From: cg@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (charles.gavinelli)
Subject: Weekend of Champions Part V
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 12:34:38 GMT

	We saw WWF jobber Mike Fury milling about. He is HUGE.

	I then made my move to find Fred the Elephant Boy. I asked him
to do me a favor. I wanted him to thank my brother (over the phone)
for fixing my car for me. I got my brother's machine. Fred left the message.
My brother told me later that he called half of Brooklyn playing back
the message.

	When I came back, I noticed a familiar-looking kid was standing
in front of Bruno's table, talking to him. I sat down and Pete, who was
standing between them, told me it was the kid from the Donohue show on
wrestling (WWF) scandals. That story goes like this:
In Jan 1991, "Barney" was at the Nassau Coliseum with his Boy Scout Troop.
He wanted to meet the stars. They told him that Mel Phillips is the guy to 
talk to. Mel allegedly said that if the kid allowed Mel to perform sex on
the kid that he'd allow the kid to see the wrestlers. They went into a car
and Mel had a "taste" (to steal a Pat Patterson phrase). "Barney", later
on, decided to take action against the WWF. McMahon, before the infamous
Donahue show allegedly said that if "Barney" did Vince a favor that Vince
would take care of the incident with Phillips (I guess it meant that
Vince would give "Barney" some money). The favor that Vince wanted is to
ask a critical question to one of the panelists. It was decided that
"Barney" was going to ask Bruno "is the reason that you are so upset
because Vince fired your son?" On the show, Bruno brushed the kid off with
no problem, basically saying when you grow up and learn all the facts,
then come talk to me. After the show, Vince gave the kid the brush-off.
"Barney" called Steve Planamenta and Planamenta allegedly said "go crawl
under the rock you came out from".  This has been well documented in the sheets.

	The kid was apologizing to Bruno for what he said on Donohue.
That was their first meeting since that show. Bruno told him "don't worry,
that's allright. I knew what was going on". He wished the kid luck and
told him to basically handle the situation properly.

	I felt bad for what happened to this kid. I got out of my
chair and decided to put my undergraduate and post graduate education
to work: I told the kid "next time you want to meet a wrestler, come to
one of these conventions". Pete also told him not to "sell out", but rather
stick to his principles and get a good lawyer. I tell you, with advice like
that,  this kid can't go wrong... I later told Arezzi about this news-making
situation.  He had hoped that the video camera would have caught it.

	The doors closed at 6PM. We went back to the room and ordered 
Pizza. Pizza and Wrestling - it's the best thing going today. We were wiped. 
We rested until 8PM at which time there was a Q and A session with the stars.

	Just before the Q and A started, I went to the pay phone to call
my wife. Jimmy Valiant walks by to use the phone next to me and says
"Hey, how you doin' brother?". We make our calls. As he's walking out,
he looks at me again and says "Hey, how you doin' brother?" I think
that Arezzi should have sold a shirt with a picture of the old and
new Jimmy Valiant on it. Under the old picture it would say "this
is your brain". Under the new picture "This is your brain on drugs".
Pete later told me the same thing happened to him in the john - Jimmy V
giving him a big "How you doin' brother?" Whatever has happened to this 
once-great wrestler, you have to feel sorry for him. Too bad his "brother",
Luscious Johnny, cancelled out of the convention.

	The Q and A starts. Halfway through, Valiant doses off (or is it 
spelled "dozes" - oh well, maybe he was doing both). It was
a great time nonetheless. Albano was in rare form. Plenty of WWF trashing
and a call for wrestling to return back to regionalized promotions.
Wrestler Tim Horner talked about how regionalized promotions would
help wrestlers avoid Titan where they wouldn't "have to take it up 
the ying yang".  It ended with the crowd urging Nickoli Volkoff to sing the 
Russian national anthem. As soon as he sung the first *note*, 3/4 of the room
(Pete and I included) got up and saluted. It was great!!

	We were completely wiped out and went right to bed shortly afterwards.
================================================================================

Next: Killer Kowalski shows up. Also, the world's oldest wrestling groupie.



							Charlie
Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling