From: Scott.Simpson@f904.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Scott Simpson)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling
Subject: My second pro wrestling appearance
Date: 18 Aug 92 02:44:24 GMT


Teen Pro Wrestling - The Second Trip

a report by "Scooter" Scott Simpson

Well, before I begin, here is/was/were the dates given to me for
the Midget Mania/Teen Pro Wrestling tour this summer.

(All dates in August)
Fri 14th - Picton, Ontario
Sat 15th - Bracebridge, Ontario
Sun 16th - North Bay, Ontario [2pm]
Mon 17th - Sturgeon Falls, Ontario
Thr 20th - Bancroft, Ontario [Global TV]
Wed 26th - Midland, Ontario

Of these, the 15th, 16th, 20th and 26th were supposed to be TV
tapings, but "Metal Myster" (sic) Don Gallant, who was
responsible for booking the television, didn't follow-up on any
of the contacts, so as of this time (Mon 17th) we have no
television, despite my intrepid efforts.

We also had no Teen Pros.  At least two were supposed to be
brought up from a promotion in Massachusetts, but the promoter
down there didn't return any calls, so there was no trained Teen
Pro talent.

With that out of the way, here's the story ... Myself (Scooter,
play-by-play man for the [currently in-the-air] Teen Pro TV
program) and Captain Arun (my broadcast colleague) planned on
having my dad drive us to Bracebridge on the Saturday for the
show at 7:30pm.  We were going to leave between 3:30pm and 4pm...
I stayed up til about 4:30am the night before, and slept until my
parents woke me up at 3:30pm... Eeek!  So, Lex (Sean Garden, from
the Teen Pro school earlier in the year) shows up at about
3:35... Surprise to me, he was supposed to be working.  Great,
that makes three bodies... Plus Kevin "The Kid" Mackenzie (see my
previous post of the Cornwall show) had confirmed late the
previous night, so we had 4 teen-pro types coming to the show.

We left about 4pm and got to Bracebridge around, oh, 5:20 or so.
While driving up the main street looking for a place to eat, Lex
spotted Jeff (The Irish Leprechaun, one of the top two midgets
wrestling today, and our little hero (well, he's a heel, but he's
a hero to us)) and Little John Adams (bah, he never bathes)
outside a hardware store.  We pulled over and saw Jeff and said
hello to John.  Phil (Watson, Whipper Watson Jr.) drove by and
saw us and pulled over.  He directed us to the arena and said he
had to get back to the hotel.  So we went and had some pizza and
then headed to the arena.

We arrived at the arena and found the ring set up but no chairs
at ringside.  It turns out that they wanted to charge Phil 45
cents each for chair rentals.  He wouldn't pay it so there were
no seats at ringside.  I went ringside and found Little Ninja
practicing sunset flips on his partner (opponent), Moses, aka
Little Moses, aka Mighty Moe, etc.  Ninja was pretty upset.  He's
pretty green and only knows one finish - being pinned by Moses.
This was clear to me on the Cornwall show where they tried to do
a different finish and Ninja almost screwed it up.  Anyhow, he
was getting yelled at in the ring by Moses and Little Mister T
and looked close to tears.  I felt bad because he's a really nice
guy.  I don't know who trained him, if anyone, or if he just
snuck into the business.  He's probably 22 or 23 years old and
lives in Youngstown, Ohio.

A good amount of stuff went on between that time and start time.
When I first got into the dressing room, the first thing I heard
was Little T saying "Kayfabe, homeboy."  My first instinct was to
say "Hey, don't be using any of this kayfabe shit around me," but
I just kept quiet, since I don't think any of the other teen-pros
knew what he said.  Phil (the boss) looked in pretty bad shape.
Things hadn't been going well on the tour, his supporting staff
hadn't been doing their jobs, they lost the bell the night
before, etc etc.  I heard that he started smoking again that day
after dying of a heart attack a year and a half earlier.  There
was not an upbeat atmosphere when Phil was around that night.

Me and the other Teen Pros got into the ring and started doing
some moves.  People were starting to file in.  We took some
pictures.  Kevin & Lex started doing clotheslines and other big
moves.  Phil came in and got them to stop.  "This place is full
of marks," he said.  "Instead of 'Teen Pro Wrestling' on your
shirts, it should say 'Wrestling Is Phoney'.  You don't do
finishing moves like that with people all around."  I agreed.

So, show time had finally arrived.  The stands on either side
were pretty full, and there were some kids and teens scattered at
ringside.  Maybe 75 or so on the floor.  We'd determined that I'd
be refereeing the first match between Ninja and Moses, but I
didn't get to sit down with them like last time and discuss what
the high spots would be in the match (we did this last time so
I'd know what to do, since midget wrestling is so ref-dependent).

The midgets all went outside and piled into a big stretch
limosine.  Peter Paul (the ring announcer, one of Phil's
marketers) introduced Phil to the audience as the son of world
wrestling champion Whipper Billy Watson and a world junior
champion as well.  Phil got into the ring and the limo rolled
into the arena.  One by one, the midgets climbed out of the big
car and hopped into the ring.  All but the two in the first match
left and I got in.  "And your referee for this bout, Teen Pro
Wrestler, Scooter!"  Captain Arun booed loudly and the crowd
laughed politely.

I managed not to get hit by Ninja's nunchucks this time (didn't
get hit the other time, but I'm told that it was really close!)

The match was pretty slow.  It went one minute short of the 20
minute limit.  The only real "high spots" in the match were the
underwear spot and one where they trip me and pin me.  The
underwear goes like this:  Moses has Ninja in a full nelson.
Ninja slowly breaks out of it and pushes Moses' hands down to
waist level.  Moses goes to do a rollup off the ropes but Ninja
holds on to the ropes and Moses pulls out Ninja's underwear
(well, underwear in Ninja's outfit).  He looks at it, and Ninja
checks my pants a few times.  Moses pulls my pants down and Ninja
notices that it's *HIS* underwear (gasp!) and chases Moses around
the ring trying to get it.  He eventually puts the underwear on
Moses' head and airplane spins him.  Moses then kicks me in the
knee, I fall, Moses puts the underwear on my head and pushes me
over.  I miss two three-counts and Ninja yells "HEY, REF!" then I
come over and make a two count as Moses kicks out.  It goes over
well.

Ninja pulled off the finish okay.  He was a bit close to the
ropes, but not so close that I couldn't make the count.  It
looked good on video (I got a complete video copy of it; I took
my camcorder and still camera and my dad was kind enough to spend
the evening in the press booth taping the thing and snapping
pix).  After the match, though, he was quite upset.  He said Phil
gave him a really nasty look.  He said the tour was getting worse
and worse.  Arun talked to him alone in the dressing room during
the second match.  Aparrently Ninja did a sunset flip where he
was supposed to be backdropped.  I looked for that on the tape
and found it.  The sunset went way too close to the ropes and
Ninja looked hurt when Moses booted him in the ears to get out of
the sunset.  Phil told him very sternly to "never do that again".
Oh well.  We all agreed the crowd was pretty dead for the first
match, but I think Moses & Ninja need to work more comedy into
their match.  There was plenty of good wrestling action -- good
suplexes, great kicks, but it wasn't funny enough.  And I'll try
to be a more interesting ref next time.

The second match featured guys who I think are rated the top two
midget wrestlers in the world today: Tiger Jackson and The Irish
Leprechaun.  It was a good match, almost all high spots.  You
have to see these guys to appreciate how funny they are.  They
finished with a variation on their regular ending -- Tiger does a
dive off the top rope, but this time Jeff reversed it and pulled
Tiger's tights for the win.

Then came our Teen Pro Demonstration.  We didn't have anything
planned - first mistake.  Phil introduced us: Kevin The Kid,
Scooter, Lex, and Metal Myster (sic).  Arun came ringside to snap
photos.  We started out with a lockup with Kev and Lex.  Their
lockup was a bit tight (eg. their left arm should be straighter).
Then Donny (Metal Meister) locked up with me and put me in a top
wristlock.  Not too believable since I'm 5'6", 220 pounds and
Donny's shorter than me and very skinny.  Phil did a hip toss on
Kevin, a backdrop, a suplex.  He asked Kev & Lex to do a hip
toss.  They locked up (?), did a headlock (??), Lex flung Kev
into the ropes, let Kev run past him, then sort of bumped into
each other the second time past.  "Get with the program, guys"
mumbled Phil.  So they tried again.  They locked up (!??),
headlock, into ropes, hip toss.  I think I'm the only one out of
the Teen Pro group (aside from Phil, of course) who knows that
when Phil asks for a hip toss he just wants off the ropes and
BOOM, hip toss.  Hm.  Phil wasn't pleased.  Phil then did a
double-dropkick -- meaning he stood me & Kev up side by side and
dropkicked both of us at once.  He did this earlier as people
were filing in and it looked a bit more impressive.  The dropkick
hit me just at the bottom of my ribs on the left side.  It looked
alright.  Kev slammed me.  Phil then armdragged me and I broke
the ring (!).  Really, one of the support pipes came out and the
main centre beam also popped out.  We broke for a 15-minute
intermission.

The intermission went way over time.  After 20 minutes of six
guys trying to push the ring back into place... we peeled back
the canvas and padding and removed all but two of the large
plywood ring boards.  We popped the pieces back and set the
boards back in place, then re-layed the padding and tied down the
canvas and pinned back the ring apron.  <sigh>.  I think I'm more
sore from that than from all the wrestling.

The next match really heated up the place: 2/3 falls tag with
Frenchy Lamonte (wrestling as "Little Wolf") and Little John
Adams (sniff... sniff... ack!) vs Little Farmer Pete and Little
Mr. T (he got the biggest pop of the night).  Big heat in this
match.  Good guys win.

Battle royal next.  Tiger wins.  Good brawl on the way back to
the dressing room between Moses & Little John.  Kev & Donny tried
to break it up and I think Donny got a little hurt.  I was
watching from a bit of a distance and Donny got tangled up in the
fight and fell on his arm on the concrete.  I said "Hey, did you
hurt your arm?" and he said "Big time."  He seemed fine
afterwards though.

Notes on the show:
    Bah.  Not a great show.  I'm disappointed with Lex and his
performance.  He's a great guy but I don't know how far he can go
with the wrestling.  Kevin was good but he should have known
better as far as the demo went.  I feel bad for Ninja; he's the
new guy in the group and he's feeling the pressure.  I feel bad
for Phil; nothing's going right for him.
    I got more insight into the wrestling biz.  I was surprised
to find that the guys actually do sort themselves out into heel
and babyface dressing rooms.  It was great to hear (or overhear)
the lingo used here for a change.  In the heel dressing room just
before the show I heard Phil going over the lineup with the guys.
He outlined the ending for the battle royal.  So-and-so was being
"put over" ... And Tiger would get to win because he "did the
job" earlier in the night.  Phil mentioned the marks.  Moses,
when asked why he wouldn't sign autographs unless people bought a
$3 picture, said it was cuz he was a heel and he lost the match.
Little T saying "kayfabe".

    As it stands now, every card I work on could be my last work
with pro wrestling on the inside.  My next work will be this
Thursday in Bancroft -- Global Television Network (Canada) will
have Bill Bramah there taping his weekly "small town news"
segment there featuring Teen Pro Wrestling.  It looks like me and
Arun will be the only teens there.  <sigh>.

    I have a videotape copy of this show for all you collectors
who want exclusive midget footage or who just want to see a
netter in the ring :).

Later,
            >> Scooter
            scott.simpson@f904.n250.z1.fidonet.org
--  
Scott Simpson - via FidoNet node 1:250/98
INTERNET: Scott.Simpson@f904.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG
Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling