A few weeks before the chance to jumpe from Sousa's AWF to WWA New England came about I was getting some taped footage of a group called the AIWA, based in California.and some old stuff from Arizona thanks to a guy named Dale I knew who was working out there as a manager. I had gottern hooked on a tag team called the Neighboodz which to me were almost like Public Enemy but more high flying. Bubba Storm was another one I liked as he in a way, well to me like a Gary Albright look to him.
So even though I was just entering the age of email and internet, with an old radio shack computer that wasn't really made memory wise to support the internet, though it did support an old version of AOL(though I couldn't get out of AOL hell to check anything else, everything had to ve within the AOL universe). I couldn't find an email addy for the AIWA. So I thanks to Dale I got a snail mail address. So I wrote the owners asking how much shirts and merchancide cost, mentioned Dale's name and threw in acouple newsletters I wrote for(The Wrestling Edge was one of them).
Acouple weeks later I get a package in the mail, the mail lady had to ring my door bell because it couldn't fit in this thimble size mailbox I had where I lived in Rochester NH. They usually left a key to the parcel boxes out front but I had way too many packages that day. The AIWA sent me a shirt and a letter of thanks for making a mention in one of the newsletters I sent. I found out thru a letter from Dale(which i got the same day) they asked him about me and he put me over good. The owners asked if I would be interested in doing interviews with acouple of their wrestlers and of course I jumped on that. I basicly sent some standard questions back and said had whoever you'd like answer them and sed it back to me. I had gotten acouple back which wound up getting printed. The Wrestling Edge Newsletter loved the fact I was getting various indy things and as I'll explain in another article later, they kinda got off on some of the heat I was able to get because I was able to draw alot ogf heat by just being me. Funny how most wrestling journalists seem to do the same I was doing in 1997 and people like Georgiann from the wrestling chatterbox said to me was a 'taboo' to do things how I was doing it, pointing out the negatives in the product, behind the scenes stuff, etc. makes me wonder what she thinks now that just about everybody does it knowing she slammed me viciously for when i was one of the very very few that did it first back in the day.
The day of the Woburn, Mass WWA show comes up and what shirt do i wear, I decided to wear the AIWA one as I knew it'd be different than what I'd see at the show(Mostly WWF and WCW shirts). The shirt became quite the conversation piece when I finally found the Woburn Armory and slidc my at the time dodge aries k out of one snow spot into another one amd just barely missed hitting a parked Woburn police car. Everyone from Flying Brian Walsh (a guy I knew in New England who wound up going out to California and I've lost touch with him after that), Killer Kowalski , Fred Sparta and even when I was talking to Tito Santana, he brought the shirt up too. I wound up getting a picture taken with El Mascarado holding his title belt wearing the AIWA shirt. I got a few copies of the pic and sent it off with other pics to the sheets I wrote for as well as Wrestling World Magazine.
Now every time I sent pictures to Wrestling World I'd suggest which pics would probably be best to use and Steve the editor, always, threw the suggestions away and printed any picture that had me in it, LOL! I really...and I mean this..never got used to seeing a picture of myself in that magazine. I always figured the article I wrote would be enough you didn't need to add any pictures of me in it but the editor Steve thought different and since it was his call, he did it. So I get some advance copies of the following issue with my article on the WWA New England and there it is, the picture of me w/ El Mascarado, wearing the AIWA shirt.
When I got the issue in the mail I had moved from the barely able to hold AOL computer to something better, an HP Pavilion(which funny as it is, I keep getting that particular computer everytime I either upgrade or replace.ones that crash, burn and just decide to die. Different models of HP Pavilions have always seemed to find their way to me and always seemed to work better than the one IBM one I used to have that had more 'issues' than a latino woman w/bipolar who rarely took her meds, and trust me, I KNOW, what that's like since In experienced that full blast. So anyway I found out thru an email to Steve that what he did was an old trick. While he printed that pic, that pic put over two different indy groups on two different sides of the country at the same time. The WWA New England and the AIWA. It was a nice trick and one we'd repeat one more time.
After that issue hit the shelves. The WWA guys(Most were with Sousa's AWF and remembered the first time I did that with a pic of me w/ the late Steve Bradley), thanked me and asked how I was able to pull off putting over two different promotions that have nothing to do with each other at the same time. I just said "blame the editor he chose from the pics I sent him". I had gotten quite a few cards from the AIWA wrestlers as some fans had brought that issue to recent shows and showed them. I wound up getting another package from the AIWA, another t-shirt. this one featured The Neighborhoodz.
This is one thing I really hated, I found this SSSOOO fucking annoying.No matter what indy group I had been associated with, you go to the town where they're running a show and you always, ALWAYS, find that one guy trying to put himself over claiming he used to wrestle. "Oh I used to wrestle one time", and then because I'm a jerk, I want to persist on it knowing the guy's full of shit and see how long it takes before he stumbles and fumbles.At first I'd try, I'd really try not to get involved, just smoke my cig, and shake my head because I'd hear the guy blowing all sorts of smoke up some mark's ass. Then either the guy would see me shaking my head or I'd have enough and decide to say "ok, I check into this, who'd you work for, what was your wrestling name and who'd you face"?
Nine times out of ten, all of a sudden the guy gets quiet. and I got so familiar with that particular moment that I'd persist it. "I can run your name on the internet and see what pops up, so, tell me your wrestling name and who you worked for". One of three things happened. Either the guy would walk away, which was indeed the tell tale sign he was full of shit, or he'd try to get out of it so that way he'd still look good and fail which had me persist further so that wat he would fail and look worse, which was my favorite. or they'd try to call me on it and if someone I knew there had a laptop I'd say "I'll be right back I can get a laptop right now and you and I, we can research this together". I go inside the building because I unlike him worked for the wrestling company while he's outside with his ticket in his hand.I come back out with the laptop and the guy's gone.."where'd he go, he's such the big time draw I wanted him to show me", which always brought laughter from people outside. Now I knew just about every indy group running New England at the time and knew of 99.9% of the workers at the time so trying to run shit by me wasn't gonna work.
There's two instances where me pulling this are faves. One was at a WWA New England show in Milford,Mass. I was trading tapes with a ring announcer from the Century Wrestling Alliance. he and I found each other thru, of all places, Wrestling World, lol. He was going the the WWA show and he knew I'd be there so I knew what he looked like and I walked up to him and we exchanged tapes(if you didn't know and saw this you'd thing we were were doing a drug deal or something, LOL). I had liked the CWA stuff he sent me before and while we were catching up, some guy literally walks up to us and starts telling us how 'he used to wrestle", "he main evented here there and whatnot". and I really was annoyed so I just looked at the guy and said "I'm becomeing very allergic to bullshit in this business".
So I challenged the guy right then and there and had he said Canada, Mexico or even old New England indys before my time he may have had an argument, but NNNOOOOO, he dared to drop the name of Verne Gagne's AWA. Rich the CWA ring announcer laughed and said "Now I know you're full of shit, Bill, I was gonna suggest you hold back, but this is defientely your area of expertise". The guy looks at me and I'm saying "you main evented in the AWA, when, I'd love to hear this one".The guys says "wha, you don't believe me"? and I said "You hear my accent? Do I sound like I'm an New Englander to you? I'll answer it for you, No, I don't and why is that? because I'm from Chicago and grew up on the AWA motherfucker so you didn't main event shit there". before he could say anything I said "I'll tell you who actually DID main event in the AWA, and you're not one of them, you're not even a mid card to jobber and I'll prove it right now". I losted every wrestler I ever knew main evented a show in the AWA, from the Brusier and Crusher to the road warriors, Jimmy snuka, adrian adonis & Bob orton Jr. Tommy Rich, Jerry lawler, and on and on and on. I then for the hell of it pointed out every jobber jobber/prelim guy I ever saw on AWA tv. Nacho Ferrera, Tom 'Rocky' Stone, Jimmy Doo, Jake'the Milkman'Milliman(which if you check his name on wikipedia you'll see a reference to me there which i didn't even know about until recently), the sidbuster Kenny Jay, the iron Duke(who also was a referee), Rich just kept laughing and told the guy "You fucked up, you came across the one guy, who knows more about the AWA than anyone and you were try working him by dropping that name, you know you fucked up right"? The guy caled me an asshole and walked away.
The other favorite one was when I was with the WWA, I was trading tapes with a guy up in Canada and this guy claimed he worked for Continental Wrestling, worked matches with Tom Pritchard and knew him well. You know that gut feeling you get when you KNOW someone's full of shit and you really wanna, prove the guy wrong just so he shuts the fuck up? I got so sssoo tired of hearing it that I was trying to plot a way to find out. Seeing that both Tom and Bruce Pritchard were part of the WWF Training Dojo that the WWA was featuring again, let's see if I can find a way of broaching the subject with the man himself. What better way to find out, right?
Quincy,Salem and Newburyport, Mass. was the next set of shows, so I was out in back of the Armory in Quincy doing the parking(telling the wrestlers where they can park, etc). when Bruce and Tom showed up. I always went with the don't say much unless spoken to approach so most times I was just "hi how ya doin" with them and if any other subject came up that they wanted to talk to me about then I engaged. After I did that again, I decided to jump on finding out the truth and asked if I could get a moment of Tom's time. They were both like "You never ask us anything, you've been real and respectful you can ask us anything you want, we know you're the sheet guy in this company so go ahead". So I brought up "Doug's" name(whether 'Doug" is his real name or not, only I know for sure). and explained the situation and said " 'Doug' mentioned in particular the Continental show that had the funeral for the 'continental cat', I have that show on tape, I've looked at it over and over and don't see this guy anywhere, I'm almost positive he's full of shit but I wanted to ask you". I thn realized I sliped up and mentioned tapes and looked at Bruce and he smiled."Fred told us you're also the tape guy the the local guys go to for old school footage so it doesn't surprise us that you'd have some Continental", which took us off in different direction of what stuff of Tom's and Bruce(as a ring announcer I may have had)but Tom looked at me and said "Honestly, I never heard of the guy you asked about, you got a picture of him"? I said I had one at home and I'd bring it tomarrow to Salem. Bruce asked where I livewd and I said New Hampshire and he said "You're gonna drive back to NH and thyen drive back down here to Salem tomarrow? You are living the life aren't you. I replied with "If I'm gonna live the dream you have to live the life".Tom remembered meeting my now exwife at the farmington show so he asked "How's that working with your marriage"? And knowing I was a few weeks away from the divorce being finalized I laughed and said "It's not".
Next day in Salem, I go up to Tom and show him some of the stuff that "Doug" had sent me including his picture and Tom said "He's trying to work you, I have no reason to lie to you especially since you work for this company and if I lied, I'd have to see you again, so why lie, this guy, I don't know him and i can assure you, he never worked for Continental Wrestling". I showed it to Bruce because "Doug" claimed he was in Global Wrestling Federation when Bruce was there doing 'the expert' gimmick, Bruce said "Unless there's a GWF in Canada he wasn't in the one in Dallas when I was there". They both asked what I was gonna do now that I knew the truth, "When i get home tonight, I'm gonna make a rare call to Canada".
That night I get home, make the call to Canada and outright busted "Doug". "Oh uh well i never said I really knew him", wromg.. I threw back everything he said and suddenly "Doug" had to go, and hung up. Funny how everytime I called after that inquiring one last tape trade, "Doug" was never around, and I never did get that tape either from him, LOL!
That type of shit really irks me. I mean if anyone ever had a doubt that I was in wrestling on an indy level, I simply hand them the link to my article "So, You Wanna be a Promoter Huh" article on the WT&N webpage. There's enough people on my facebook friends list that know and can back it up as they either were there, or know enough about it to know I was in it.So please don't try to lie and say you "beat Lanny Poffo for so and so title", because you didn't, and it's real easy to show that you didn't.
back to the front door
