Kevin Sullivan

Kevin Sullivan.

If you are as old as I am, and a lifelong pro-wrestling fan, then Kevin Sullivan gave you nightmares as a kid. He was "The Devil" and wanted to rid the earth of "The American Dream".

Even after Championship Wrestling from Florida, he was a scary person. Varsity Club. Dungeon Of Doom. You name it, he was scary.

But, I also knew that he was a backstage genius. Although I never got to work for him, Dream would put him over for his smarts, not only about pro-wrestling, but about life.

Fast forward to ROH in 2015. This time in '15, I have a neck brace on and go to bed every day bothered by the fact that for two and half years, we teased this BJ Whitmer-Steve Corino match and never gave a payoff. 

One thing after another happened and it kept getting pushed off.

You think you are getting the "Anatomy of A Feud" don't you? A-ha, you would be mistaken. This is about Kevin Sullivan.

Once I knew I could come back, I only had one goal: Wrestle BJ and end the feud. But so many left turns happened that I needed a connection. I needed a reason that BJ and I would feud for so long.

Kevin Sullivan was the connection. How?...that's for another story.

Long story short, we brought Kevin in as the "spiritual father" and added about 33 different layers to this never ending feud between BJ and I. And if you think "spiritual father" is a stretch, wait until I tell you how I wanted this to end...or continue.

But, today's memory was this picture Kevin and I took at Fenway Park in 2016. Kevin, like me, is a huge baseball fan. The Red Sox are his team and David Ortiz was his guy. Through Justin at Sports Illustrated, my friend George Carroll, BJ, and I (Adam Cole was there too.) came up with a plan to surprise "Dad" with a behind the scenes trip to Fenway. 

The look on his face on the tour was worth it. He was like a little kid following the tour guides stories. He also gave little stories of his own. It was a true moment for him. It was a bigger moment for me.

Kevin Sullivan is a person that I turn to regularly. Sometimes to talk about baseball. Sometimes to talk about wrestling. Sometimes to talk about life. And I don't think I am the only one that feels this way about him. I see stories on Social Media of the boys talking about Kevin the way I do.

At one time, I thought Kevin Sullivan's influence on me would be one match in Charlotte. Today, I can't see my life without him.

The "spiritual father" is really my spiritual father.

Man do I love pro-wrestling.

Neck Surgery

Two years ago today, I had neck surgery. A neck surgery that, in my mind, I knew that I needed for a while, but was in denial. But the more my left arm got weaker and the more numbness I would feel, I knew I had to get it checked out.

At the time, I was involved in a longggggg feud with BJ Whitmer, that was extended due to injuries to BJ, a change in plans a few times from the Booker of ROH, but we had everything in line to meet at Final Battle 2015. The TV had been shot and everything was in line to end the feud.

That was on a Saturday. On the following Tuesday, my wife and I went to the doctor to find out the results of my X-Rays. I literally walked in thinking that I would get a shot in my neck for pain management and told to stop being a baby and suck it up. It's the same mentality I had throughout my career. A mentality that I know now is 100% wrong. 

My heart sunk into my big belly as the Doctor told me that, not only, I needed major surgery to fix my neck, but that my career was over. 

OVER.

I asked him if I could just have one more match. My immediate thought was to push up the Final Battle match with BJ, get "hurt" during the match, and go away for a few months. I knew that I had the commentary job, so it kind of softened the blow that I would not be an in-ring competitor anymore.

But what do you do with a feud that never should have been started? How do I say that? Because the BJ Whitmer-Steve Corino feud would have never started if, what I thought was the finish for the 2013 ROH cage match, was actually the finish. Now, that story will be for another time....

After I had the surgery, I promised myself that I would work hard and at least get back into the ring a few more times. That, of course, is what I would say with any injury. 

My wife turned me on to Emerald Isle Cross Fit and Josh Wells worked hard to get me back in to ring shape. After my first post-op X-Ray, the surgeon told me that he had never seen a neck look so good and that I had built up the muscle around my neck. He expected me back in the ring in SIX MONTHS. So, instead of having my in-ring career finished, I was looking at being back in the ring in seven months. 

I knew the time table could now be set to have the match with BJ. But, six months wasn't good enough for me. I had to have some warm up matches. So, in March of 2016, 15 years after making my Japanese debut, I returned to Pro-Wrestling ZERO1 one last time to team with CW Anderson vs. Jun Kasai and Tatsuhito Takiawa in Tokyo. Did I mention that I literally just got cleared to wrestle the DAY before I left for Japan? Oops. 

Although I was less than 50% ready ring-wise (it was the first time I had been in the ring since finding out I needed the surgery) and 10% confidence, CW (as he always has) lead the match and hid me very well.

Three months later, on PPV, I finally got to have my one-on-one match with BJ. One that I am very proud of. And its an angle that, although we had so much resistance from day one, showed that old-school storylines and totally out of the box thinking can create an emotional battle that people were going to feel strongly one way or the other.

One day, I will talk about how this feud started, stopped, started again, fluttered 32 times, and then went totally out of the realm of our alternate universe that we call pro-wrestling. If you hated this angle, you are going to absolutely HATE where I wanted this to go. If you enjoyed this angle, you may get a kick out of where I wanted this to go.

Either way, I type this feeling better than I ever physically. Heavier than ever, but I love food. Huge thanks to my wife Jordan, Josh Wells, Dr. Dalrymple, and everyone for motivating me and fixing me.

Puerto Rico Memories

Puerto Rico. The Rock. The Island.

I did my first tour of Puerto Rico as a 24 year old babyface in 1997. It was my first wrestling trip outside of the continental United States. Heck, it was my first time on a plane for wrestling!

I stayed for about five weeks. But in those initial five weeks, I learned how it was to work a territory. The last territory.

The schedule was rough, but what I dreamed about. You would start your week on Tuesday with TV promos for the weekend house shows. On Wednesday, you would do TV and could wrestle three times. Then you would do house shows Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and finish up on Sunday afternoon on the other side of the island. Seven matches in one week in a very dangerous and hard ring. It was awesome!

11 years later, I came back to participate in the Anniversary event to wrestle Eugene. As the show went on (I was the opener), I spoke with Carlos Colon and he offered me a full time spot as the lead heavyweight heel and help with the booking. I said that I would come if Guillotine LeGrande came and helped out. LeGrande is probably the most under rated mind that I’ve been around in my career. I knew that he could help Carlos and WWC.

For the next nine months, Chuck (Guillotine) and I would battle it out with ideas with Carlos on how to improve business. We believed in old school booking, but building the next generation of who we thought would be stars. Guys like BJ, Carlitos, Tommy Diablo, Angel, and others. We knew we’d be okay with guys like me and Ray Gonzalez working the old school heavyweight style, but also knew that eventually it would be the junior heavyweights game. We brought in Ricky Reyes to help out the young guys and they were having kick a$$ matches. It was a fun time to be in WWC.

But this picture brought back memories of my favorite thing I did in Puerto Rico: The introduction of the “Black Glove”.

As a kid, I loved, but was in fear, of Ted DiBiase’s black glove in Georgia Championship Wrestling. He would load up the glove and destroy babyface after babyface. I always wanted to be that type of heel. 

LeGrande hated it. Still does. I would pitch it for every finish on the Island. He’d get hot. I would sleep with the glove next to my pillow (we were roommates.). He would hide the glove and I would always have an extra.

In February of 2009, I defeated Ray Gonzalez for the WWC Universal heavyweight title with that loaded glove.

Almost nine years later, LeGrande still hates that finish.

Ahhh, the memories!

Roddy Piper

Growing up, my first love was Georgia Champjonship Wrestling. Of course, like any eight year old, Tommy Wildfire Rich was my favorite wrestler.

But then there was Roddy Piper. He was hated by the Georgia fans. But I loved him. Even if he was fighting Wildfire, Bullet Bob Armstrong, Brad Armstrong, and all the fan favorites. He had this vibe about him. A craziness.

Fast forward a few years and he is the biggest villain on the planet at WrestleMania. But, he was also the first LJN figure I asked for that Christmas.

I followed Roddy from the ring to the movies and back again. He was the man. When I found out he was really born in my birthplace, I knew I had a cosmic kinship with him.

But I never crossed paths with him.

Until one night in Nashville. He was a special guest at the Ring of Honor event and he needed a ride from the hotel. I asked referee Gino Colucci if I could go with him. 

I was nervous as all get up as we got to the hotel. He couldn’t have been more nice right away. I break the ice and tell him that I too am from Winnipeg. He asks if both my parents have Canadian in them and I tell him that my mother does. He proceeds to tell me to call my mother and give him the phone. I am sitting in the back of a car in Nashville, Tennessee watching one of my heroes talk to my mother about what part of Winnipeg they both lived in. Amazing.

He hangs up with my mother, apologizes to Gino and I because he needs to make a phone call. I try not to listen in, but it’s Roddy Piper. He gets fired up on the phone. A real inspirational Roddy speech.

Who was he talking to? Burt Renyolds.

Sometime later, I am getting prepared to run one of my PWF shows in North Carolina when the news of Roddy Piper passing hits the Internet. The guy I was wrestling that night had quite a history with Hot Rod and CW Anderson and I knew we had to take him aside and let him know that Roddy Piper had died.

The person I was wrestling?

Tommy Wildfire Rich.

Life is crazy.

#ILoveProWrestling