but he's the one who bought me a drink for my birthday,unfuckingbelieveable".
That'll cover it for right now...later this week I'll most likely spout out some more of this stuff as I get an energy burst, or one too many AMP Lightnings's in me, LOL. Thanks for reading..all 5 of you, LMAO!
