Before I officially jumped to the WWA New England, I checked out a show of theirs in Woburn, Mass. It was well worth the drive from rochester, NH (basicly s straight shot up route 125 into haverhill, Mass. hop on I-495 and one exit and I was in Woburn), as alot of guys from Sousa's group were on the card, and I got to meet another guy I liked since the AWA, Tito Santana. While the WWA didn't have the angles to go from one to another like AWF (and EWA did), which at first I found to be a bit annoying me, being the old school terrotory fanatic I am, I'm into point a to point b and so on. But they only ran 2 or 3 towns on a regular basis and the others were spot shows someone could get, you know, someone like for instance.
I did like the talent that went there and later on, they became a host group for the WWF Training Dojo so I got to see alot of guys you see on WWE tv today(as well as Kurt Angle who's in TNA). I saw them before they were put on RAW or Smackdown, but I'll get to that, there's a trail that leads to that I need to go on.
I met Tito Santana at the Woburn show, sent in the results to Meltzer, did a review of the show. but the best thing was being able to chat with Tito. Most briong up the WWF stuff. I reminded him of a match I saw in the AWA. him, rock n roll buck zumholfe vs the black n blue express(Ken patera and Bobby Duncum) managed by bobby heenan. that sparked him and really talked AWA stuff for about a half an hour. fed sparta's brother mike (a known hot head) got all mad cause he thought i was interviewing Tito for a newsletter. Tito was the one who actually told Mike Sparta off, saying "this is the kind of fan I like talking to, he's one who remembers my early days and if he wanted to interview me, who are you to say no"? needless to say Mike stormed off, told his brother who I heard say, "Leave Billy alone, he gets the chance to meet his wrestling idols, let him be".
What sparked that meeting was, I was doing a thing on who, actually created the claw hold first. Now I grew up with dick the brusier doing the stomach claw, and baron von rashke doing the head claw. then i saw the Von Erichs do it, saw a tape of florida with blackjack mulligan doing it, so hence the question. so I went and asked anothjer master of the claw, walter killer kowalski, since he was on this same show. Walter knew who i was, knew I wrote stuff so he was very happy when i came to him with this. tito santana actually came into the conversation and when i looked over to him he said", don't mind me, I want to hear this too", and walter went thru a very detailed thing on how he did it first, feuded with fritz von erich in the northeast, fritz took it back to texas and the rest on that was history. thankfully the WCCW dvd that WWE put out actually aknowledges fritz wrestling in the northeast, so it helped me now on a story i did then.
So two legends in one night on this show, plus the local guys I liked. I was in heaven, but wasn't yet sure about making the jump from sousa to here.
Fred knew about me being hesitant and he didn't blame me, but he said there'd be more to offer for me to come with him, dumbass me asked about my friend dave(cause I swore I wasn't gonna leave him behind) and Fred said he and I can set up the ring, chairs, there'll always be something for Dave to do, which was what I had hoped to hear. Dave later was able to bring his camcorder and we taped the shows, which as you'll read later on in this, was sometimes tricky because of depending on who was on the show.
So Fred Sparta knowing my hesitastions (and the fact Sousa was hounding fred's shows trying to get back in good graces again) Fred told me about a show that was happening in Plaistow, NH. Fred had called me and said come to this show..it was a Massetuects championship wrestling show, the very last one as the owner was getting out of the business cause of illness, and Fred was booking the finishes to the matches. All I knew at that time was that iron shiek and nicoli volkoff were gona be on this show, with some of the local guys I knew. This unfortunately was a badly promoted show in the advertising wasn't too swift and..the very first WWF training dojo was thrown on literally a week before the show(which I didn't know about until I got to the building.
I knew Dave wanted to go as he was the big WWF mark so seeing iron shiek and volkoff he was digging, we told acouple friends who told acouple more friends and when we went, there's almost 50 of us coming to this show. me and dave were allowed in free, someone got fred for me and I asked if there were tickets still available, and that's when he told me it was poorly promoted, and there were alot of tickets available. So I said, "How'd like to sell over 40 of them, right now".I took him outside pointed at the group that came with us and he said "all them came with you, from rochester"? I nodded my head and he had a quick sell of 40 some thing tickets right at that moment.
I go in, walk around and suddenly I see, i hads to take my glasses off and clean em cause I thought i was seeing things. Dory Funk Jr. I almost shit.holy fuck..what kind of show is this.went into the locker room and there's bruce pritchard, who most know as brother love but I knew him from seeing him in global wrestling federation, mid south..next to him was tom pritchard. bruce didn't want to let me in and after I explained who I was, Matt Bloom saw me and yelled for me to come in, matt said "He works for freddie and I looked at Bruce and said "told you".
mark henry, sean stasiak and Val Venis were on this first training dojo show. so all of us got way more than we hoped for when we came to this show. I t was an ok show for what it was, best spot for me was verbally jabbing bruce pritchard. since I'm the one who got to be known for his 'shoot" comments from ringside. I wanted to see if what I did in AWF could work here, it did, to...a, tee.
I yelled" Yeah Bruce Pritchard, the expert in the global wrestling federation, how much of an expert are you now that they're out of business, some expert you are". he had Val venis swear at me in spanish, so..since my divorce was all but final, and I started dating a puerto rican woman, she told me acouple things in spanish, and I threw something back at ol Sean Morley which shocked the hell out of him legitly. I basicly told him to go fuck his mother in spanish, LOL! then called him a sonofabitchin asshole in spanish. Sean went to bruce, pointed at me and said "you told me to get him", "yeah", "I tried, that hillbilly told me to go fuck my mother in spanish, all the rednecks this state has you send me to the one hick that knows spanish". me and the whole section of friends were laughing. after the show Sean had to ask how and where I learned that from. I told him I was dating a puerto rican woman, and she told me that shit in an argument(which is true, lol I had to call an old neighbor of mine in chicago to get the translation).
Fred and I had a serious conversation after this show. that was where he said if I could get a town, building,etc they'd run a show there. so hence I was offered the position of NH promoter for the WWA, and I'd do the many other things at every show no matter where they were at cause they liked the fact I wrote for newsletters and had an in at wrestling world magazine.
After I was able to do the Rochester show(which you know where to find the article on that on this site), after that show as people were leaving I literally had the next town for me to locally promote drop right in my hands. the president of the 500 boys club went to Fred and asked how he could get a show in the next town of farmington. Fred looked at me and said "this is what you wanted, here you go, Bill here is our guy here in NH, he's the one who set these two shows up"(afternoon and evening shows in same building). getting the building in Farmington was easy, Joe who was the predisent of the 500 boys club also worked at the middle school, instead of getting the middle school, which i thought was an awesome place and set up, we got the bigger high school gym. when I tried beforehand to get a show there i was shut down fast. with Joe and doing a benefit for the 500 boys club, it came so easy. date, building, boys club would do food concessions, general store sold the tickets, another ticket giveaway on the rock station(program director's a big wrestling fan). it all came together smoothly. then came a shocker, in a good way.
I had some say in the rochester show when it came to name talent (said no on booking the bushwhackers, HELL NO to wanting to get honkytonk man...he fucked a friend over on an AZ legends dinner trying to hold him up for 500 bucks, just to come and eat dinner, fuck that, so i said hell no as an act of revenge for who he fucked over).this time I was just shellshocked to find out this show I'm locally promoting, is going to be a WWF training dojo show..which meant steve(william) regal, jeff jarrett, christian, kurt angle, dory funk jr were going to be on this show...I'm like"you're shitting me right? jeff jarrett regal, in farmington? oooh my God".
we ran against the rochester fair's bracelt night which is one of the biggest nights of the fair, but we still got almost 600 people paid in a 700 seat gym, so needless to say, we drew well. Joe and i made some flyers before I got the official posters and I plastered everywhere I could. old fashioned busting my ass got us the attendence alot of indy feds wish they could get, but don't because they don't go out and actually 'promote' the show.
Thru this time I got to meet the hardys., kurt angle, christian, al snow, william regal, pat patterson(had to old footage of his matches and that was a projext,lol. will talk more on that in a few), headbangers, dr. death steve williams, dustin runnels, sgt slaughter, george steele, brittany brown, Brandi Alexander, moolah, mae young, capt. lou albano. mr. Fuji. many others during this time, not all were on WWA shows as I'm now going to explain.
Sousa was running a night of legends show in wilmington,mass. I was invited(not by sousa), by several local guys who were gonna appear on this show. knowing i had heat with sousa over how I left. I went out of my way and thru a tape dealer i traded tapes with, I got acouple of sousa's matches as a jobber in WWF. when I got there at first wasn't happy to see me, rightfully so. but then i said "I got this for you". he asked what it was and after I told him he asked how I got it. "You know I do tapes Sousa, I asked around to some people I trade with, someone came thru, and now it's for you". he acted like he was still alittle pissed at me but manager chris grande (not knowing ahead of time I was doing that) that sousa came into the locker room all excited cause he now had footage of his matches from WWF.
I wore to this show a shirt that had a heat transfer of the old bobby heenan family from the AWA. Lou Albano saw the shirt and the ring announcer said I was the "territory expert". i really...didn't want him to hear that as he went ahead and tested me on my knowledge of old school territories. I got 85% of the questions right and he liked the fact I added who was champion then, or feuds at that time, etc. so I was like WHEW!
I had gotten invited to an LIWA convention show in Randolph, Mass. still don't know who it was that arranged that, I think it was mike or fred sparta as mike and brittany brown (who were 'more than friends' at the time, were handling stuff at the show. so I took Dave along as usual, and we got there real early, went to friendly's for dinner, came back and walked right into none other than Jim Cornette(who was handling commentary duties as this show was being taped).
I said "hey, how you doin Mr. Cornette". dave was in shocked and then was even more shocked when Cornette said, "I'm doing ok Bill, how are you". Now, I never met Cornette ever in my life before this day, and usually..according to the muths(which i brought up to him), he only remembers the names of people he hates, so after bringing this up to him I said, "ok, what I do to piss you off",lol. turns out he suscribes to wrestling then and now and knew of me thru there, knew I was going to be there thanks to the editor of WT&N. Cornette liked my writings of AWA wrestling being a wrestling fan in chicago, he said the way I wrote it was like he was sitting in the seat next to me. that to me was a hell of a compliment.
Met Moolah and mae young that night. got an autographed pic for my father since moolah was his fave woman wrestler. and then i was asked if I could work the door and take the tickets. Hell yea, was happy to. I'm invited to this show for free, in before fans are, get to meet and greet legends and I'm gonna say no to helping out? fuck that. I told her and mae young (Dave helped Mae on tables and stuff) that to dave and I, it will be like we're earning our admission in by helping you out, which to me I felt we were, an attitude that the current generation of workers don't seem to have.
I'm sitting behind Killer kowalski during the show, he's cracking up at what I'm yelling to the hells, and all of a sudden he's telling me to say this, say that, I almost got my ass kicked by brittany brown for getting a chant going of "brittany blowjobs". Mike Sparta runs over and says "you can't say that"! I said "tell that to walter, he's the one who told me to say it". Mike's like "Walter did? ooook". and left me alone after that. After Brittany's match(and i wish i could get a camcorder of this show, just for this memory), she comes by kicks my chair whacks me in the head and they tried to put a paper bag over my head, yep...nothing like not being clued in to things, lol.
On a show in Wittman, mass. it was matt Bloom's last night there as he was heading to memphis for Memphis Power Por as part of the WWF Developmental program. his gimmick was the mongolian, he never talked, just barked like bruiser brody and nord the barbarian(which I always gave him shit about during his matches,lol). it was my biorth day and things were done that I was not clued in on. I had a tape trading friend come up from newport rhode island, he was sitting near where I was and he loved the fact that after a match between brittany brown and Brandi Alexander, Brittany came up to me, leaned me over the guard rail and nailed me witrh fore arm smashes to my back as she's bitching at me for yelling shit at her. Now it wasn't a "shoot" hit, it was just a spot they decided to do as a b-day present to me. So I "sold" it and yelled "you bitch, you can't do that to a fan, I'm gonna sue your ass for this, freakin bitch", lol. my friend pat from rhode island said that was worth the trip to see the big mouth get whacked, LMAO! Bloom after his match walked by me, leaned in my ear and said "you know, if you could write as good as you yell, you might actually become something in this world". I'm like what? you're not supposed to talk. it was his way of getting a rib on me since he was leaving.
When Dory funk jr and his wife were there, getting our camcorder past her was a challenge. we had fred's ok to tape the shows but Dory's wife had a fit about it as she films the shows and sends the tapes to McMahon. so...I knew I was making extra money selling copies of these shows, and even though I respect her, I didn't work for her or answer to her. if there's a will there's a way, and between dave and I, we always found a way. on a spur of the moment I didn't want to move the camcorder and tripod from where we had it so Dory's wife said "I better not see that red light blinking on it". My first thought was "fffuucckkk you". so after some thought..I said "electrical tape". Dave's looking at me like I'm nuts, I run out ot my car (87 black mustang, always taping somethign up on it) and got the roll of electrical tape. 6 strps across where that red light is and who--la..end of story, taped the show. couldn't see any red light flashing then. Other times we just moved to higher ground and Dave zoomed in when the show started.. can't tape the shows, my ass.
After the training dojos started going to other indy groups in the south, the WWA wasn't hosting them anymore, and a change in direction was happening, one I wasn't pleased with. Bringing in Brian lee and dressing him up as the "Man from the Darkside" seemed real cheezy, like misleading the fans. tom brandi as the patriot when i knew he wasn't the guy doing it it was del wilkes. Mike and I were having a falling out cause of pay to me and dave and other friends I had helping out. so since I could see the writing on the wall, and they wouildn't let me sell my tapes at the shows. it was time to go.
When I told Mike Sparta I was leaving he got all pissed, said I wouldn't be able to get into another company anywhere in New England. That became a challenge because now..after trying to leave the right way I was getting jammed..so I made it a mission to find another company to get into. After emailing feelers around to other companies. The EWA, eastern Wrestling Alliance, was the first one to make an offer...based in Maine I was offered to come check out a show in Lewiston, maine at the armory, it was a tv taping as they had a half hour show on a station there. That particular tv taping? is availabe on this very website.
One thing of note, least for me and I only speak for myself on this. I always thought that the late Sherri martel was the absolute most gorgous woman in all of wrestling. she had the whole package of beauty, brains, skill, the whole nine yards. Teh I saw Brandi Alexander. hhooollyy shit what a beauty, same thing, total package, one very very stunning knockout who could get it done in the ring, one of them talents that the big leagues(except for WCW for a time) missed out on.Knowing her for the short time I did was indeed a priviledge.
I learned alot in the WWA, I learned alot and when they went in a direction I knew wasn't a good one, no amount of justification could do it for me. So after going to that tv taping of the EWA in Lewiston, I saw what I was hoping to see again..Little do they know in the EWA...how much they made it fun for me...all over again...And that's what's going to be the next thing I write up...my time in the EWA, my working a show(selling tapes, hel;ping out here and there) on a show of NCW in Natick, Mass, and seeing a show of Northeast Wrestling, in Danbury, Ct. All that is coming up in the next memory I write..Hope you enjoyed reading this.
