Goodness a 1998 ROH with Reckless Youth, Blitzkrieg, Nick Dinsmore, Christopher Daniels (with hair!) and some of the OMEGA boys.

Who is the face of the promotion? Does Chris Candido finally get his run on top? Or does Lance Storm foil him?

I actually had a 1998 related project of my own in mind but it was more of a thought process. I may have even touched on it before, but it was basically WCW if you made it a 35 and younger promotion. What that would look like and who WCW may have had to bring into facilitate that move.

Oct 21, 2020 16:24:26 GMT Big Pete said:

Goodness a 1998 ROH with Reckless Youth, Blitzkrieg, Nick Dinsmore, Christopher Daniels (with hair!) and some of the OMEGA boys.

Who is the face of the promotion? Does Chris Candido finally get his run on top? Or does Lance Storm foil him?

I actually had a 1998 related project of my own in mind but it was more of a thought process. I may have even touched on it before, but it was basically WCW if you made it a 35 and younger promotion. What that would look like and who WCW may have had to bring into facilitate that move.

I remember you mentioning your 1998 WCW project in my Draft Thread. The Gambler and Disorderly Conduct were among the small number of wrestlers you couldn't find accurate age information on. 
=============
1998 ROH doesn't have a working agreement with ECW so Candido & Lance are out.

I'm thinking the first champion would likely be Lance "Simon" Diamond or Devon "Crowbar" Storm, though there's always a chance I go full Baker and give Cheetah Master the big Gambler push. Stevie Richards would likely be another early champion as the culmination of his Jamie Noble redemption tour push.

Maybe we start in '97 rather than '98? Up to September '98 the promotion would be dominated by East Coast guys- those mentioned above + Steve Corino, Ace Diamond, Reckless Youth, Mike Quackenbush, Don Montoya, Julio Sanchez, Jimmy Cicero, Inferno Kid, maybe Scott Taylor and Steve Bradley depending on exactly when they signed WWF deals (Developmental in Bradley's case). Tom Brandi would be our ECW Shane Douglas/ROH Steve Corino bitter veteran heel.

The OMEGA boys would obviously be big. I'd have a bunch of OMEGA guys on the roster. Christian York would soon become a big breakout star. Maybe by winning a feud over Brandi? The legendary Hardy Boys vs. Sex & Violence (Sexton Hardcastle & Christian Cage) trilogy ends up getting all four men signed to WWF. Shane Helms, Kid Dynamo (Shannon Moore), Venom (Joey Abs), CW Anderson, Joey Matthews, Mike Maverick, Otto Schwanz, Cham Pain, and Death & Destruction (Frank Parker & Roger Anderson) would also be used, though I can't imagine all of them becoming regulars. 

Jimi V, Ace Steel, Adam Pearce, Danny Dominion, American Kickboxer, and Tarek The Great would represent the Midwest. Rhino Richards, Joe E. Legend, and Johnny Swinger would be part of the Canadian Sex & Violence faction. Chi Chi Cruz is another Canadian talent we'd use on occasion. The traditional wrestling hotbed of Tennessee would give us Flash Flanagan, Tony "Kid Wikkid" Williams, PG 13, and David Jericho (Kid Kash). We'd also bring in big Hotstuff Hernandez from Texas.

Fall '98 sees a wave of new talent in a dozen APW guys + Kevin Quinn & Steve Boz from the Windy City. I'd probably run an APW invasion angle, or at least a big West Coast vs. East Coast war. Michael Modest & Christopher Daniels are the big stars of the APW Invasion while the midcard pretty much becomes APW Central. 

1999 is dominated by Daniels/Modest/Youth/Quackenbush as our Four Pillars. Daniels is likely the long term champion getting a "best in the world" push.

I could always give Venom (Joey Abs) or Vic Grimes the Samoa Joe unbeatable monster push before one of them drops the strap to Daniels?

Of course I'd have to run a California Suicide Kid vs. Kentuckiana Suicide Kid feud for rights to the name.

Tony Kozina, Scoot Andrews, "Ice Pick" Vic Capri, and Super Dragon would join the promotion in 1999. I could also see Dick Togo & Men's Teioh sticking around the US for a little while after leaving WWF to become ROH Tag Team Champions. 2 Cold Scorpio would also come in with a monster push. Maybe he's the guy to finally end Daniels' reign?

By 2000 it starts looking a little more like proper ROH with AJ Styles, Low Ki, Samoa Joe, Frankie Kazarian, and Others coming aboard.

*Shoot. I forgot about the early OVW stars. I'm sure Nick Dinsmore, Doug Basham, Rob Conway, and Damaja would all get a look. Also forgot about a promising California indie kid named Prototype who would come in with Samoa Joe and Kazarian.

D'oh. Forgot about the Haas Brothers as well. They're definitely tag champs at some point.

I say shelve the 1998 ROH Project and push forward the 1999 APW Message Board war stories. I'm actually star struck that you interacted with Modest and Alexander. Beyond The Mat is one of my favourite documentaries of all-time, to the point where The Wrestler really underwhelmed me because whatever Randy The Ram was going through couldn't compare to Jake Roberts pissing in a bucket backstage at some indie show.

I was actually a fan of Modest before the documentary came out. He had a match against Prince Iaukea on the episode of Nitro where Hogan was able to spot The Wall from a 500 yards away. He made an impression on me and I was keen to see more and then he disappeared. I thought I may have had him mixed up with Above Average Mike Sanders until CageMatch.com set me straight.

I'm digging the concept. Not only does it shine a light on the indies at a time where a lot of people didn't care for them, but it also seems like a celebration of Gabe's formula which is still really novel even after all these years.

I wonder if the list is available on Internet Archives website?

*Moved over from the Match Review Thread

Then I came across a Brian Christopher vs. Michael Modest USWA match and transitioned from a USWA rabbit hole to an APW rabbit hole. Watched a few Modest matches, a glorious Bradshaw squash of an APW guy, and footage from Beyond The Mat. Maybe I'll write more about that tomorrow.

But now I want to take a second to plug the latest fanfic idea I'll almost certainly never follow through on- ROH 1998.

Best Fanfic Ideas I Never Followed Through With


1. Saving the AWA (89-91ish)
2. Reviving the NWA (95-97)
3. Extreme World Championship Wrestling (March 2001-??)
4. ROH 1998

I've spent the last hour or so reading about late 90s indie stuff mainly in search of the Holy Grail for this project, which is a list of the Top 50 indie wrestlers put together by....somebody in...late 98-early 99? Alas, I came up empty. But that list generated considerable buzz among the whopping two dozen people who gave a crap about US indie wrestling during the height of the Attitude Era. Going by memory...

Daniels, Modest, and Reckless Youth were the Top 3. I forget the exact order. I think Steve Bradley was #4. Definitely remember a big brouhaha over whether Bradley (who was under WWF Developmental contract) should be considered an indie wrestler.

Or maybe Julio Sanchez was #4? Definitely remember him being really high. Which makes me think this list came out before October 98 because that's when I went to my first MCW show and I remember being super disappointed by the pedestrian wrestling of "the great" Julio Sanchez. See Also: Inferno Kid. Lance Diamond didn't live up to the hype either as far as my movez loving late 90s self was concerned.

Also remember David Jericho (Kid Kash) making the Top 10 (wanna say #6). This was a major surprise at the time since it was mainly the East Coast and APW/California guys who had all the buzz. Kash was only famous to me for his amusing (to my cousin and I) "man of many names" gimmick at ECW November To Remember '96. I had no idea he was considered "good" until that list came out. The guy who made said list was definitely ahead of curve on Kid Kash.

Also recall an obscure Canadian named Chi Chi Cruz making the list. He was one of the few (only?) guys I had never heard of at the time. Remembering that is literally what made me throw him on my 1998 ROH fanfic roster.

Oct 22, 2020 4:27:39 GMT Big Pete said:

I say shelve the 1998 ROH Project and push forward the 1999 APW Message Board war stories. I'm actually star struck that you interacted with Modest and Alexander. Beyond The Mat is one of my favourite documentaries of all-time, to the point where The Wrestler really underwhelmed me because whatever Randy The Ram was going through couldn't compare to Jake Roberts pissing in a bucket backstage at some indie show.

I was actually a fan of Modest before the documentary came out. He had a match against Prince Iaukea on the episode of Nitro where Hogan was able to spot The Wall from a 500 yards away. He made an impression on me and I was keen to see more and then he disappeared. I thought I may have had him mixed up with Above Average Mike Sanders until CageMatch.com set me straight.

I'm digging the concept. Not only does it shine a light on the indies at a time where a lot of people didn't care for them, but it also seems like a celebration of Gabe's formula which is still really novel even after all these years.

I wonder if the list is available on Internet Archives website?

You asked for it. I've got stories for years. Be back in a few hours with some glorious APW Message Board war stories. 

*Moved all the recent pre-ROH indie discussion over to this new thread but somehow botched the posting order. 

Oct 22, 2020 4:27:39 GMT Big Pete said:

I wonder if the list is available on Internet Archives website?

Spent a few minutes looking for it but quickly gave up. The biggest problem is I don't know who wrote the list or where it was published.

What I do remember is Flash Flanagan was another name in the Top 10. He was a Kentucky/Tennessee based guy who had been hyped as a future star as early as 1995 by Jim Cornette. He was similar to Scotty Riggs in that he was a good 80s style athletic white meat babyface who came around a little too late. Flanagan, like Riggs, was Brad Armstrong in an increasingly Rey Misterio world.

By the early 2000s Flanagan changed his look, name, and style, becoming a hardcore specialist with the extremely Attitude Era name of "Slash Venom" just as hardcore was falling out of fashion. He never made it big in the US, and I don't think he ever worked Japan or Mexico at all, but did have a good run in Puerto Rico, where he's famous for taking a crazy Mick Foley style bump which I just saw for the first time. Here in the States he was a regular with SMW, dying day USWA, OVW, and bombed in his lone ROH appearance. Here is his allegedly famous PR bump...



The WKO, Daniels/Taka, and my Introduction To APW

Online cliques were all the rage in 1998. Everybody who was anybody had an internet gang. Mine was called the Wrestling Knowledge Organization. I joined AOL in February 1998 and the WKO a few months later. We wrote a newzletter, had an e-fed, raided other chatrooms, and had a love/hate relationship with our rival clique- No Life 4 Life. The WKO will likely feature heavily in these storytimes. Several of my WKO comrades actually ended up in the wrestling business. One guy worked for (ran?) an indie fed in New Jack's then-hometown of Dayton, OH. Another guy was a ref in IWA Mid South. I'd see him many times on tape a few years later when Ian Rotten's sleazy Indiana-based promotion experienced a wave of internet popularity. Another WKO member may or may not be a popular present day indie commentator. And then there was Showstoppa. Every group seems to have a member nobody really likes, yet nobody has the balls to get rid of. The brash Showstoppa that guy for us. He was our resident "X Pac." When not weirdly imploring everybody to refer to Benoit as "Pegasus," or Masa Chono as "Masa My Hero Chono," he was forever talking about how his local indie, APW, was "hella good." As with most Show related things, I just ignored him. But he was my intro to APW.

Taka Michinoku had an awesome Shotgun match with a hitherto unknown guy named Christopher Daniels in September '99. I remembered Jim Cornette mentioning Daniels worked for "All Pro Wrestling in California." I suppose this triggered already half-forgotten memories of Showstoppa's "hella good" local indie fed.

Oh, I need to explain my family were only sporadic internet users in those days. Iirc my parents got monthly AOL plans when they had a good deal. The way I remember it, we had an AOL plan from approximately February-August 98. Then we went largely without the internet at home for a year. 

So I had to wait until the Monday after the Daniels/Taka Shotgun match to check out this All Pro Wrestling fed Cornette mentioned, and Show had pimped. I found the APW site and got hooked. During that year largely without internet I was a regular in the school computer room and the local library where I'd read up on my rasslin newz. 1Wrestling.com (where I followed Memphis Power Pro Wrestling) and APW were my go to sites.

APW Message Board Wars

Sorry to disappoint Pete, but I don't have many Michael Modest message board stories. He was far from a regular. He'd post maybe once a month. The APW faithful would fawn over their hero.

Roland Alexander is a different story. Big Rolo was a prolific poster and an extremely polarizing figure. Definitely a love/hate kinda guy. In hindsight, I believe he liked winding people up. He had a troll streak. Enjoyed playing the heel. Here is my most memorable Rolo message board story....

*Some details may be slightly off. This happened 22 years ago. But the gist of this story is 100% true.

It started innocently enough. Rolo was looking to seal the deal with a prospective trainee. Said trainee was about to start a new semester at college and wouldn't be able to start training until the upcoming semester had ended. Roland then proceeded to tell the world how he had scammed the Portuguese Scholarship Fund by spending the money they gave him for school on something else entirely. Then he told this kid to pull the same scam. Then all hell broke loose. Roland's haters, and there were many, came out of the woodwork. This was highly illegal, they said. Many threatened to get in touch with this Portuguese Scholarship Fund Roland had stolen from so long ago. Far from backtracking, an unapologetic Roland doubled down. He was damn proud of what he did. He begged the haters to contact the Portuguese Scholarship Fund. Oh man. I feel like this was the longest, most heated debate on a forum that had A LOT of heated debates. Roland was a world class heel during this whole saga. 

As I mentioned earlier, Roland and I had a lot of back and forth squabbles. We were oil and water. I was a WWF loving modern fan.  He was a WWF hating traditionalist. But I do feel like he had a small soft spot for me. He would often put over my non-WWF posts, for example. I get the impression he thought I was equipped with the right kind of brains, but was wholly out of the habit of using them. He just couldn't understand how somebody who watched, and had an interest in non-WWF wrestling, could still prefer WWF to everything else. I'll also give him credit for having thick skin. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to speak power to truth by banning all his critics. Yet he rarely did. Though I think I did get banned in the end lol (ccan't remember for sure).
Some other APW message board characters...

Shane Dynasty- APW's lead heel manager. His main client was Maxx Justice, who held the APW Universal Championship for the bulk of my message board run. Dynasty was definitely the coolest dude affiliated with APW. He DMed me out of the blue one day. And for once it wasn't hate mail from an angry APW fanatic! Turns out he was also from Maryland- Gaithersburg to be precise. We had a few wholesome conversations. Don't remember many particulars though.

Hmm...I had never questioned his sincerity before. But now I am. Hear me out...

McMahon Dynasty
Shane McMahon- shoot hometown: Gaithersburg, MD
Shane Dynasty

Was Shane Dynasty from Gaithersburg, MD just a deep cut rib on Shane McMahon? Or is my inner conspiracy theorist coming through?

Jason Deadrich- APW was technically owned by a company called Pacific Coast Sports. As best as I can tell, this "company" consisted of Roland Alexander, and maybe his gopher. Jason Deadrich was that gopher. He was the onscreen APW Commissioner and seemed to be Roland's heir apparent behind the scenes. He posted frequently, but was a pretty bland figure. I have no Jason Deadrich stories.

*With one exception I'm going to refrain from using real names from here on out to protect the innocent.

Jermz- I feel like half the battle in getting over as a 90s indie promotion was to have a tireless shill. Memphis PPW had 1wrestling.com's Jess McGrath who made Shawn Stasiak sound like the next Rock, Baldo (Albert) out to be the next Vader, and made Steve Bradley seem like an even better version of RVD. Delaware/Pennsylvania indies had a guy I'll get to later with the odd handle of BilJim. My local indie (MCW) had a mediocre shill in its timekeeper, Jeff Amdur. Hence MCW never getting over outside of Maryland.

But the greatest shill of them all was the unfortunately named Jermz. This guy! His awesome pics and epic show recaps were a large part of what kept me coming back to the APW site. He'd send out his detailed writeups of APW shows to all the major wrestling newz sites. Don't think Jermz (who also went by the handle SilverSurfer) ever saw an APW match that wasn't at least ***. The top 2 or 3 matches on any given APW show were destined to be ****+. And about every 3rd or 4th show would have a ***** match. These ratings are obviously ridiculous in hindsight, but I largely bought into them at the time. I genuinely believed APW was the best in ring promotion in the US. Jermz honestly did more for APW with his world class shilling than just about anybody else.

As for me, I shilled primarily for a small Connecticut-based outfit known as the "WWF."  

Memorable APW Posters Not Affiliated With The Promotion

BilJim- This strangely named character was an East Coast indie enthusiast- mainly of the Delaware-based ECWA and its sister promotion- Pennsylvania's PCW. He respected the APW talent (and may have even helped getting them booked on the East Coast), but had major heat with Roland. The East Coast vs. West Coast feud was huge with APW's fanbase. In fact, it was on the APW message board where I first learned the whole "laid back West Coaster" stereotype is one of the biggest lies ever foisted upon the American public. West Coasters were anything but laid back! The ones I encountered tended to be feisty fellows with a major inferiority complex.

Anyway, one valid point BilJim had in his East Coast Indie Stars > APW Stars ranting concerned the isolationist nature of APW. The APW guys trained together and almost exclusively wrestled one another. They were able to constantly practice their matches together at the APW school in order to work out any kinks they may have. Whereas a Reckless Youth (to use just one example) was wrestling different guys trained by different people in different promotions up and down the east coast every single weekend. 

Bob Barnett- Early smark and tape trading guru who conducted what is widely believed to be the first ever shoot interview with Eddie Gilbert. Think he was also once a member of Dave Meltzer's inner circle. Real life lawyer. And the 98-99 award winner for Biggest Message Board Jerk. This guy was an insufferable prat. He was StrictlyECW's Stuart with a law degree. The kind of guy who would threaten to sue you for liable if you called him an "asshole." As far as I know none of these cases ever made it to court. I imagine that's because even a California jury would refuse to convict, concluding instead that Bob Barnett was indeed an asshole. Barnett is another one who respected the APW talent while hating on Big Roland.

*The BilJim and Bob Barnett names were used by one off APW jobbers in a very Vince McMahonesque FU to two of Roland's staunchest critics.

The Pro Wresting Secrets Exposed Controversy

During the height of the Attitude Era boom, an extremely late 90s special aired on national tv promising to "expose the secrets of professional wrestling." Most of the wrestlers "exposing the secrets" were APW guys. Here it is in full...



Turns out this aired just about a month after I started following APW. All hell broke loose when it did. It was a major controversy for about two weeks. Old school wrestlers came out condemning the special and anyone who participated in it. Other promoters went on record vowing to never book APW talent. All the big wrestling newz talking heads wrote lengthy pieces coming down on one side of the controversy or the other. I wanna say even the formerly pro-APW Jim Cornette chimed in to oppose it. Roland was once again unapologetic. He blamed his usual target, Vince McMahon, for exposing the business years ago. He also made the valid point that nobody complained about Harley Race's involvement. Anyway, the whole brouhaha soon blew over, and I literally forgot about it for the next 20 years.

Combing through results just now it looks like my big APW/First Indie phase lasted roughly one year. Beginning with Daniels/Taka in September 98 until Maxx Justice stupidly lost the APW Universal Championship to his manager Shane Dynasty in September 99. Around that same time the novelty of going to local MCW shows wore off after a year, and by early 2000 I lost interest in PPW due to most of the hyped talent getting called up to WWF. I didn't follow its successor, MCW TN, at all. Looking back, I think 98-99 indie wrestling (and ECW) filled the one void my beloved WWF didn't have covered- good wrestling. That changed in 2000 (remind me to tell you about my controversial epic "20 **** matches" post at Strictly ECW). Plus I may not have been as keen on looking for The Next Big Thing now that Angle, The Hardys, and Edge & Christian were right there. What alternative wrestling itch I had in 2000-early 2001 was largely scratched by going back in time to the territories- namely Memphis, Mid South, and SMW. 
=====================
Big Pete What do you want to read about next? I'll throw out some options....

-Dissecting the APW roster with possible side trips to MRW and PCW
-MCW MD stories- this was my local indie fed. Home of Christian York & Tom Brandi. I went to about 8-10 shows in 98-99. 
-Memphis PPW stories- this WWF Developmental fed was the other "indie" I followed religiously in 98-99.
-Break The Barrier stories- this was an indie supershow at the ECW Arena in May 99.
-ECWA Super 8 stories- this was the premier indie show of the year from roughly 99-02. Indie fans considered it "the American Super J Cup."
-Shameless namedropping- stories of personal interactions with Necro Butcher, Mikey Whipwreck, Chris Hamrick, and more.

There I was looking up former MRW & PPW star "Atomic Dog" Steve Sharp/Ali Stevens the way all normal people do in the year 2020 when I accidentally found the very list I had been looking for  :woot: :woot: :woot:

It wasn't quite the way I remembered. No Modest! No David Jericho or Chi Chi Cruz either. I looked at the date and thought maybe this was Version 2.0 or 3.0. Perhaps they came up with a new Top 50 every 6 months or so? Granted, that was a longshot. Felt like a cope...A little white lie I was telling myself to make up for a few embarrassing memory botches. But then I found this....

Confirming my suspicions. Damn I'm good.

Anyway, the list was originally made by the tweeter Al Getz for a website I don't remember called WHOO! Wrestling. Getz was primarily a Georgia indie manager who moved to California for a spell to work with APW. 

Having briefly interacted with Mike Modest, I can only assume he failed to make this version of the list because he complained about finishing #2 or #3 last time so Big Al was like "screw this whiny asshole" and left him off entirely. 

But who cares about stupid Michael Modest because WHERE IS "THE MASTER OF CHEETAHS" CHEETAH MASTER!?!?!? :@ :banghead: :kane:  Worst. List. Ever.

Dig seeing the awesomely nicknamed "Beef Stew" Lou Marconi of Marconi & Staletto fame on the list.

AWF jobber Bobby Joe Eaton! Whoa! Did not expect to see him here. Don't remember him having any sort of buzz. But I get it. After all, he did wrestle in rounds~!

Matthews over York is just wrong. Then. Now. Forever.

I am familiar with every single wrestler on the list. That puts me one up on "esteemed wrestling journalist" Bix who was unfamiliar with Ali Stevens. Imagine calling yourself a wrestling fan and blanking on the indie Ahmed Johnson. smh. 

:lol: 'little' Conneticut promotion.

Thanks for the detailed write up. I was always curious to hear what became of APW and have only been able to hear bits and pieces since. The write up about Roland seems about right, he was a guest on Colt Cabana's podcast and actually came off fairly well. Beyond the Mat made him out to be a massive scam artist when really he knew a lot about the scene and actually gave some good insight on the scene. It's worth hunting down and that's how I became aware of Reckless Youth and Quack being big stars. There's also a great Rob Naylor podcast about early indies but it maybe a little late but if you want to get the juices flowing I'll try and hunt it down for you.

Oh god Wrestling's Secrets Exposed! That was one of the first Pro Wrestling related shows and all I remember was that it was narrated by Salem from Sabrina and Stunt Granny. Was it a big expose over there? My recollection is managing to catch it on a weeknight when we had family staying over so I had to sleep in the big roll-out lounge in the living room. Just an utter fluke but it stayed with me for all those years even though it was only recently when the OSW boys recapped it that I got to relive it.

Love all those docos from around that time period. MTV True Life, BTM, Wrestling With Shadows etc. One of the nice surprises was coming across the Louis Theroux doco and understanding why everybody hated Sarge. I thought people hated him for the very obvious reason that he cost Goldberg his WCW career to Totally Buff no less! Not that he had a small man syndrome and took his frustration out on Louis. My favourite part is when Louis goes to some southern indie that's an ECW hardcore knock off and everyone is just so nice and accepting - the complete opposite of what you'd expect with Louis.

1 being the highest and working my way down, although they all sound like fun stories.

4 -Dissecting the APW roster with possible side trips to MRW and PCW
1 -MCW MD stories- this was my local indie fed. Home of Christian York & Tom Brandi. I went to about 8-10 shows in 98-99.
2 -Memphis PPW stories- this WWF Developmental fed was the other "indie" I followed religiously in 98-99.
6 -Break The Barrier stories- this was an indie supershow at the ECW Arena in May 99.
5 -ECWA Super 8 stories- this was the premier indie show of the year from roughly 99-02. Indie fans considered it "the American Super J Cup."
3 -Shameless namedropping- stories of personal interactions with Necro Butcher, Mikey Whipwreck, Chris Hamrick, and more.

Pre-RoH the big things were CZW, ECWA, PWF, ICW, MCW, Wildside, FWA, IWA-MS, JCW and JAPW that I remember. I mostly watched Jersey region.

Quiet Storm was the man during that era. I was really into ICW, JCW and CZW as that is where Low Ki, Red, Homicide, the Brisceos, Divine Storm and others all lurked. During this period Xavier was untouchable IMO. He was just so damn good. Tony Mamaluke was the best damn submission guy during this era as well. American Dragon was good, but Mamaluke was better.  Jimmy Rave was a really good as well as a junior in his early years.  

And for sure ECWA was THEE tournament of the year.  Super J-Cup in JAPW and Ted Petty Inventional were also pretty big, Best of the Best in CZW as well, but ECWA Super 8 was a legit place people brokeout.  

1998 I was not too into the indy scene, but in 99 some new blood started to appear and in 2000 they started to take over.  2001 was the year indy wrestling revived IMO with some amazing matches opening the door for a fed like RoH to come in.

OMG my favorite match from 2001 is on Youtube. X vs Low Ki ladder match from ICW at the Elk's Lodge.

Awesome found another one - CZW Take 1 Divine Storm and Brian XL vs SATs.

The career maker match:

Just wanna come in and say I hate Reckless Youth.

I never got the appeal of Reckless Youth either.  Then again he no showed every show I went to that he was advertised to appear at.

Thanks for the recommendations Big Pete . That Louis Theroux doc was always popping up in my Youtube recommendations a few years back. Never took the time to watch it for some reason.

Spent the first few hours at work daydreaming about my theoretical 1998 ROH fanfic project and I now have a pretty clear picture of what the first few shows would look like. So that project may yet become a reality. Stay tuned...

Pro Wrestling Secrets Exposed was a major controversy within wrestling circles for like 2 weeks. Then everybody forgot about it and moved on with their lives.

Until last night I had no idea Salem from Sabrina The Teenage Witch narrated Pro Wrestling Secrets Exposed. Not gonna lie. I popped when I saw that and meant to comment on it last night.

c 's list of popular indie promotions is a good start. I'd add APW, UPW, and the infamous XPW all out of California. Pennsylvania-based PCW was another fairly popular promotion in the late 90s. It was basically ECWA's sister fed. Used a lot of the same talent. Just didn't have the year Super 8 tournament, and the hype that went along with hosting THE premier indie show of the year. OMEGA was of course a popular fed circa 98-99ish. Then you have the WWF Developmental feds like PPW, its successor MCW, OVW, and HWA.

I don't remember FWA. Unless you're referring to the British fed? Which PWF were you referring to? Steve Corino's Pennsylvania-based promotion or the old school North Carolina fed with George South & Italian Stallion?

I agree that 2001 is the year indie wrestling really started to take off. The aforementioned 2001 Super 8 with Ki & Dragon was the big turning point imo. I think the demise of WCW & ECW also helped to kickstart the boom. Fans who wanted more than just WWF were now starved for an alternative. The burgeoning indie scene filled that void. 2002 saw the birth of ROH, CHIKARA, and TNA. PWG commenced operations the following year. The rest is history.

This is my favorite pre-ROH indie match. Low Ki vs. Christopher Daniels from ECWA 11/3/01. First non-Maryland indie show I saw live. I was hooked after being in the building for this....



LOL I had forgotten about Reckless being the Teddy Hart of his day when it came to no shows. King of The Indies? Meh. More like King of the No Shows.

All those no shows are a big reason I only saw him once (vs. Daniels in ECWA) before his meh run as Tom Carter in 2003 ROH. By that point other guys had surpassed him and I didn't see what the big deal was with Reckless. Great Frog Splash though. Real D'Lo Brown style. He really got Froggy with it. But overall Reckless Youth is now 0 for 3 in this thread. Honestly, a lot of the big late 90s indie stars were super overrated...

But not Cheetah Master. Never Cheetah Master. You won't catch me writing a single bad word about The Hulk Hogan of Delaware.

Whoa! It turns out ECWA had a tv show in 1997. I was not aware of that. Cheetah Master is on Episode 2! He takes on Ace Darling. You know I'm watching this. Just heard Captain Lou Albano refer to Cheetah as "one of the greatest of all time." Who am I to argue with Mario?

Absolutely loving this thread. The motherfucking Haas Brothers are more than an also mentioned, they are the ace tag team of our super indie. I saw them at a JAPW show in early 2000 and they were already a finished product, so we could hot shot them by late 1998. They were a Steiner Brothers/Sabu & RVD hybrid, they were suplexing motherfuckers, then one of them did a triple jump moonsault, I was going out of my mind. I would have put half of my life savings into Haas Brothers stock, the other half into Low Ki stock, who was also a finished product that night. I was 15 so this would have been like $70 dollars, maybe. 

We need to get Sick Nick Mondo in a couple blood feuds in 1999, instant cult figure. Maybe we can chill him out a bit and he won't be broken by 2003. 

Otherwise, all the big names have been represented. It's just a matter of fitting everyone together. 

Nice to see Kilgore back. You’ve been quiet of late.

The Haas Brothers really were a mashup of RVD & Scott Steiner. The one thing I’ll always remember them for is getting over during a Raw dark match in Baltimore. That’s right up there with the Dudleys getting Justin Credible cheered at the ECW Arena when it comes to pulling off seemingly impossible feats.

Looks like I will be going through with my goofy indie super fed fanfic idea after all. Been tinkering with it throughout the day. Have a pretty good idea of where I’m going. Biggest question now is should I take the slow burn approach or go for broke right away by hotshotting everything?

Oct 25, 2020 0:32:30 GMT Baker said:

Nice to see Kilgore back. You’ve been quiet of late.

The Haas Brothers really were a mashup of RVD & Scott Steiner. The one thing I’ll always remember them for is getting over during a Raw dark match in Baltimore. That’s right up there with the Dudleys getting Justin Credible cheered at the ECW Arena when it comes to pulling off seemingly impossible feats.

Looks like I will be going through with my goofy indie super fed fanfic idea after all. Been tinkering with it throughout the day. Have a pretty good idea of where I’m going. Biggest question now is should I take the slow burn approach or go for broke right away by hotshotting everything?

It wouldn't be the indies if you didn't do the latter.

Those OMEGA boys were crazy. Check out Jeff's picture perfect Shooting Star Press and Matt's sublime 450 Splash.





And on the other end of the spectrum, here is a documentary about 1994 Alabama indie wrestling...

TBH I always thought Omega was just a fan fic they wrote. Still in disbelief it existed.

Oct 26, 2020 22:31:42 GMT @ness said:

TBH I always thought Omega was just a fan fic they wrote. Still in disbelief it existed.

It basically was a Matt Hardy fanfic come to life. That's what's cool about it.

I've watched a ton of late 90s indie wrestling over the past few days and I have thoughts...

*First of all, late 90s indie wrestling was still all about faces vs. heels. Even the 'workrate' matches were good guy vs. bad guy first, action second. 

Julio Sanchez vs. Don Montoya- Steel City Wrestling 2/8/98- This is unique venue. Nightclub, maybe? There is a wall really close to one side of the ring and what appears to be a disco ball hangs from the roof (VQ is terrible for many of these matches). Back in the day I thought Julio and Inferno Kid were the two most overhyped indie darlings, and Julio remains very not good. His execution stinks. Don Montoya is a fatty who traveled with Quack & Reckless Youth. He was hyped as a "300 pound luchador" and I am sad to report there is nothing whatsoever Luchaesque about Don Montoya.

The actual wrestling in this match sucked. Julio's offense is terrible except for the time he accidentally drilled Montoya in the jaw with a that sweet spinning superkick the Goth NXT guy does. And Montoya has basic fat guy offense. His big high spot being a missed Frog Splash from the second rope.

But the crowd heat is off the charts. They were reacting it like was a 2000 Rock/HHH match. I had no idea Julio was the Cheetah Master of Pittsburgh. And Montoya is a heat magnet who gets major boos for everything he does. So the awesome crowd made this otherwise bad match somewhat amusing. Sanchez throws a Superkick exactly how I did in 1998. That is not a compliment. And that Superkick is his finisher. Julio wins to the delight of the Steel City faithful.

Mike Quackenbush vs. Lou Marconi- IPW 6/20/98- Never heard of IPW, but the commentators(!) say this show takes place at a country club(!) in Bushkill, PA. The crowd unfortunately reacts exactly how you'd expect a country club crowd to react to a wrestling match in 1998. Which is to say, not at all.

Beef Stew sighting! Beef Stew Lou has a good look for a 1998 indie wrestler. Think Roderick Strong. Sure, that's generic, but at least he is in shape. Quack looks the same as he always did.

This would have been my favorite match of the bunch in 1998 due to the cool moves. I always assumed Beef Stew would be more of a traditional wrestler, but he's a straight up moves guy in this one. Though I'm sure it helped that he was wrestling the small and willing Quack. Beef Stew Lou hits a lot of spinkicks, other kind of kicks (generating an early mention of "strong style" from the commentators), a cool Baldo Bomb, a picture perfect belly to belly, and this awkward, but insane dive...


Quack hits a more traditionally sweet flip dive, but also a lot of laughably goofy "karate" offense that wouldn't break and egg, whiffs on a lot of kicks, and hits an ugly body slam to set up his sloppy Arabian Press finisher.

1998 me would have thought this was an awesome actionfest. 2020 me applauds the effort, but thinks these guys needed more polish. 

Matt Hardy vs. Venom (Joey Abs)- NCW 1998- This time it's Cham Pain and some other guy on commentary. Venom is wearing his late 90s internet famous "God Fears Venom" singlet. This was the most polished match of the bunch in terms of both look and ring work. You could put this on 1998 WWF or WCW tv for sure. Even the lame double countout finish would have been right at home on a 1998 episode of Raw or Nitro.

Maxx Justice vs. Tony Jones- APW December 1997- For some reason Maxx Justice was my homegrown APW guy when I followed the promotion online. He was their longtime champion and Jermz's match reviews made him out to be Sid if Sid was actually good. He looks like a dead ringer for Ludvig Borga if Borga wore green Mountie pants and didn't have a Finnish flag on his black singlet. Tony Jones is tall for an indie wrestler and is famous for Jim Ross telling him he needed to work on his upper body.

It pains me to report this was a total snoozefest. Lots of chinlockery and a terrible finish with the comically named Boom Boom Comini (whose name cracked my cousin up. Seriously, every time I said Boom Boom Comini he would just bust out laughing) interferes against Justice. The only thing saving this from DUDville was each man hitting a pretty cool belly to belly suplex. The poor camera angle and lack of commentary only made things snoozier. 1/4*

Tennessee Volunteers vs. Nick Dinsmore & Rob Conway- Music City Wrestling 1998?- Another match with commentary! Decent camera angle, too! Yay! Unfortunately, the commentary actually hurt this because I swear they kept mixing up Conway & Dinsmore. Those two looked alike back then. Especially with this poor VQ. Commentator gushes about Reno Riggins'.....abdominal stretch  Anyway, this was pure good guy vs. bad guy Tennessee rasslin'. 

Serial Thrillaz (Shane Helms & Mike Maverick) vs. Frank Parker & Roger Anderson- Wendell, NC 1997- The Serial Thrillaz are to Wendell, NC what Julio Sanchez is to Pittsburgh and Cheetah Master was to Delaware. Over like rover, baby. This is basic face vs. heel rasslin' with the Serial Thrillaz going over after hitting this very cool finisher....



Vic Grimes vs. Steve Bradley w/ Jim Cornette- PPW September 1999- Grimes is a bald babyface who wears a tie with "Vicious" written on it. Bradley really did look like RVD. They start off like gangbusters. In the first minute Bradley hits a flip dive, Grimes hits an awesome press slam into chokeslam that some big, tall, or strong guy in mainstream wrestling totally should have stolen, and they do something else cool that I forget. Bradley also hits a sweet dropkick at some point. But his greenness shows later in the match when Grimes catches him flying with an RKO outta nowhere....and Bradley is up first. Ugh. Grimes has it won with a top rope splash but Cornette interferes with a racket attack for the DQ. 

Later on Cornette interviews his soon-to-be real life wife "Synn" who is debuting as Grimes' bitter ex-girlfriend from California. It all gets very Attitude Era-y about Grimes leaving her in Cali to pursue his wrestling dreams and blah blah blah.

Vic Grimes vs. Kurt Angle- PPW July or August 1999- Grimes has white dreads and had just debuted on WWF tv. He would disappear forever like 2 weeks later. He's a heel this time around. And he's going up against PPW's top white meat babyface, your Olympic hero and mine, Kurt Angle! 

Grimes wrestles like Vader this time around. We get a splash and Vader Bomb to work over Angle's already-injured ribs. But Kurt comes back with a German Suplex and a picture perfect belly to belly for the win. 

Joey Matthews & Christian York vs. Shane Helms & Shannon Moore- OMEGA Late 90s- Moore & Helms sure do love hitting their double team fireman's carry-neckbreaker combo. They do so no less than 3 times in this segment. York & Matthews are already wearing their stylish fancy pants. Interference by their manager backfires and they lose. Post-match sees them turn on the manager. Some guys I don't recognize interfere to help the manager. Moore & Helms run these bad guys off after hitting yet another fireman's carry-neckbreaker combo. All four participants in the bout shake hands after the match. Wonder if this was the start of their Bad Street Boys faction?

Wonder if this was before Dinsmore & Conway were going as Lords of the Ring?

Also, had no idea until now that Joey Matthews & Christian York vs. Shane Helms & Shannon Moore was a dream match I'd be interested in seeking out.

Oct 27, 2020 20:59:01 GMT 🤯 said:

Wonder if this was before Dinsmore & Conway were going as Lords of the Ring?

I think it was. Don't remember the commentary team referring to them by their future OVW name.
================
I dug even deeper into the most obscure corners of 90s indie wrestling this afternoon....

I always remembered an Apter Mag blurb about a team called The Lost Boys (Yar & Wolf)  which was accompanied by a photo of the duo. This would have been in 1996. Long before the more famous (but still pretty darn unknown) NWA Wildside Lost Boys were a thing. Even fellow 90s indie enthusiast kashdinero plead ignorance when it came to the original Lost Boys. After much searching, I did find a match of theirs on Youtube.

I also found a hilariously detailed Wikipedia entry on the team that had to have been written by either Yar or Wolf. I love finding these obscure indie wrestlers with Wikipedia pages more in depth than WWF Hall of Famers. It amuses me to no end. Of course that Wikipedia article included their writeup from The Wrestler in full. Here it is...

The Lost Boys aren't a typical streetfighting tag team. They combine brawling with uncanny quickness and very good aerial skills. Their finisher is the Generation X Jam, a move that has Yar hoisting their victim onto his shoulders, and Wolf executing a moonsault that sends the opponent crashing to the mat.

Unfortunately, that Wikipedia entry ends on an unexpected sad note. Here is the shocking last sentence...

Lost Boy Wolf, born Daniel W. Wolfe, died on February 2, 2011.

So I guess that confirms the Wikipedia entry was written by Lost Boy Yar.
==============
Lost Boys w/ Angel vs. Tony Atlas & Kid USA- IWCCW or IPW 1996?

Whoa! The Lost Boys and Kid USA! I am getting major Apter Mag flashbacks. See, an Apter Mag called The Wrestler had an "Introducing" feature where they would profile an up and coming wrestler. The very first "Introducing" feature I ever read was on Steve Corino. The second was on "Kid USA" Armand Cecere. What are the odds that the one Lost Boys match I could find would be against Kid USA? I'm feeling lucky. Tomorrow I shall play the lottery and hit it big, Gambler-style.

This match is professionally filmed! AND has commentary! But the promotion is a mystery. The video says it's IWCCW, which started out as a Massachusetts-based promotion called IWC, and would later claim a (kayfabe?) merger with Texas' famous World Class Championship Wrestling. A guy named Tony Rumble is the man I most associate with the promotion due to my years of Apter Mag reading. But the commentators call it IPW. Eh. It matters not.

This match is very bad! There was a certain level of professionalism to even the bad matches I watched earlier. This match lacks even that basic level of professionalism. The execution sucks. The selling is bad and weird. And there is no psychology or flow to this match at all. It's like an actionfest devoid of action. This is barely a step up from my friends and I playing pro wrestler in Original Baker's basement, or Chuck's living room.

Highlight is one of the Lost Boys doing an Asai Crossbody off of these extremely loose ropes. Now that doesn't seem dangerous on paper, but it's probably the most dangerous move I've seen in these past few days of binging on 90s indie wrestling. Tony Atlas will never be confused with Ricky Steamboat, but he's miles above these glorified backyarders. I honestly feel sorry for him being reduced to this. He hits a nice, effortless press slam on one of the tiny Lost Boys. His team gets the win with a Kid USA Superfly Splash.

Angel had a cup of coffee in ECW and she's actually pretty cute in a trashy high school goth girl sort of way.

Commentary was awful. One guy called a suplex a sunset flip! I knew the difference when I was 8! This is also part of a tag tournament where the commentators lie through their teeth about the teams of Koko B. Ware & Tito Santana and Greg Valentine & Rick Martel already being eliminated. I will put up good money on those teams never actually competing in this promotion.
==============
Bad match or not, I felt like I hit the jackpot seeing The Lost Boys and Kid USA in the same match. Dozens of half-forgotten indie wrestlers I read about nearly a quarter century ago in the Apter Mags suddenly came rushing back to the forefront of my brain. And above all were....

The Superkeys. This tag team certainly had a memorable name. What in the blue hell is a Superkey? It sounds like an important item you have to beat a dragon to get in an 80s Nintendo role playing game. But why would a wrestler be called a Superkey? And why are there two of them? These are questions I have been asking myself on and off for 25 years. Now it was finally time to find out....

But it was not easy to find a Superkeys match on Youtube. I had no idea where they wrestled. But I soon hit the jackpot with a 27 minute video titled MCW: Motor City Wrestling '93. I never heard of this promotion, but it looks like they had their own Michigan-based public access tv show. I had to scroll through it a little bit, but eventually succeeded in finding footage of The Superkeys!

It looks like this episode was a regional 1993 Awards show. Previous top tag team, The Riot Squad, was injured for most of the year. So the 1993 MCW Tag Team of the Year award came down to Canadian Lightning, Hot Paradise, and our boys The Superkeys. However, a travesty of justice occurred when Hot Paradise were given the award. The Superkeys finished 3rd. Superkeys were robbed!

Hot Paradise vs. The Superkeys- MCW 1993

Another show with commentary! And the very first line is "a Burrito-type maneuver, even though these guys are from the Orient." So the Superkeys are "Japanese." That....does not clarify why they are called The Superkeys. I remain perplexed....

Filming is weird. Sometimes the camera is fairly close to the ring. Other times they cut away to a camera which seems to be filming this match from 1000 feet up in a stationary flying vessel. Oh, this match takes place outside. Possibly in the middle of a racetrack? There is definitely a road of sorts not far away from the ring. 50 feet, maybe? Yet I saw no cars drive by. So I'm assuming racetrack. I <3 90s indie wrestling.

Match is joined in progress. Hot Paradise is comprised of Johnny Hotbody and Johnny Paradise. I'm assuming one of these guys has to be the future Johnny Swinger. But I have no idea which one, and it's impossible to tell with this grainy footage. Commentary can't even keep the "Japanese" Superkeys names straight. Sometimes they're referred to as Superkey #1 & #2. Other times they are referred to as Superkey Ichi an Superkey Ni. Do Ichi and Ni mean 1 and 2 in Japanese? That would be pretty clever if so. So I went to Google Translate. "Ichii" does mean first place. But I could find no spelling of Ni/Nee/Knee that remotely translated to 2. I am writing entirely too much nonsense now. 

Anyway, match is crap, but one of the Johnny's hits this weird single underhook Pedigree. I'll let you see it for yourselves...




After 3 minutes of joined in progress footage the match just....stops. It cuts off in random mid-match before we see the finish. BOO! Worst wrestling tv show ever.....

But I am feeling inspired now. I finally got to see the Lost Boys, Kid USA, and The Superkeys! And doing so has inspired a potential new project...

Attempt to watch one match of every single wrestler featured in a particular PWI 500. Of course, it's gotta be one from 95-98. Probably whichever year had The New One Man Gang, Master Mayhem, and Indiana Kidd Jr.

When you're hot, you're hot. One more before bed.

Another mid-90s PWI 500 entry who made a lasting impression on me was the awesomely named....

Brother Midnite. I quite logically pictured him as an indie version of The Undertaker and even booked him as such in one of my LJN action figure leagues. 

Fast forward a few months to June 8, 1996. A member of the rather sizable Southern Pennsylvania branch of my family was having some sort of party. Graduation or Birthday, probably. But that's not important. I can pinpoint the date because I made it a point to sneak away from this largely outdoor gathering at 4 p.m. in order to watch as much of WWF Superstars as possible before the inevitable interruption, and I remember catching the Marty/Savio KOTR Qualifier. (I can date pretty much every experience I had in 1996 and the surrounding years based on its proximity to certain wrestling matches lol)

Anyway, while I was close to the PA side of the family growing up, I had lost touch with them when they moved up North. Being a loner and weirdo by nature, conversations with these people I now barely knew had become rather awkward. So I mostly hung out with my brother and the other acquaintance(s) who came with us. It was either my cousin from the other side of the family, best friend Rick, or both. Can't remember for sure.

So we were hanging out in our little clique talking about wrestling as we did for approximately 12 hours a day, every day, in 1996 when a guy I never saw before or since overheard us. He claimed to be a pro wrestler himself. And not just any pro wrestler. This guy claimed to be none other than Brother Midnite! The very man I had read about in PWI and even given a prestigious spot in one of my Very Important action figure leagues!

Incredibly, I do not remember where the conversation went from there. I was either so star struck at meeting a member of the prestigious PWI 500 in the flesh that I just stood their gawping with my brain turned off, straight up didn't believe this Mystery Man and my made excuses to get away, or got distracted by some infinitely less cool relative who had never claimed to be a professional wrestler.

I buried this potential brush with fame in the back of my brain for about 18 years until it resurfaced again when I watched and reviewed the aforementioned Marty/Savio match on the old PW and inevitably told my Brother Midnite story as part of said review. I then looked up Brother Midnite to confirm or deny the Mystery Man's story.

It turned Brother Midnite wrestled almost exclusively in Central Canada. I can't imagine why he would have been at a party in Southern Pennsylvania. So as far as I was concerned the Mystery Man's story was considered a Pants On Fire lie. 

But through that search I discovered Brother Midnite had gained cult following among the podcast community. It turns out he was a promo god (ironically to some, but those people are wrong) with a winning gimmick that answered age old question "What if Dusty Rhodes had been given the Brother Love gimmick?" 

Behold! Brother Midnite in all his glory!

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}

Brother Midnite was ahead of his time and the wrestling world still hasn't caught up. Seriously. The Brother Midnite vs. Tulip storyline and his pantsless run to the tag titles would get over huge today and you know it. 

Also, this River City Wrestling is yet another 90s indie that had tv. Did I just live in a wrestling-deprived area? Or is it a lack of cable thing? I imagine most, if not all, of these indie shows aired on public access.

One more video. Brother Midnite vs. Vance Nevada from North Carolina with a genuinely funny commentator who is a solid 8/10 on the Brother Midnite Scale of Awesomeness. I half-think this took place in Canada, Brother Midnite himself was the awesome commentator, and this whole thing was an elaborate Kaufmanesque rib. I'm also fairly certain Brother Midnite is a genius.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}

FWA was the short lived Phily Future Wrestling Alliance. They were on public TV back in the day.

I know it was Big Pete 's last choice when I made that list a while back, but I found a cool article on Break The Barrier and now I want to get my Storytime in before sharing said article about the 1999 indie super show...

Break The Barrier was basically a smaller scale version of the original All In pay per view. The article in question is quite accurately titled Break The Barrier: The Untold Story of The Night The IWC Put On A Wrestling Show.

The promoter of the show was a guy named Al Isaacs who ran the then-popular "Scoops" website. I didn't go to Scoops very often, and possibly never at all before Break The Barrier started generating buzz, but the hype surrounding this show was large enough to reach the sites I did frequent. The big idea behind BTB was to bring all the top independent talent from around the country together under one roof. 14 different indie promotions were involved. Most of them were admittedly local Mid Atlantic promotions, but feds from as far away as the Carolinas, Tennessee, Missouri, and even California (APW!) participated. 

The show would be held at that Mecca of alternative wrestling- the ECW Arena. It ended up selling out. This was the biggest independent show since.... ECW stopped being classified as an indie, probably. While the 2001 ECWA Super 8 and 2001 APW King of the Indies would end up being more important and influential, no indie event surpassed BTB in terms of straight up pre-show hype until ROH came along. I can still remember the date of the show without cheating- May 15, 1999. 

That's because I came very close to going. I had attended my first ECW Arena show two months prior to BTB in March '99. I went to that one alone. I promised to take my cousin the next time I went to Philly for wrestling. Now we were faced with a dilemma. ECW would be running the Arena one week before BTB on May 8th. Going to both was out of the question for reasons I forget. Work? Monetary issues? Lack of car availability? (think my brother and I were still sharing our parents hand-me-down 1988 Dodge Aries station wagon) It doesn't really matter why. The important thing is we had to choose between ECW and BTB. The choice honestly wasn't that tough. As much interest as I had in BTB, it was still up against ECf'nW during the real time peak year of my ECW fandom. So we chose ECW over BTB. I honestly remembered nothing about that ECW card off the top of my head. So I looked it up and....even with help I only have memories of two matches (Dudleys vs. Balls & Axl because their crowd brawl brought them within 2 feet of us and RVD vs. Skull Von Krush because a bunch of idiot New Yorker trolls had that gall to start up an "SVK" chant). So we probably made the wrong choice. But I think my cousin would have killed me if I told him I was skipping ECW for Break The Barrier  :lol:

So Break The Barrier happened without me in the building. 14 different promotions put on 15 matches at the already-legendary ECW Arena. Two major events stand out in my memory from reading about the show online...

First Shane Douglas appeared one day before he was set to compete on ECW PPV (against Credible iirc). "The Franchise" confirmed the rumors that he had left ECW and would not be appearing on the PPV. This was huge news in 1999! And second is my man Tom f'n Brandi being the star of BTB. First he cut a promo that got nuclear heel heat in the opener. Then he came back to win the main event Battle Royal and Powerbomb promoter Al Isaacs through a table. Brandi left BTB as the top heel in all of independent wrestling. You can read about his exploits in the article I will share at the end of this novella. I checked a few other recaps of the show and every single one of them mentions the nuclear heel heat Brandi received. 

This only confirms what I've been telling you guys for years. 98-99 Tom Brandi was over like rover as the indie Shane Douglas or HHH. Brandi had the look. He had the ability. And he was a heat magnet who was great at cutting those bitter veteran heel promos. I'm more convinced than ever that there is another timeline where Tom Brandi, not Shane Douglas, ended up as ECW's "Franchise." And, in the best timeline of all, Tom Brandi ends up getting Triple H's spot. Anyway, Tom Brandi rules. But you already knew that if you've been reading my posts over the years. 

For reason I had forgotten, I never did get BTB on tape. How could this be? How could I, 1999 indie wrestling enthusiast, NOT order BTB? Well, now I know why. From the article....

"I just hope it came out okay on camera," Isaacs replied.

It would take a few days, but Isaacs would realize a cruel irony in those words. Namely, not only did his bump through the table not come out on camera, but nothing else from the show did either.

You see, Al Isaacs had planned out everything for this show, from the venue, to the performers, to the matches and finishes, to making sure the event was hyped so arena was sold out. The only thing he didn't account for were the videographers.

Long story short, he ended up hiring two horrible videographers who didn't adjust for poor lighting conditions inside Viking Hall. Watching footage of the event was like watching from the backseat of a car as it drives down a road at night with no headlights. You can kinda make out the stuff that's happening, but it's so grainy and dark more than five minutes of footage made your eyes hurt.

Which is why no DVDs of Break the Barrier were ever released, why no wrestling historians except those who were there remember the show. (note - Pro Wrestling Illustrated called it "one of the greatest pro wrestling Super Cards of all-time."

Which is why Al Isaacs never made any money off of a show he conceived, hustled, and put together through nothing more than the sheer force of his will. It was a tragedy of epic proportions for the Internet Wrestling Community.

What a shame. Stories of unwatchable VQ must have made the internet rounds and put me off buying a tape of the show that otherwise would have been a sure thing.  

The fact that so few people ever actually saw this show might account for why complete match listings are so hard to find. Almost all records of the show online are missing a few matches. I first became aware of this when I kept seeing BTB results without Maxx Justice vs. Boyce LeGrande, which was one of only 2 matches I remembered off the top of my head due to my APW fandom at the time. 

Anyway, I found a few other neat articles about BTB, but here is a link to the one I've been referring to throughout this writeup....

www.cagesideseats.com/2014/5/13/5714090/break-the-barrier-the-untold-story-of-the-night-the-iwc-put-on-a

Frenchy Riviera vs. Skinny Kenny- Music City Wrestling 1998- Loser Goes To Jenny Craig Match

These two fatties used to be partners in an ironically named tag team called The Centerfolds. Now they're hated rivals. Skinny Kenny (Arden) is doing a reverse Crash Holly gimmick by claiming to be 198 pounds. He's the heel. Frenchy is the bigger boy. He's the face. Crowd is into it. Commentary is amusing. Frenchy takes two nice bumps. Kenny keeps a pile of food in the corner he uses for heel spots. I'll admit this match peters out a little bit after a nice start. But it's still two fatties fighting with an amazing "Loser Goes To Jenny Craig" stipulation. This is pro wrestling.



Still on the lookout for certain guys I read about in PWI. New Holy Grail is finding a Master Mayhem match. Master Mayhem was a near 7 footer who wrestled in the Southern indies. He was featured in an "Introducing" article in a 1998 edition of The Wrestler. They gave him this elaborate backstory where he was raised by monks in a European monastery and was part of a secret society on a mission to rid the world of evil. Mayhem dressed like a 'dark' heel character, but was a pure babyface who was allegedly working on a devastating, but not yet perfected, and therefore never seen, finisher called "The Heart of Gold." He also made use of the Chokeslam.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a Master Mayhem match. Cagematch only has him wrestling one match in his career- an October '96 tag match in Tennessee. While Cagematch is an invaluable research, their listings are by no means complete. The search continues....

Oct 22, 2020 23:50:39 GMT Baker said:

*Moved over from the Match Review Thread

Then I came across a Brian Christopher vs. Michael Modest USWA match and transitioned from a USWA rabbit hole to an APW rabbit hole. Watched a few Modest matches, a glorious Bradshaw squash of an APW guy, and footage from Beyond The Mat. Maybe I'll write more about that tomorrow.

But now I want to take a second to plug the latest fanfic idea I'll almost certainly never follow through on- ROH 1998.

Best Fanfic Ideas I Never Followed Through With


1. Saving the AWA (89-91ish)
2. Reviving the NWA (95-97)
3. Extreme World Championship Wrestling (March 2001-??)
4. ROH 1998

A continued AWA was something I actually considered for a new project the other day but no way I could do it any justice by comparison.

Considering rewriting WCW from '93 and onwards more than anything right now. That roster was stacked with misused good talent.

Break the Barrier was around the time I started to get into wrestling. Gage vs Pain got a lot of eyes on CZW and Quack was really starting to get eyes on CHIKARA. That was also peak era for one of the greatest forgotten tag tags The Bad Street Boys of York and Matthews. The story of York is so fucking tragic. If he was not injured very, very likely he would have been with Mercury in MNM instead of Nitro.

A fed I totally forgot about was the insane Memphis Championship Wrestling roster of 2000ish era. Bryan, the Haas Brothers, Joey and Mathews, R-Truth, Raven, Stevie Richards, Spanky and others.  So many amazing guys under one rough and WWE fired them all at once basically only keeping a few guys, then over the years rehiring most of them when they got too big to let wrestle elsewhere.