E-mail any comments, questions, or random thoughts about this column to Trophar@Lycos.com and I will post some of your letters in the mailbag section of the next column. Don’t be shy. I appreciate any and all intelligent critiques whether positive or negative.
LeonThomas.Net is closed for business. I originally started a website for the archives of BIW because Rajahwwf.com did not log my columns. When it became simply Rajah.com, it did. Yet, I still felt compelled to keep a website and eventually a true, bought-and-paid-for domain name. Now, I think it serves no real purpose except to house my images. That isn't worth the money. Especially since I barely use images in my columns anymore. So, it's gone. If you want to read old, very bad columns, the 2003 - 2004 material is at http://beautyinwrestling.freeservers.com. Everything else is logged here at Rajah.com and, to a lesser degree, at The Oratory.
Random Question: Who is your guilty pleasure wrestler? The one wrestler you shouldn't love but do anyway.
IN PUREST FORM
It was hot. It was September, and the temperature was enough to make me want to stay inside with my air conditioning cranked to eleven. If there is one thing I hate, it's heat. In fact, during the Summer, I try not to go out at all because anywhere worth going will be packed with other people, crammed in a theater or jammed in a concert hall. I thought about staying in.
I couldn't. It was Saturday night, and professional wrestling had returned to Maryland.
Sure, WWE barged its way into my home state every so often to perform at the historic 1st Mariner Bank Arena, but I'm talking about independent wrestling. An event guaranteed not to be half talkshow for sixty-dollar admission and Cokes costing about the same. Eastern Wrestling Alliance was trying to make a name for itself in Maryland years after the demise of Maryland Championship Wrestling. The EWA card looked terrible on paper. Wannabe wrestlers -- trainees, in fact -- fresh out of wrestling school who were greener than asparagus. Not to mention some schmuck from CZW of all places. Although, somehow, EWA did manage to book "The King of Old School" Steve Corino. At this time (and I believe this still may be still true) Corino was a big star in Japan and part of the backstage staff of what was Zero-One and is now called Zero-One Max. What was he doing wrestling in a hole like Essex, Maryland? Moreover, what was he doing wrestling in a high school gymnasium? I went to find out.
As was my custom, I arrived hours early. The parking lot was empty, save for a few underaged teenagers puffing smokes, leaning against the wall of the main entrance to the school. Is it still cool to smoke when you're fourteen? I forget. A few cars arrived, and the delinquents scattered to go find something under their kitchen sink to sniff. It seemed like a good time to follow the signs marked "Wrestling" with an blue arrow pointing the way to the back of the school. A moving truck was parked in the back. A man and a woman were unloading supplies for the night's show. You know that big, black eighteen-wheeler with the Attitude scratch logo that WWE uses to transport materials to live shows? Well, this wasn't it. This was what the eighteen-wheeler had for breakfast. Still, the man and woman carried out their gear with smiles on their faces.
"Hi. When does the show start?" I asked already knowing. I just had to say something because I had come to the entrance too soon and was staring at them and the truck. They let me know that the doors would not open for a while, so I went back around to read the mystery novel I kept in my car's glove box for just such an occassion. When the time was right, I marched inside and bought my ticket. Front row seat for only $15. Not too shabby. Especially considering JAPW front row tickets can sometimes cost twice as much and ROH front row tickets almost three times that cost. If they didn't make a lot at the gate, I wondered how they would make enough money for the show to be profitable. Who buys EWA tapes?
I let the notion pass and walked inside only to come face to face with Steve Corino. There he was in all his pudgy glory. I was used to seeing him in more fantastic settings than where we were, but he was sitting there conversing with fans, laughing and signing autographs. I passed through the double doors to the gymnasium. The ring looked like it got beat down by street toughs in an alley and left bleeding to death. I joked to myself that it just looked like it had character. I found my seat and waited for the show. Looking around, I noticed that a great deal of the crowd was made up of children.
The festivities started off with a massive battle royal. Some of the wrestlers involved looked like teenagers. I suspected that many were graduates of EWA's wrestling school. The man who did the most damage in the match was actually a veteran. He had to be because he looked old enough to be my grandfather's grandfather. He had a lot of spirit, though. Morgus the Maniac was his name, I believe. I did not catch the name of his valet who was made up to look like a nurse from Arkham Asylum. I have to admit it. I cracked up. He was great and the crowd loved him. The show was like that from front to back. Clear good guys and bad guys. Crowd going nuts. EWA owner Jim Christian played the menacing CEO very well, cheating for his wrestler of choice, Eagle. I'd describe the rest of the events of the show, but this isn't a review. What I will say is that during the Steve Corino vs. Stevie Riggs main event, something changed me as a fan of the product and gave me back something I thought I lost when I "smartened" up to the business years ago.
* * * * * * * * * *
I realized something. It came to me suddenly as if a trigger went off in my brain. This was professional wrestling in its purest form. There wasn't a lot of over-the-top spectacle or top-of-the-line superstars. More importantly, there were screaming fans who bought into what was happening. They believed in Morgus the Maniac and Jim Christian over the course of the evening. Not only that but they came to this high school gym of all places just so they could watch wrestlers, with one rare exception, that almost nobody had heard of. A lot of the fans were so young that they probably didn't even know who Steve Corino was! It couldn't be all about the money for the owner because -- lets face it -- a promotion like this certainly can't be a huge seller. It must've been, at least in part, about the promoter's love of the product. Everyone there just loved wrestling, and it made a gymnasium feel like Madison Square Garden.
Everything just seemed.....right.
* * * * * * * * * *
After the show, if memory serves, Corino stayed behind to talk to fans for a while. I was in awe of him, especially after my little epiphany, so I simply watched from a careful distance before heading out. A month later, at an ROH show, I spoke with someone who was in attendance at the EWA show. "What a debacle of a show," he remarked.
He's a smart fellow.....but he clearly didn't get it.
