From: cg@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (charles.gavinelli)
Subject: Weekend of Champions Revier: Part 2
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 14:42:00 GMT

Saturday, August 29

	We were psyched. We went down to the
hotel lobby and had breakfast with Donny Liable. He talked about a
conversation that he had with Kamala - something about how his sister
runs moonshine and as a result of this unsavory practice, Kamala had
his house and Restaurant burned down. I didn't capture all of the fine
points of what happened. I asked him about something he said on the radio 
recently. He met J.J. Dillon at Cooperstown NY. J.J. is a big baseball fan. 
Don got his autograph and the WWF-employed Dillon signed it "J.J. Dillon -
Four Horsemen". The breakfast capsule time was 7:36AM.

	We entered the area where the convention would take place.
There was one small room where most of the wrestlers would be seated. Once
you exited this room, you went into a larger room where there would be
about 40 dealers selling wrestling collectibles. Zbysko and Sammartino would be
seated at the head of the larger room, separated from the other wrestlers.
The major theme to the convention was the fact that this was the
first time that the two had met on friendly terms since their famous feud
in the WWF in the 1980's.

	We ran into Fred Hornby, who was one of the dealers. Hornby works for
1010AM WINS (he told us he is semi-retired)
radio in New York. For those of you who have heard this station,
once or twice an hour they credit those people who helped put the
22 minutes of news together. Fred is the "Fred Hornby at the
editor's desk". The first thing I asked him when I saw him was
"if you are here, who's at the editor's desk"? Fred is a big wrestling fan.
He told us how he has tried to slip in wrestling results into mainstream
news every now and then only to get it taken out.

	We got to talk to Carmine DiSperto/U.B. Marks (a great pseudonym
as a wrestling writer)/The Kreator (An Independent manager). I was
expecting to meet three different people or a guy with three heads like
Ghidra from the Godzilla movies, but it was just one guy. His table
was right next to the Sammartino and Zbysko table. His big item for sale:
a Fred Blassie ring jacket for $150.

	A mother/daughter team from the Seaside Heights area of New Jersey
were selling teddy bears that were dressed up like wrestlers. They
were hysterical! They had Cactus, Flair, Michaels, Shango, Undertaker, among
many others, about two dozen all together. I went to the restroom and I
wasn't sure that if the brown ooze that followed was due to the Papa Shango
bear or dinner at the Buccaneer.

	Liger was the first wrestler to show up. He was as short as
I expected him to be but he was much thicker in the arms and chest
in person. Being that I was a staff member, I got to spend a couple of
minutes with him before they opened the door. There was a photographer for
a Japanese wrestling mag that acted as his interpreter. Liger knew little
English, but you could tell that he was a real gentleman and happy to be there.
When I got back to our Bruno/Zbysko station, Pete went to see Liger and also
took some pictures with him.

	Others slowly began to fill the autograph room - Koloff, Volkoff,
Jimmy "Boogie Woogie Man" Valiant, Wendy Richter ... and the one and only
captain Lou Albano. Lou pretty much stole the show that weekend - well, at 
least he was the loudest one there, both in voice and garb. Where does he get
those shirts?!?

	Valiant looked like he was in a daze. He had tatoos all over the
place with a ZZ Top beard. As one wrestler later told me - "Valiant looks 
ripped" - and I don't think he was referring to body conditioning.
I witnessed this exchange:

Albano: Jimmy - I went to the doctor with a frog on my head. The doctor
	said "can I help you"? The frog said "yeah, get this fat bastard
	off my ass"!

Valiant: (Stares blindly at Albano)

Albano: Jimmy! I went to the same doctor later. He told me I was fat.
	I told him I wanted a second opinion. He told me I was ugly too.

Valiant: (Stares blindly at Albano)

	Lou repeated those jokes at various points throughout the
weekend. Another one he told was that he has a friend that's a doctor -
the famous Dr. Popuffnic  - who's a psychologist and a gynecologist-
he works both ends.

	I had a bunch of wooden tongue depressors with me. I had all
the villains and former villains sign them. I gave them all the same
speech: "In life, I may need to take a shortcut or two and if I do,
one of these may come in handy. I'd like your seal of approval if
you don't mind". Albano signed two, Volkoff also signed one. Ivan Koloff
signed his name and wrote "Approved Item". That's the one I'll keep with
me the next time someone tries to cut in front of me at the supermarket.

	Seeing Koloff face to face is a sight. His forehead looks like
Stevie Wonder's attempt at drawing a street map of Manhattan. 

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Next: Bruno and Larry arrive...



							Charlie