Belly to Bellyaches
by B. Brian Burke on 2001-08-10

A series of bizarre exchanges took place this past week between sister NWA offices ECCW Vancouver and CWF Winnipeg, based largely our last column "A Hard Look at ECCW and the NWA". Both promoters and some wrestlers got involved in swapping comments and challenges on the CWF message board.

ECCW Champion Dr. Luther, the hero of the last piece, set about to mend some fences at the same time as ECCW's Juggernaut was burning bridges in a posting that was evidently forwarded to NWA President Howard Brody for disciplinary action.

Juggernaut fired off a rambling attack on CWF owner Ernie Todd that included comments that may be actionable but will not be repeated here. Basically he tried to climb onto Luther's bandwagon, that as an independant wrestler he was not beholden to the NWA, which he also slagged. Juggernaut also suggested that Todd had avoided him to delay an inevitable beating, and dared Todd to forward the comments to Brody. Offer accepted, it seems. The entire string has now been deleted by CWF.

However at the same time Luther had sent a reasoned and intelligent explanation for how it had come to pass that he was working for an NWA promotion in Vancouver but for the opposition in Winnipeg. Luther said that he had only been approached to wrestle for CWA after he was committed to his good friend Don Callis/Cyrus, and in any event his knee injury (sustained against NWA Champ Steve Corino) would have resulted in him missing the booking anyways. So Juggernaut is now on the wrong side of the fence he torched.

Todd responded " Juggernaut is a nobody... I had a meeting with Don Callis...I harbor no personal bad feelings towards Luther."

ECCW spin attempt backfires

ECCW co-owner and booker Gorgeous Michelle Starr, whom it is noted is about the only wrestler in the 2 offices besides Luther and Tony Kozina who gets booked outside of their home territory, leaped into the fray. He offered to return to Winnipeg to wrestle CWF stars, and bring Juggs and Kozina with him. Now the posting, which may have been a bit of a grandstand ploy, were not at all written like a shoot or a challenge. Actually, given the state of both promotions at the gate, it may have been a good idea. But the response of workers and fans in the CWF was mind-boggling.

Comments ran the gamut from "the men with no morals" who run ECCW looking to steal Todd's alleged national TV deal, "whatever happened to those so-called tapings (2 years ago)", "(Juggernaut) hates the NWA, it figures a goof like Republic would have him as a representative of the company", and "The CWF will use ECCW for TV jobbers just like the WCW did with Kronic". There is clearly no respect for ECCW in the CWF.

Finally Ernie Todd responded to Starr's offer.

"There are no plans to have an ECCW invasion of the CWF but we would still like to have Dr. Luther on one of our shows- Luther is a great worker and I would welcome the opportunity to have him on our show."

So Todd basically buried his NWA co-hort Starr and, for that matter, Juggernaut and Kozina, but bent over and spread 'em for a man who refered to him as a "joke" and worse, Dr. Luther. I guess that tells us how strong of a draw Ernie thinks Luther is in Winnipeg.

This morning a humiliated Dave Republic posted an apology on the CWF board for Juggernauts actions. "Such comments are not appropriate..I am truly sorry for any offence or hardships those comments have caused." He then pushed again for the already rejected invasion angle.

The premise that started this debate between the 2 flagging NWA promotions in Canada was this - that ECCW needed to rethink it's association with an NWA in which Ernie Todd had influence. Dr. Luther backed that theory up in his response on this site. However, let us restate the question in simpler terms and invite fans, wrestlers, and journalists to ponder the thought-

With friends like these, does ECCW need enemies???