The Wrestling home of Moondog Manson

Two weeks ago, on October 24th, I laid out a timeline that included the busiest period of my career.

I was producing and working on live wrestling shows for John Parlett and ECCW, as well as keeping track of political developments involving the industry; hosting the theatrical debut of a documentary, BC Bodyslams, which I helped Dan Denton produce in 1999 about the promotion; and doing PR and scripting the launch event for a new book One Ring Circus, by Brian Howell, about the promotion.

Live shows, a film and a book. In Canada, it is almost impossible to have so many opportunities in the indy wrestling business. And here I am, helping my 3 friends put before the public their visions of ECCW wrestling. Of course, the typical lunacy and strange turns of the wrestling business make this ongoing integration with the arts world a challenge. Enjoyable, but a challenge.

Case in point.

October 24th, the beginning of this timeline. ECCW has asked me to help with Abbotsford, where crowds in the Legion Hall have been OK and a local boy, Grunt is getting a push for the first time. Scotty Mac specifically asked me to go and see his match with Vance Nevada. Vance lines me up a ride so all I do is relax on the drive out.
How tough can running this be?

Well, to start with, this being the entertainment business, (and make no mistake, he is an entertainment promoter and not a traditional wrestling promoter), John Parlett is, as Don Cherry might say, a few pre-game pops to the wind.

Vance is grinning mischievously at me, as for the first time, he and I get to work around the spectacle of a slighly lubricated frontman. Then there was the travel problems for a few of the guys, notably our guest Maddog Kimbal, aka EMLL's Perro Ruso. One misconception about wrestling shows is that they can all be planned out in advance. Well, that night guys from almost every match were late, including Mr. in-the-opener?? Scotty Mac, and we had a back-up plan of a totally changed card except for the Main Event. But that was part of the charm of a real breakthrough evening for this era of ECCW.

No one panicked. We all knew exactly how to carry the show, everyone understood the back-up plan and John was totally cool with whatever had to be done. Finally everyone made it and the line-up was unchanged. John hosted the show like a Borscht Belt stand-up lounge act, the old hippie dressed in his tie-dyes, working the crowd hurling insults and innuendo. And in a rarity because of antiquainted BC laws, for once there was alcohol in the crowd. An evening of 110 fans in a small hall, drinking and laughing and cheering and a very animated bunch, one of the hottest crowds I have seen here. No one was immune from the barbs, including myself. TJ Sleaze was in fine form.

Then when the show started, the fans got on Vance Nevada something fierce.
I believe the chant was "woody".

Meanwhile, I had my chance to crack Vance up myself when the heretofore unnamed new ref trainee was introduced as "George Gadaski Jr." Vance and Scotty went 10 perfect minutes.

There was a tag match between Skag Rollins and Seth Knight, and the Raines Brothers. These 4 kids had a series of great matches this fall, beautiful finishes, that revolved around the heels losing a humiliating condition and ending up in makeup and dresses, fighting like hell for a win and freedom from cross-dressing. I actually had to go out and call "2 minutes remaining", or it would have gone on far longer than 30 minutes. At the end, Michael Raines got his bell rung. He was down for awhile, Skag and Seth cut a good Club International preview of their title match the next night, and then I interviewed the Raines's on the apron in a half-shoot wrestling as a sportscaster way. The fans cheered and the pace and polish and effort showed me that these young guys as performers had come along so well in the past few months.

As John continued to crack on the audience "I don't know how many of you there are here, but I've had a coupla drinks and it sure look like a lot", Ladies Choice got in the ring to defend his title in the main event. It was 9.25. Perfect, I thought, 30 minute time limit, we are done at 10 PM.

Well everytime LC opened his mouth, the fans drowned him out. On and on, comically, he egged them to heckle. "That's 5 minutes, brother, right there", LC chortled. Finally out came Grunt and the match started. By the time Nevada cheated for LC and Scotty made the save, the tag team match for the next show in Abbotsford was already sold in the minds of the fans in the Legion.
The crew were all happy, and John had put together a perfect little bar-style show, common in Manitoba and a necessary component of any business plan for a promotion in the entertainment market.

Oct. 25- ECCW Halloween Hell, John's biggest day of the year. The biggest challenge I have had in producing a show as it was part wrestling, part spectacle. The set, a graveyard replete with jesting tombstones (Here lies K Fabe- knew too much), graves, eerie archway, was movie-set quality. I have never seen anyone put so much effort into a set for a wrestling show.

I made a decision when I arrived at Bridgeview that after the show I was told had been crucial to the success of the card. The set came off a corner of the rectangular hall at an angle. I had the ring turned to parallel the set, so the room was no longer all square and had atmosphere. The chairs around the ring shifted closer and had much better sightlines to the entrance, and the optics in the hall were much improved.

The show itself was full of Halloween-themed bouts, such as a casket match and the weapons battle royal, a 3 way comedy bout between oddball gimmick performers that stole the show, the debut of Bambi's new bustline, and a world first- a challenge match between 2 Pro Wrestling Top 500 performers, with #293 Vance Nevada seeking to claim the spot of # "2-6-9" (The fans picked this chant up out of nowhere) Adam Firestorm. What an awesome opener they had. John I had to put together a show in front of the fans with 9 bouts and all that goes with it, and I was insanely busy running back and forth. The opener made it much easier.

John's instincts were right because the casket match, a formulaic movie-style battle between The Cremator and The Zombie, worked like a charm and the fans loved it. In that situation they accepted the goofiness of it and still got into the match and the slam of the casket door.

The last match before intermission was #1 contender Moondog Manson vs. #2 Scotty Mac in a dog collar chain contest. Now earlier this summer, when Scott had the belt and Manson got his shot, the ring broke and they pulled out a brawl all over the building to compensate.

Then last month's rematch saw the stretcher break when in the heat of battle Scotty tested whether lofting Manson in a backsuplex onto it could cause it to splinter...300 lbs onto a wooden plank, hmmmm... which led to a Keystone Copps style scene of me directing the creation of an emergency substitute stretcher and the removal of the broken one by the highstepping crew while Moondog and Scotty fought like hell on top of us. Manson won that one.

Well sure enough, this time, the dog collar broke. So for the third time these 2 young pros worked around the unpredictability of the business and like old-school vets, turned it into a hell of a match which Scotty won. 3 straight times that something has gone wrong, and they didn't miss a beat.

Then after intermission, the long suffering Seth and Skag took the tag belts in a solid match when Bam Bam Bambi's new attributes caught the glaze of Abbadon and his partner Gorilla was pinned. When I huddled with the losers in the ring (neither of them "talk") and announced that next time, the babyfaces would have someone in their corner to watch their backs, the house popped. Then Abby spoke and the crowd was shocked. And that is oft times, the point of pro wrestling, the shock of the unexpected.

The Battle Royal saw Johnny Canuck win over Kimball (who is a very gracious and professional individual) and get jumped by Parlett's big boys who had fallen out with ECCW and made a surprise return, Wrathchild and Killswitch. With Michelle Starr's trip to England cancelled, he got a great cameo at the climax, hammering the heels with a chair in the head repeatedly to save Johnny.
ECCW's hardcore tradition was well represented in that ring by the blood and strong emotions, and the fans ate it up.

(After the show Vance and 2 of the young boys headed off to my hometown Winnipeg to work a number of shows including the finale of Bobby Jay's office. I gave Vance a pile of old programs from Calgary, Kansas City, Mexico and elsewhere to read in the car. Travel is the essence of the indy scene and it will be a test for the youngsters to adjust to a different territory.)

The footage of that show gave John plenty of evidence that the crew and Halloween production was a competitive entertainment product. It was his big day and he was happy with the results.
After the show we headed out with Scotty Mac to the club, where our fabulous buzz was cut to the ground at 2 AM when I discovered that Surrey, BC, Canada's 9th largest city, was indeed, the car break-in and theft capital of Canada. The cops are so overwhelmed they don't even bother with the rudiments of investigating at all- like say, how long were you parked here, where were you parked, etc. All the thieves took was gym bags, so there went my show clothes, spare stuff, and the gym bag that I took everywhere since 1987. The other bag- don't ask. It put a mean turn on a good week, but frankly I knew I couldn't get too worked up over it, I still had a car and a very busy 2 weeks to go.
Oct. 25th- I joined Scotty Mac at Verne Sieberts collectors show, which drew thousands of people and Scotty got to sell a few tapes and shirts. I was tired but still took time to look at the old cards, ESSO NHL Power Players, table hockey games and the like. Then I took Beautiful Bruce for dinner with Brian Howell and his wife, and we talked over our book business and ideas for the launch before taking off for the cinema where the documentary was playing. Now a key sequence of the film involves a bad accident injuring Bruce, a midget of great likeability. He had never seen the footage of what happened that night with him and Starr and EZ Ryder, and I knew HE was going to be shocked. First it was my turn.

to be continued...