The Wrestling home of Moondog Manson

Actually I changed my mind. The Willie Nelson tribute column will be next week, but tea and toast will still be served in the drawing room as scheduled.

Had the chance to take a pair of wrestling related road trips recently, alongside fellow Manson.com writers Sam Halsall and Jodie Williams. The first was to the beautiful city of Port Alberni. Just picture what would be left if every other city in the world was decimated by a nuclear explosion, and the resulting residue drifted in and formed a town, that would be Port Alberni. A free British Columbia Wrestling show was the order of the evening.

The evening did not exactly get off to an auspicious start. Which is bound to happen when you let backyarders open the show. About the only positive thing that can be said about it was that it was brief. Never seen anybody take a schoolboy by bumping like he was taking a german suplex before. Or a "Rock Bottom" on his head. Sam was the recipient of a frowning from the father(at least until he finds a loophole in the birth certificate)of one of the boys, due to the "BACKYARDERS SUCK!"sign he was carrying. This will culminate in a brawl at Quizno's restaurant in Nanaimo, as Sam does not like being separated from their delicious pizza subs any longer than he has to. By now, you have likely gleaned from our columns that the two of us at a wrestling show is usually complete with running commentary ala Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

By the way, if you are a backyarder who finds himself booked at a pro show, either by luck or as a reward for passing cheerleader tryouts, hanging out in the ring at intermission signing autographs just looks bush.

A couple of Manson fans (He has fans???) talked the sound guy into playing "C is for Cookie" by Cookie Monster as his entrance theme for the night, but of course forgot by match time. Still, Manson did allow me to his opponent with a chair, so its all good.

Match of the night, no contest: Brett Prime vs Aaron Idol. The future of indy wrestling in this province is in good hands with these two young uys making waves.

Manson wrestled a second time, this time it was tag alongside Cody "Cremator" Washington vs Dirty Money(BCW being his promotion, and the benefactor of the free show) and Masked Diablo.

Folks, what happened next defied imagination.

Manson used a wrestling hold!. Yes, Moondog Manson!. A properly applied wrestling hold too, a Boston Crab at that! So Manson and Cody get the tapout win to close the show, and are in the ring with their newly won BCW tag teams belts. And then, most likely by accident, it happened.

Sunny day...everythings A-OK!...

The dreaded Sesame Street theme song was now playing. Manson looked like a deer in the headlights. He may very well have gotten whiplash from turning around to look at the sound guy so fast.

The next night was an ECCW show in Duncan, and much like the Oakland Raiders in the Super Bowl, the ball was dropped repeatedly and often.

You'd figure there was logic: The Honky Tonk Man helped draw a good house, and ECCW would have its own guys put on an awesome show. It didn't happen that way.

Brett Prime went from MOTN Thurday, to a barely watchable mixed tag Friday. And we got a dose of bad 80's costume wrestling in Cremator vs The Zombie. Just picture something the WWF would have come up with circa 91-96, except now pour toxic waste over it, and have a low flying plane drop fecal matter from above, you'll have this. Seeing Dirty Money in bad halloween makeup, doing a zombie walk to the ring was bad enough, watching him attempt a spear which pretty much turned into falling on top of his confused opponent was enough to drive me to the souvenir stand mid-match.

I asked Stu Kemp "What the hell is this?" to which Stu replied "What do ya expect out of a couple of dead guys?". As usual, he was precious little help. Oh, BTW, Stu, that WAS me who yelled over the crowd at you after the crowd waited a good 45 minutes to be let in.

Ya know whats really funny? The Honky Tonk Man has a personal assistant who wears a lookalike hairdo, sideburns and everything. Oh my lord, Mini-Honky! Do you think he gets to do cool stuff like the guy who played Mini-Me, like commercials with Yao Ming,or appear on the cover of Playboy with scantily clad women?Probably not.

But, the crowd popped like Jebus had come thru the curtain when HTM made his grand ring entrance. And the fact that they sang along with him did not fill me with optimism for humanity.

Here is something that confuses me even now : Why would Honky put a guy in a headlock, walk him over to a table, slam him headfirst into the table, and then walk over to the other side of the building just to do the same move again? Honky, you're already right at a table, no true need for a cross country trip. So, if you are ever in a fight, don't ask HTM for strategy,k?

I knew I should have taken the road trip to the Toby Keith concert in Vancouver that night instead. Although I likely could not have milked it for a column.