Normal Job?
by Black Dragon on 2001-09-01

Hello and welcome to Como's Encounters. Every so often I will be sharing a story from my life on the road. Some will make you laugh, some will make you shake your head. But, most will be something that no one with a "normal job" would ever have happen, so enjoy.

I've been getting heat about me saying I got fired or quit every tour for wfwa, Tony Contello's Winnipeg Wrestling. Well if you knew Tony you'd know why! Tony is a great guy, but didn't see eye to eye with me. Anyways it was the great white north death tour. Ask Storm, Jericho, Dr .Luther or Rivers about it. It has to be the worst tour ever. Northern Manitoba, in the winter. We already had 3 shows canceled because of deaths, so were losing money, but finally we are heading back to Winnipeg for a show. We see the road sign and say "247 km and we are home" 15 hours later!! See the roads up north are frozen lakes and creeks, so going over 15mph is almost impossible. Just before Winnipeg, Don Calus, who was booker at the time, comes and tells me "Tony can't pay you as much as he promised". So as Dynamite taught me, I go to Tony and tell him to pay me and I'm out of there. Well Tony tries to make excuses for the money and talks me into staying for the last 4 or 5 shows, so then I ask him where we were going. Tony answers, about a half hour from where we were just at. Then that was that. I got stiffed on my pay off, froze my ass off, ate shitty, slept in schools, found out Cheese Whiz costs 13.50 for 1kg, learned that 10 year old girls up north can spit as good as any red neck, sniffing gas in 50 below weather is not good, T.V. tapings aren't always as big a deal as one might think, and the biggest baddest wrestlers can become as goofy as 10 year old kids in the right setting.

Had a blast, but enough is enough.

For some reason Jason"Happy" Helton wanted to leave with me. It was his first tour anywhere outside of the Calgary Territory. I tried to talk him out of leaving because I usually got hired back, and I had many other options open to me , like Japan and Mexico. I even told him that he may never work again{ ya right!}. Something really important must have Happy outta there. I really thought that was not a good move by Happy, but he went from the guy everybody would pull ribs on, or try to push around, to the guy that would plan his own "run in" to pay back the people he thought deserved it. (But that's a different story)

Hope he didn't learn any of that from me. Anyways Happy never went back for Tony, and is currently living and working in Australia,and I think that was my last trip for Tony.

So that was one of many, fun, crazy, hellish, go home broke, tours of Winterpeg. So anyone who knows Tony, would understand "dat fuucing ccoommoo", but I have to say I would have not traded it for anything.

That's all for now, another encounter with Como coming soon.