My Brush With Greatness

Anybody that knows me, knows that I am a huge Sports fan. For some period of time, I would go to sports card shows that would also have autograph signings. I would use these opportunities to meet my heroes.

Before I begin on the real meat and potatoes of this blog entry, my true brush with greatness, please allow me a moment to paint a picture for you, so can truly understand the gravity of my story.

The biggest of these sports card shows is called the National, and while at the National, being held in Atlanta that year, with Jim Fannin, we heard some guy ranting and raving so we thought we would investigate. Turns out, the guy was mad over the simple fact that Joe Frazier would not sign ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier. As it turns out, the former heavyweight champion of the World, was contracted to only sign ‘Smokin’ for, I believe, Tristar Productions. Then, this guy proceeded to tell me this story about how his father was a vendor at the first Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier fight in March 8th, 1971. For those of you who may either not be boxing fans, or old enough to remember, this fight was for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. At this time, there was no richer prize in all of sports. For many people, this fight was more than a boxing contest. Much of white America wanted to see Joe Frazier shut up the brash, cocky Muhammad Ali, who at the time, many people in this country felt that he used his status as a Muslim to avoid the draft for the Vietnam war. To many people, there was nobody else that was more capable of shutting up the Louisville Lip than Joe Frazier. While this fight was big in sports, it was also huge in our countries history.

So, to my amazement, this man who’s father was a vendor at that very fight, then pulls out a sealed case of programs from THE fight- – – – Ali/Frazier 1! I mean, I could not believe it. These things were cherry mint and 30 years old! I had to do it… I asked the guy how much? To my surprise and disbelief, he told me $75. I told him I’d take one, and then went got a Joe Frazier autograph ticket. The guys told me, ‘Good luck man, you’ll never get Ali to sign it. He stopped signing autographs.’ I told him, ‘Well, I live in Louisville, so I got a shot.’

I went and got my Joe Frazier autograph ticket and got in line. Though from Philadelphia, not my favorite place, the former heavyweight champ was a class act and made my autograph experience a damn good one. Taking the time to take a picture with me, and even taking the time to ask if he could look through the program.  I told him sure he could, he just better not mess it up because it was cherry mint and I still had to get Ali to sign it. Before he signed thw program, while he was looking through it, we chit chatted a little bit, when I told him I was a pro wrestler and had wrestled in Philadelphia a lot. I went on to tell him how I promoted wrestling shows in thw Louisville area and he responded by telling me I should try to put together Frazier/Ali 4 at the Gardens with a chuckle. Like I said, it was an excellent autograph experience.

As I left the National that year, my mind was turning on how I was going to get Ali to sign this wonderful, iconic piece of memorabilia. Turns out, I wouldn’t have to wait long as Jim Fannin would soon call me up and tell me that Ali had been announced as a signer at the National the following year, this time in Cleveland. Price tag for this autograph? Three hundred dollars. I thought this was a steal. The fact that I would meet the Greatest of all Time, who was now in a 20 year battle with Parkinson’s disease, and get my elusive autograph, I surely felt would be something I would never forget. Boy, was I right! The Champ, once again, would not disappoint.

While standing in line for my Ali autograph, there was a man standing about 10 people in front of me getting the same item autographed and needless to say, it was not cherry mint like mine. It had creases in it, it had folds, it had tattered corners. MY program, I once again tell you, was in pristine condition!

As I got to the vantage point in line to actually see the Champ, I then see there is a guy with about 20 Olympic torches that he wanted signed. I’m literally thinking, man, I hope this guy doesn’t wear Ali out before I get to him, as I can certainly understand and sympathize with his plight with Parkinson’s, a good signature is still very important. I had no need to worry, the Champ is going through people like clockwork, he’s not talking to people, but he is taking pictures with people.

Finally, it’s my turn. The Champs assistant puts my program in front of him. I then will have an interaction that no matter how many concessions I go through, I will never forget. Muhammad Ali looks up at me, and runs his hand over the program and says to me, “Pretty… just like me.” This draws laughter from Ali’s many handlers and myself. I then asked if I could take a picture with the Champ, and before anyone else could answer, Ali stuck his hand out. My heart was pounding, I never in a million years dreamed I would shake the hand of Muhammad Ali!

Unfortunately, I do not have that program any more. Through the ups and downs of running a wrestling promotion, I had to sell it to take care of my family… but I will always and forever have the memory of my brush with greatness.

What makes Muhammad Ali the greatest of all time is not that he was a three time world champion. Not that he was a gold medalist for his country. He was a man that fought for others, when they couldn’t fight for themselves. A man that believed right was right, and wrong was wrong. There are boxers like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Rocky Marciano that will have finished their careers with undefeated records, but they never fought the fights outside the ring that Ali did that would mold him into being the Greatest of All Time.

Now, of course, that’s just one assholes’ opinion, but by now, this should be your opinion too.

Who’s to blame?

So, given recent time off, I’ve had the time to think about a LOT of things. Something that continuously stays on my mind (pardon the pun), is the subject of concussions. I have been diagnosed as having as many as 17, and recently (well, back in October), suffered my 18th.

Who is to blame for this? My opponents? When I say my opponents, I know one of these concussions occured when I was a kid, playing rec basketball. Another one of them occured when I was 11 or 12 years old from a helmet to helmet hit playing rec football. Another one of them occured during a collision at home plate with a base runner playing high school baseball. So, that leaves a whole lot to professional wrestling.

Do I blame it on the fans, of which many have demanded a hard hitting, more physical style of wrestling?

Do I blame it on my mother, who before I got into playing organized sports told me I could get hurt, but let me anyway?

No. I blame it all on me. I knew the dangers of playing physical contact sports. Even in Baseball. I liked playing catcher because I was the last line of defense… which gets me to what this whole thing is about.

I want to know who was holding the gun to NFL players heads all through playing rec ball, high school, and then college, they felt they had to take a chance and play this dangerous sport. I mean, come on folks. At what point did they not realize that there was a chance that their brains could get scrambled? Let’s face it, football is not a game of finesse. It’s a game about hits. About contact. Then you turn around and sue the NFL for not protecting you better.

Why didn’t you sue the rec league? The high school football team you played for? The college you attended, who gave you a free education to play this game?

You were grown men playing a game in which you were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, to play.

See, I played a different game. Sure, I made a couple bucks, but I played it mostly for the love. Nobody made me play it. I truly believe that I have made some irrational decisions in my life and gone through bouts of depression due to the head traumas I have suffered. However, I accept full responsibility for the things I have done. I can say that, I can do that, but maybe there are others who can’t.

Did Ray Rice punch his wife because of concussions? Did Aaron Hernandez plot and commit murder because of concussions? Did Tito Ortiz commit domestic violence against Jenna Jameson because of concussions?  Did Rae Carruth kill his girlfriend because of concussions? Did Chris Benoit murder his family because of concussions?

Now… the big one I am getting to, and I can say this because he was found responsible in civil court, did OJ Simpson kill Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson because of concussions?

I mean, cause let’s face it. He gets away with murder, knowing pretty much “white America” along with the Browns and Goldmans want his ass in jail, makes an incredibly irrational decision to take armed men into a Las Vegas hotel room to allegedly retrieve personal items that were stolen from him.

If it is proven that concussions do these things to our brains, can’t any of these guys that have ever had a concussion claim that they really didn’t know what they were doing? I mean, as far as a defense is concerned, is post concussion syndrome right there with alzheimers and dementia? Could it be that football players killing themselves and professional wrestlers dying under the age of 50 due to drug overdoses, both intentional and unintentional, or just flat out committing suicide, are all because of concussions?

Who’s to blame?

I can’t say for sure, but I CAN say for sure who ISN’T.

It’s not the promoters. It’s not the NFL, the MLB, the NBA. It’s not any of the other organizations. There is a price you pay to play the game. It’s up to each individual to determine the price they’re willing to pay and how long they’re willing to pay it.

Of course, this is only one assholes opinion.

It’s a Rotten Life for Me.

Many of you are right. Stress and frustration are a huge part of what’s going on in my life but it has a lot to do with how the business itself has changed, and in my mind, not for the better. I’ve always tried to be really fan friendly and YES, I have fucked up some things, but rumors and innuendos and downright personal attack lies have really affected me over the last four years. So many people hate me and think I am a scumbag for so many of these things that simply just aren’t true. I make fun of shit like “Blame John Williams” because shit became so ridiculous that to make fun of it was the only way I knew how to deal with it.

It’s very difficult to be the most hated man in indie wrestling. When you are hated for so many lies and just downright jealousy it wears away on your spirit. I don’t want anybody to think that because some people got upset over what would be the use of leeches in a deathmatch is the turning point of my love for wrestling because that is simply not the case. I don’t give a fuck, call PETA. PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. A leech is not an animal. It is a creature at best. You can say it is one of Gods creatures and though I can see that, and respect your opinion on that, I don’t agree with that it matters whether it dies being stapled to someones face or on the end of a fishhook. However, I will change this stipulation because it just isn’t worth it to me to cause an uproar over using leeches in a deathmatch tournament. As soon as I make that statement, that I am going to change THAT, some asshole has to say they are offended by having syringes because of the HIV outbreak in SCOTT COUNTY. Now, this just becomes bitching for the sake of bitching. These two guys that are in this match are going to bleed on one another, both of which have clean blood tests. I am not going to give them dirty syringes, they’re not going to be injecting their blood into one another, things have just gone too far with fans thinking they know better than a promoter who has ran shows for over 18 years,

I understand Facebook is a necessary evil and I LOVE that I have been put in touch with people throughout the country that I have lost touch with, but there are no real boundaries between fans and wrestlers or even myself in a promoter. John Williams, book this, John Williams, do that. When it comes to wrestling, my name is Ian Rotten. Unless you personally know me outside of wrestling, you should call me as such. I am using this as an example, nothing grinds my gears more than a fan walks up to me, and calls me by my birth name. I have known Axl for 25 years now and have probably used his real name (other than on fucking Facebook) 4 times in my life,

I understand that IWA means so much for so many reasons to so many people but I need you to understand my frustration. I have given EVERYTHING (and I do mean EVERYTHING) that I have to the wrestling business and IWA. I have lost lifetime friendships over a woman scorned , who has nothing to be scorned about. I took Mickie Knuckles in and let her live her dream when her own family turned their back on her. I never beat up Mickie Knuckles. I loved Mickie. Hell, I would go so far as to say when having an affair with her that I was IN love with her. I did everything with her. I spent more time on the road and doing things with her than I did my own family. At one point in my life I considered her my very best friend. Then, in the end, my conscious just couldn’t keep it a secret any more and I felt the need to tell Patti and come clean. Anybody that knows my wife, knows that I would NOT make up an affair especially an affair with a girl that had been living my house for 5 years with us. Instead of coming clean with me, Mickie chose to make up horrible lies about me to try to save her own reputation. For years, it was “Ian and Mickie are fucking.” Then, when I finally said it was true, it was “Oh, he’s lying on that poor girl.” I have tried to be as copacetic about this as possible, but there comes a point where you just have to say fuck it.

Then, in 2006, I’m not really sure who started it. Whether it was Mickie telling Bull Pain or Bull Pain telling Mickie I don’t know, I had a false positive for Hepatitis C. Because of my diabetes affecting my pancreas to the point that I chronic pancreatitis. it affected the enzymes in my liver to the point I had to have a specific test, available only in certain hospitals by liver specialists, to determine my diagnosis. When I was diagnosed with this, I was supposed to wrestle Brandon Prophet that week and immediately pulled myself out of that match until I could get that testwork done, where it would be determined that it was a false positive and I did not have Hepatitis C. Much like the same situations that happened to Matt Tremont and Insane Lane. No body questions their health nowadays, it’s Ian Rotten, that fucking scumbag. Which is not the truth, but people aren’t interested in truth. The lie makes for a much better story.

People wanted to make fun of me for getting a job in fast food, working at Taco Bell. So it’s a shit job, right? Then others would go on with cowardly anonymous phone calls trying to get me fired from a shitty, minimum wagw job. Mind you, this has nothing to do with wrestling. this is a SHIT minimum wage job that I could try to hold down, take care of my family and do wrestling too. They went as far as to call YUM! Brands and tell THEM I had Hepatitis C, which I would be removed from the schedule until I provided YUM! with proof that I didn’t have it. When that didn’t work, they called the store I worked at not even knowing that it was my off day and told them they just purchased marijuana from me and the bag was short. Which my manager replies, “That’s pretty funny considering he’s not even here today.” They would make fake customer survey calls saying that I was rude to them. This is how far people took shit.

The fact that people still feel that the shit with Mike Levy was a quote-unquote “incident”, like he was actually hurt… be as smart as you think you are smart. Watch the footage of it. They’re all wrestling related moves to him. Tank practically breaks his own ankle taking weight off of him to NOT hurt him. Shit, the only one that came close to hurting him was Pondo with the suplex on the potty chair, almost impaling him. Wow, what an incident. He went to work for Pondo! Stayed and helped clean up, and watch King of the Deathmatches. I even heard one report that I flew Mike Levy in and intentionally beat him up because of the things he said on the internet! Once again, why bother with the truth when the lie is so much more entertaining?

I’m not even really going to get into the shit with the kid that happened at an EPW show but I will say I have heard some of the funniest shit off of it. Like, I pushed the little girl down to the floor that was really (once again watch the footage) just a swipe of the hand.

Now, some things I have brought on myself and by business standards, I know they’re not right. I will openly admit that I owe more than my fair share of guys money but guys I now have no intention of paying should have kept it between us and I would have done everything I possibly could have to get them paid back, I have taken gambles and risks that, well, maybe I just shouldn’t of took but I did them and there is nothing I can do to change that now. I have done more with less than anybody in this business, I do it because I LOVE this business. I have loved it from the time that I was 4 years old and my dad walked me in to a smoke filled Baltimore Civic Center.

I’m not looking for your sympathy, nor your praise. For the most part, I am really proud of the things I have done. I truly believe if it wasn’t for IWA Mid South, deathmatch wrestling in the States wouldn’t be where it is at. The phrase American Strong Style was coined because of IWA Mid South. We changed wrestling in this area from the Memphis Okey Doke same old old same old shit, to I guaran-fucking-tee you, you will never know what you are going to see at an IWA show. Fuck, we even changed the landscape of WOMENS wrestling… places like Shimmer and Shine exist today because WE gave womens wrestling a chance and it was the IWA fans that said good wrestling is good wrestling, no matter what the gender is,

Though I blow it off a lot, the last 4 years have been HARD on me. I have done shit that I am not proud of, for sure, but for the most part I also did them for survival. It would make me laugh when people would say, “Ian is threatening to shut down with his carny stunt of they need money.” Yet you would read all over the internet “I don’t know how they’re still in business with the small crowds.” Yeah, it was all some stunt for me to build a room onto my palatial mansion, or to buy all the drugs that I was using because I was such a drug addict. I have stuck with this and put up with this shit out of my passion and love for the wrestling business.

I have had other things said about me, like I was trying to make money off of Ted Petty’s name, or off of Chris Candido’s name when all I was trying to do was keep two people that I was proud to call my friends names alive and let people remember what great assets they were to this business. If they weren’t remembering, well, then I wanted them to know.

So. If you were me, and had been accused of everything from battering women, stealing from charities, ripping off your god children, killing someone that you considered to be like your child, spreading a communicable disease around, and over all just being a huge asshole… would you put up with it? What do you do when the game you love, stops loving you? I am not going to end with my tagline, because this isn’t my opinion. This is my LIFE, and IWA Mid South is my lifes work, I guess after all, if I go away, I make all the wrong people happy and all the right people sad. Take it for what you will.

Remembering the Dream.

When I was 7 years old, my parents had divorced and my father had decided to move to Tampa to live with his mother. I would spend my summers from the day after I got out of school until Labor Day in Florida with my dad. My dads favorite wrestler, without a shadow of a doubt, was the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. We would watch Florida Championship Wrestling together every Saturday and every Tuesday night buy a $3 bleacher seat at the Fort Hesterly Armory. The Armory had no air conditioning in it, but man oh man was I excited to be there every Tuesday night. Then, once a month, we would head to St. Pete to the Bayfront Center for the big card.

To me and my dad, the Dream was like God. The matches we saw him in would truly mold me to everything I would ever think professional wrestling is and should be. Including, one fateful night in St. Petersburg when the saying, “My enemies enemy is my friend.” would become so true. That night, Dusty Rhodes would team with arch rival Terry Funk to take on King Curtis Iaukea and the Great Kabuki in a barbed wire match. Of course, the sold out house would witness Terry Funk turn on his partner which led to me seeing my father possibly madder than I had ever seen him in my life, My dad would tell me, “Dusty is a good man and well, that Terry Funk, he’s a no good motherfucker.”

Then the day came, and I was 10 years old, my cousin Jimmy called the house to tell me and my father that The Dream was having a beer at Wolfman Smiths Pub and I would get the chance to meet my favorite wrestler! My dad was working, so I told my grandmother, as I bounced out the door, that I was going to meet the Dream, I hopped on my bike, and raced there. I was prepared to wait hours, but my cousin who was peeking his head out the bar door every few minutes looking for me, came out and assured me that he was still inside and I was going to get the chance to meet him.

No more than 5-6 minutes later, after my cousin had told the Dream that his biggest fan was outside waiting for him Dusty came out to greet me. I remember he was laughing at how hard I was sweating from racing up there on my bicycle in the Florida heat. I told him how I was there every Tuesday night to cheer him on and even when I went back home to Maryland I would call my dad after I thought the show was over to ask him what happened. I told Dusty that I didn’t care how hot it was in the building, if it meant I had to mow grass or collect bottles (yeah, I’m really aging myself there!) I would be there every Tuesday night. To my incredible surprise, Dusty asked me how I would like to sit ringside the following Tuesday night and I told him I didn’t know if we had that kind of money because those seats were $7! The Dream told me that me, my dad and my cousin would be his guests that Tuesday night. I literally told him that he should not lie to a little boy, that that was not funny, which he chuckled at me and reassured me he was not lying to me. Even up to the moment that we walked up to the box office I thought for sure that this was some kind of mean joke, that we would be turned away. Nope, true to his word, there were three second row tickets waiting for us. It was the first time I got to really watch wrestling up close.

After I became a professional wrestler and met Dusty as a worker, I asked him if he remembered that. The look on his face when I said Wolfman Smiths pub was awesome, because he knew I was the real deal. I still wasn’t sure if he was just humoring me, or if he actually remembered it… but I would get to go on spending most of the day talking Da Biz with my childhood hero. At that same point I informed him that in a couple months he was going to come in and work for me and what an honor it would be for me to tag with him. After all, he was the main reason why I wanted to be a pro wrestler. Which, Terry Funk would interrupt this conversation with saying “Aw horseshit Ian, he’s already got a big enough head. You’re a good kid, he doesn’t need to know that too.” Then, getting to watch the beginning of the banter of Terry Funk and Dusty Rhodes like it was a live episode of Grumpy Old Men in front of me was absolutely priceless.

In October of that year, Dusty would come into IWA Mid South to team with me at our 8th Anniversary Show, subtitled Dreams Do Come True. We would take on the team of the late, great Chris Candido and the not so great Steve Stone. We talked more about wrestling from the time we picked him up at the airport until the time he left the building that night and I know I had to drive him crazy with all the questions i asked him but in my mind, i was thinking ‘This might be the last chance I ever have to pick the mind of the greatest booker in wrestling history.’ So I was going to talk until he told me to shut up… which, he never did.

Dusty would amaze me yet again with his kindness and generosity toward a guy he knew was a big mark for him and would make my experience with him totally unforgettable when he chose to change the finish of the match to him throwing me the iconic bionic elbow pad for me to hit the big elbow and get the 1-2-3, totally allowing me to live my Dream.

The American Dream Dusty Rhodes would once again unknowingly come into play of giving me another great memory without even knowing. See, the relationship between my father and I had become strained and I received a phone call from my relatives telling me that if I wanted to see my father alive I neded to get down to Tampa. My father had had a massive stroke due to complications from diabetes. At this point of my fathers life he was pretty much gone. The one thing I took him was a picture of me and Dusty with our hands raised high, victorious in the ring. I would sit there and talk with him and show him this picture and tell him how great Dusty was and how nice he was, and what a class act he was to his boy. Though my father couldn’t tell you at this point if the sky was blue, if the grass was green, nor the difference between a pen and a pencil, when a nurse came in and asked my father what that picture was, he very clearly whispered, “That’s my boy and the Dream.”

Thank you for everything you’ve done for this business, but most of all, thank you for everything you have done for me. Long live the American Dream.

Almost Famous.

So, I know it has been a while since I have done this, and I don’t know if anybody will really care, but in 1993 I entered a small upstart company called Eastern Championship Wrestling. Everyone knows this company would later become what is called Extreme Championship Wrestling.

At the time, I was 23 years old. I was trained by the guy who would go on to be my archrival, Axl Rotten. I could never be grateful enough to him. He saw some potential in a guy who wrestled as Hades, God of the Underworld in a backyard fed and thought that I was good enough to be trained to be a professional wrestler. On August 10th, 1990 after a whopping ten days of training, I was put on a card to be held at the Odinton Fire Company in Odinton, Maryland. Promoted by none other than Axl Rotten. Literally, it was a dream come true.

Imagine fast forwarded three years later what it was like for me to be in a locker room with guys like Kevin Sullivan, Terry Funk, Stan the Lariat Hansen, Abdullah the Butcher, let alone the fact that this locker room was led by Paul E. Dangerously! This guy was such a motivator that I would have walked through flaming walls for him and what I saw as the next big thing in professional wrestling. At 23 years old, I was literally continuing my education of the professional wrestling business, given the fact that I had already learned from Black Bart, Kevin and Kerry Von Erich, Iceman King Parsons, Chris Adams, and so many of the World Class stars.

Being in ECW… well man, quite simply, that was something special. Myself and Axl were hungry young upstarts with a dream that this was the place to make a name for ourselves. I knew guys like Tommy Dreamer and Tazz felt the same way. For veterans in our business, it was maybe a chance to make a final stand. Though I would later find out the heartbreaking news that it was Axl’s idea to break up the Bad Breed, I held malice in my heart for Paul E. not only for the shorting of the paydays, but for the fact that I thought it was his idea to split us up and I was going to SHOW him he was wrong.

When we were told to do the barbed wire bat match, I went home and studied Japanese death match wrestling tapes and Axl did the same. We weren’t familiar with matches like this, but we knew that we would be able to do them better than the Japanese for the simple fact that they did not use the weapons that much. We went out there and gave it all we had.. I wanted to show Paul E. that he had this in a tag team and with the Philly crowd being so bloodthirsty and so called “smart” to the business, I knew if we could get this over there we could get it over anywhere.

Fast forward to July 1st, 1995. A day that would literally live forever in the annals of the ECW folklore. It was the Tai Pei deathmatch. This was a match I had gotten the idea for by watching that old Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport, and I had already approached Paul E. about this being a Bad Breed/Public Enemy match, but from what I was told, Teddy and Johnny wanted nothing to do with this. Knowing that this would be the blowoff between Axl and I, I explained to Paul E. that if this didn’t sell him tickets, nothing would. I knew we were to go out there, give 110%, and provide the fans with a very memorable moment. As much as we created a memory for the fans in attendance at the ECW arena that day, the smartest, and most hardest fans to get over with in the world, at the end of this match they were on their feet chanting Bad Breed. They did not chant Axl. They did not chant Ian. They chanted Bad Breed.They chanted for us as a unit, as one single faction. Together. The way I feel we were meant to be.

Coming up in a few weeks, it will be the 20 year anniversary of the Tai Pei Death Match and all I can truly say is after all these years, THAT is the match that people want to talk to me about. It’s literally the movie The Wrestler moment of my life. Where you’ve done something that people will talk about for years upon years. Did we get rich off of it? Fuck no. Not one royalty check have I ever seen. Do I care about that? Absolutely not. What Axl and Ian Rotten did in that hundred degree plus Bingo hall has captured multiple generations of audiences. In the end, I don’t need Vince McMahons money because the admiration of the wrestling fans over the years means more to me than any royalty check. I know a lot of people think that sounds stupid, that if I had gotten into the wrestling business I got in it to make money… but that’s not why I got into this business. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a nice perk, but I got in this business to give the fans the memories that guys like Dusty Rhodes, Superstar Billy Graham, Terry Funk and so many others gave to me.

I know some people think I am a scumbag, and a lot of people don’t agree with some of the things I do. For the things that are truly correct about me, I have always accepted full responsibility. Many times though, the lie is way better than the truth. Let this go down as the truth, Deathmatch fans are unquestionably the most loyal fans there are, and without you there would be NO Axl or Ian Rotten today. i think I can speak for Axl when I say that we have given you our blood, our sweat and our tears, not to mention our flesh and our later in life aches and pains. With all this said, I say thank you. You are the ones that have made us Almost Famous.

This is my recollection of something that happened 20 years ago… all may not agree with it, but hey, this is just one assholes opinion.

If I hear Tracy Smothers one more time…. Everybody dies!

So I am going to go ahead and address the 500 lb. elephant in the room. I once considered Tracy Smothers one of my best friends in the business. Now, Tracy has become one of those people that like to state rumors and hearsay as fact in the War on Ian Rotten. Tracy was once one of my biggest soldiers, always saying I gave him a job every time he got fired, gave him bookings no matter how absurdly short notice they were… shit, he would always say “I was on the first IWA show… I’ll be on the last.” I mean hell, me and Tracy almost went to jail together in Gary, In. for smoking weed in the hotel room. Technically it might have been Hammond, but I’m not really sure.

I used to sit on the phone with Tracy for hours at a time while he repeated the same shit over and over again. “Like to see one of these young muthafuckin’ punks call Stan Hansen an old man!” “That fuckin’ JBL… he’s a piece of shit!” (which I fully agreed with). He would rah rah and cheerlead for how grateful guys that were making waves in the business should be to me, but now apparently I’ve done nothing for nobody. He used to say he liked the business more when the marks were in the crowd…. but now he literally works for a couple marks that aren’t even knowledgeable marks. Now it’s Ian’s done this, and Ian’s done that, and let’s air Ian’s dirty laundry here and there whether true or not. Trust me, I could do the same to him. If you think Tracy Smothers life is not full of sex, lies and drugs you’re really, really off base. But, I am better than that. Just like I’ve seen recently Tracy making fun of me for working at Taco Bell to provide for my family and myself, I see no difference in that than when lean times came along for Tracy, he delivered pizzas.. Right??

I digress. I’ve said a hundred times over I don’t really care what people think of me unless I respect them, so Tracy Smothers’ current opinions of me actually do bother me. I’ve always had a huge great deal of respect for Tracy as a professional wrestler. Probably in the last 8 years due to strokes, concussions and God only knows what other things, I believe Tracy’s mind has gone to shits. One of the reasons why I always brought Tracy in, even if he called me the night before and said he needed a booking, was because Tracy Smothers was always good for the dressing room. Which, I am sure that to this day remains the same and I have the utmost respect for him for that. Now, where Tracy used to play in the majors in IWA, his destination to go to wrestle is now one single A farm team. So, when the gopher boy can no longer get any money out of his lawyer friends and you’re tired of working 2nd rate shows that draw 74 people with Tito Fucking Santana, you’ll always have a place to work Tracy. We’ll just forget about the things you say because we know you’re not in your right mind anyway. Maybe you can come back to doing what you do very well in teaching young up and comers how to wrestle instead of wrestling has beens, bums, and so called legends.

But I guess at the end of the day, this is still just one asshole’s opinion.

PS- Can’t come to see ya at the big show Saturday night, Tracy. Working in Three Rivers, Michigan making more money than the ambulance chasers are paying you… and I know they’re not ambulance chasers… but I figured I would follow your lead… what’s the truth got to do with it??

Respect goes down the pisser.

I want to start this off by saying I have wrestled for ECW, CZW, CHIKARA, PWU, 3PW, the Hardcore Homecoming shows, whatever the name of the group was that Feinstein ran (that wasn’t Ring of Honor), and not to mention IWA, all in the famed ECW arena so I have a right to the opinion that I am about to state. No, I don’t believe I deserve a banner, let me just get that out of the way.

I am sick and tired upon sick and tired of pro wrestlings bogus Hall of Fame shit, and now I guess it’s that Famed Arena’s Hall of Fame. Give me a fucking break… Meanie and the Pitbulls? I remember Paul Heymans exact words about the Pitbulls, “I’m going to give these guys a push because I like their music.” Meanies banner has got to be as much of a joke as WWF bringing in Dusty Rhodes and putting him in Polka Dots!! This goes right along with my last blog… Pro Wrestling using stuff for the purpose of using it, and then the people that truly are Legends or Hall of Famers or anything of the aspects accomplishments are just brought down by being bundled in with others that just are not deserving.

When you just start handing out these accolades, it takes away from the people that have truly made these accomplishments. I know I may sound like an opinionated SOB, but I am so tired of our business taking away from the real accomplishments.

For the truly shocking portion of this blog– so I hear the last couple shows in there that John Zandigs banner has been taken down. Take it from someone that knows the cost of running that building, dealing with the state of Pennsylvania’s State Athletic Commission, and I say this knowing I do not like the guy as a person, I do not like the guy as a wrestler, but I do respect him for what he has done for Independent Wrestling ESPECIALLY in that building, so when I say if Todd Gordon has got a banner in that building then John Zandig deserves one just as much as he does. ECW brought that Bingo Hall to life, but when it was on life support after ECW went out of business John Zandig resuscitated it and made it live again. Not only live, but thrive. The only other companies that have drawn the numbers he had in that building had big money behind them. John did it with his own. He deserves that respect.

Now onto this ECW mural in the bathroom. Why do people think the people that were running that building would give it a more prominent spot? No matter what group has been in there, no matter who was running it, wrestling was always the dirty little secret of the place. They didn’t care that that’s what was feeding money into the place and I am sure the new people that are involved really don’t have a clue that besides Madison Square Garden that place is probably the most famous wrestling building on the East Coast! Look at it this way, at least now hopefully the bathrooms are clean and functional, unlike the days of old. Through all this. this has just been one asshole’s opinion.

One word, that shouldn’t just be thrown around,

For a majority of the past 24 years, I have made my living solely on professional wrestling. Though it hasn’t always provided the easiest life, I still love it just as much as when I first stepped into the ring… but something lately about this business has been driving me crazy. The word ‘Legend’ used in advertising to describe people. 

Unfortunately, our business has no respect for that word. You don’t see the sport of professional baseball calling mediocre guys Legends. If you’re a Legend, pretty much everyone associated with your sport knows your name. Arnold Palmer, Walter Payton, Michael Jordan, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Ted Williams… all are Legends of their game. 

True Story- When I first moved to Memphis, I asked someone for directions on how to get to the Kings house… they didn’t start to give me directions to Graceland… they started giving me directions to Lawlers’ home.Jerry Lawler is a wrestling Legend. Just because your father or brother has done something in this business doesn’t give you those inevitable rights to claim their fame. 

Recently on an Indie show in this area, Doug Gilbert, Brian Christopher and Jamie Dundee were claimed to be Legends of the Louisville Gardens….. that’s a pretty far fuckin’ stretch. You’re not Eddie. You’re not the King. You’re not Bill. You NEVER main evented, and I mean NEVER, and you never sold out that building even once. The same shit is done for this guy BoBo Brazil Jr. Calling this guy a Legend…. well fuck, we might as well call David Flair a legend!

You guys are probably getting my point here, and I’ve shit on all the right people. Come on guys, if we are gonna refer to someone as Legendary, let’s make sure they’ve got some credentials. Sold out buildings, classic matches, great feuds, and a name recognized deep inside of our industry. Also, please, please, let’s not mistake the word Legend, for Infamous. Wanna book a Legend? Make sure you do it soon because in my mind, there’s not too many real Legends left. 

Then again, this is just one assholes’ opinion. 

Does size really matter??

So far of my blog entries, this may be the one I have the most personal opinion about. I truly question what the business of professional wrestling has morphed into. Well, I know it has morphed into Sports Entertainment, but in the indies I still like to call it Professional Wrestling. See, now as I have gotten back into things, I look around, I read things, try to get my finger on the pulse of the business. Some of the things I read… well, just has me shaking my head. Let’s start here. 

When I first started going to wrestling when I was a kid, the biggest thing in my hometown of Baltimore, as far as wrestling was concerned, was a guy by the name of Bruno Sammartino. See, Bruno was 5’11”, 6′ tops. 265 pounds, with areported 58 inch chest. People went NUTS for this guy. 

When I was 7, my parents divorced and my dad moved to Florida. There was a guy down there… 6’3″, 275 lbs (I always laughed at that part) from Austin, TX. that went on to live the American Dream through how the fans supported him. Of course, that guy is Dusty Rhodes. 

My point here is that these guys were as different as night and day but in their respective areas, they were huge stars. That brings me to one of the greatest NWA champions of all time… Harley Race. Not a great body, not a huge man, but I double dog dare you to fight him in his prime. I know you’re saying, “Ian, what the fuck does this got to do with anything?!” Well, first, I want to state a question. Would guys like Ivan Putski, Dick Murdoch, Dusty Rhodes, Harley Race, or even the great Bruno Sammartino, have a job now in this industry with the standards that are set today?

The reason why I bring this whole thing up is some shit talking on a young man named Chris Hero and how he didn’t have what it took to become a WWE superstar. That he just didn’t give enough of a shit to dedicate himself to the gym. Chris, right now with his body structure, reminds me of a young man that had a little love handles, but could get in there and wrestle with the best of them and give you a great match… but even more importantly, could get in there with the NOT best of them and make his opponent look damn good. Chris Hero reminds me a LOT of Barry Wyndham BUT would Barry Wyndham even have a job today? It is my opinion that we all don’t need to look alike. Whatever happened to the guy… you know, with the Mean Mitch Page look? That when you walk into a bar, you sit on the other side of the bar from that guy because you just prefer not to get in a fight with him,. Not everybody need to have short hair, tattoos and tan skin. I’ve said it once and I will say it again, and I am certainly not speaking for him, but Chris Hero is WAY better of a professional wrestler than ANYONE on the WWE’s roster as a Sports Entertainer. Meaning guys like Danielson, Claudio, Moxley, Tyler. Punk, Luke Harper, Evan Bourne, the guys that put the miles on the cars and spent the time on the road, have gotten over  because of their wrestling ability. Chris Hero sure the hell could do the same. 

Thing that made me laugh the most, is somebody said he was out of shape. The guy once did 93 minutes for me, and he was nowhere NEAR the shape he is in now. If you can find somebody to blow him up (which means to get him out of air), then I would be interested in seeing that because I don’t think it is happening. 

I don’t want the business that I love to be some cookie cutter shit. I don’t want the business that I love going back to the point where every guy has to be jacked to the gills. I love the state of Indie Wrestling right now. Guys of all different shapes and sizes are tearing it up. Fuck, look at Jonathan Gresham. He makes Rey Mysterio look like Andre the Giant but there’s not too many more guys out there that I prefer to watch wrestle. Michael Elgin, built like a fire hydrant. The same exact thing could be said for him as Gresham having great matches.

Just saying. Wouldn’t it be great if the WWE gave professional wrestling another shot? But hey, that’s just one asshole’s opinion.

They just don’t know.

So many times people get “Hardcore” wrestling and “Deathmatch” wrestling mixed up. Reading on a wrestling site today, one wrestling aficionado claimed that Mick Foleys’ abilities to get around in life are the direct repercussions of Deathmatch wrestling. I cannot disagree any more strongly. Mick Foley’s physical problems are because of Hardcore wrestling. Back when he was trying to make a name for himself, trying to steal the show every night, dropping the famous Cactus Elbow to the floor while still protecting his opponent; landing what was, most of the time, a 300 pound body directly on his hip on a concrete floor (we won’t even get into Hell in a Cell!) is a major factor in why he walks so funny. 

Now, the damage to his physical appearance, THAT’S caused by Deathmatch wrestling. The scars, the burn marks, those type of things… those are a direct result of Deathmatches. Same can be said for Sabu. I would guarantee you both of these men would tell you that their physical appearances have been altered by Deathmatches, while how they feel every day (aches and pains, their misery morning, afternoon and night) is from being Masters of Hardcore wrestling. 

When Axl was in WCW, I can recall tagging along with him and hearing Abdullah the Butcher telling Cactus Jack he needed to slow down. That he didn’t need to be doing the elbow every night. He needed to save that for Pay Per View. What people don’t understand is some guys just have one way of doing things. They just have one speed. One Purpose; to give you folks the most spectacular show they can EVERY time they get in the ring. Many people note Hardcore and Deathmatch wrestling to be the same, though while they can end up with the same results (blood, weapons, crazy bumps) trust me when I say, they are two separate entities. Believe you me, you can get hurt in Deathmatch wrestling bad, but most of the time it’s just a bad laceration. Some antiseptic, super glue, Neosporin, bandage and tape will get you through. When it comes to Hardcore, it’s that ill gotten pain that comes afterwards. The rough bump in the bleachers. The realization that you’re about to hit concrete when you were expecting a table to be there (and it’s not!). The thought of ‘If that would have went the way I planned it… it surely to God wouldn’t have been hurting this bad.’. The time comes when you realize ‘Shit, I’m hurt but these people didn’t pay to see a five minute main event. There are 50 people in this crowd tonight and I am going to give them a show. There may be only 50, but those are the 50 that really wanted to be here. So for them, I’m gonna kill it!’ 

Wow, when you combine those two together… Hardcore Deathmatch Wrestling, well… now we’re getting into the crazy shit! I truly believe until you have gotten in the ring and done both, you really can’t separate the two. The greatest tribute I have ever been paid was while at a book signing with Mick Foley, he signed my book, “From one Hardcore Icon to another!”

So, I will not sign off with my signature phrase for this entry… cause after receiving that accolade, I feel this is something I know about… this is my opinion, and it is the right one.