So Jardi Frantz goes on his tour. I don't know what happened but there was some miscommunication between Jardi and 2Cold Scorpio. I think they told Jardi to do less so it would mean more and of course, they don't want him showing up the Japanese Juniors. Jardi sometimes had a hard time understanding that entire concept. I don't like spot wrestlers myself because they rarely sell and I was always taught selling was the most important part of the wrestling business. By the way, I learned from the boys and not the Internet. I think Noah got out of Jardi what they needed for the tournament and probably had little intention of bringing him back. It didn't help any that Mike and Donovan never liked Jardi and probably put the bad-mouth on him which made it even worse.
Mike and Donovan did their first tour and got over big time. They came home and I didn't even want to book them on a show in Vallejo because they had arrived that Saturday morning from Japan but they insisted they needed the money. Yes, I paid them well. I was paying Modest about $250 per match and Donovan around $125 or $150 cause he was the Head Camp Instructor at the time. Normally, it wouldn't be anyones business what APW paid people but since APW has always taken a bad rap for not paying people well, I figured it can't hurt any to come public with their pay. I put them on the show but I felt APW got shorted the last 2 or 3 shows they did for APW. I was about to go to Japan to tour briefly with the guys in Noah. The guys had invited me and then Noah invited me and I went. The timing was bad because I had just returned from Japan where I spent 7 days there with Barry Bloom negotiating a deal for Dalip Singh to start tourning in October 2001. I flew over to Hawaii with Bison Smith so he could do the Visa deal. Noah put us up in a hotel in Honolulu. Bison kept going to the same restaurant every day so I figured it must be good so I eventually made my way there. Our hotel was about 3 long walking blocks from the beach. Hell, I think it was Wai Ki Ki. Hell I don't know, all I know is Bison and I went there every day to lay on the beach. Suddenly there was a huge crowd surrounding me and I thought maybe they recognized me from Beyond the Mat but I come to find out they thought there was a whale on the beach. Back to this restaurant. They had these giant sized beers and delicious hamburgers. Bison and I had a good time cruising the strip and blowing our money on food while Bison had his eyes fixed on all the babes. Alright, I was checking them out too and hoping for that one good looking pro wrestling female mark that recognized me from Beyond the Mat stomping down the entrance way to Arco Arena being shot from the ground up. You got to give it to Barry Blaustein, he sure knows all the production tricks. He had his crew shoot from the ground up to make me look fat. Barry - I am fricking fat! As my luck would have it, the last day there this female comes up to me and says, "Weren't you in the movie Beyond the Mat". I am about to answer and make my move when Bison lays some bricks for me and I lose out as Bison is now trying to put the moves on her. She was Hawaiian too. She looked about 80 and had no teeth. So we finally leave Hawaii and head to Tokyo, Japan. Bison was nervous. Bison turned me on to a trick where you take the row next to the emergency exit on the plane because it gives you more leg room without having to pay for 1st class. No, Noah doesn't pay for 1st class tickets unless you are Van Vader. So I let Bison convince me to take the emergency exit row and as the plane takes off I realize we have no drop down trays. Bison doesn't realize, I like to eat alot and I can't use my laptop or eat as much because there is no drop-down tray. Here he is snoozing next to me with his legs all stretched out having a good ole time and I am stressing cause it is inconvenient to get on the computer and I can't eat. We arrive in Japan and this was my 1st time in a Foreign country. Can I even use the word Foreign? I know they have banned the use of Foreign Object on television. We get to the airport and I think they had an office girl pick us up. The office girl had a name but I don't feel the need to reveal it at this time. I will say this - the office girl at Noah was related in some way to Rikodozian, a Japanese wrestling legend, who for all I know, probably smoked cigarettes also. I am not sure if the office girl acted on orders from the front office or acted on her own. Some women like to think they run a pro wrestling organization and start barking out requests and orders. She seemed nice but always had something to say about what Mike and Donovan were doing wrong. I felt like telling her,
"Listen sweetie, they will be taking their Boot Camp contracts out
of the APW filing cabinets a few months from now and I won't be getting any money out of this deal so don't come to me with your complaints. I am just a carny"
Keep this K-Fabe but Mike and Donovan told me she had slept with many of the boys. I can't believe I kept that K-fabe for 5 years but in CARNY CENTRAL, there is no holding back.Upon arriving at the airport, she took us to the hotel to check in.
The hotel was a really classy hotel in the lobby and looked expensive but then we get to the room and it is tiny. It is about the size of my computer room in my home. There was enough room for the bed on the floor and a dresser with a television on top. I can't remember if there was a fridge or not but there was no room to walk between the bed and the dresser and I have small feet. Can you imagine Dalip in one of those rooms? I can't believe Vader stayed in one of these rooms. Talk about a can of sardines. I felt like a sardine the entire 7 days and the only thing that made me happy in the room was the old lady masseuse that came and massaged me nightly. I even hated the television. I can see now why the boys bring their laptops, PS2's etc... I brought my laptop and I don't even remember if I could sit to be on it. I wanted to high-roll it immediately so we went for breakfast and I got steak and eggs. They must have known the carny was in town as they charged me 3400 yen. I had lost my Japanese translator which did everything including currency conversions on my last trip to Japan. I left it on the New Japan tour bus. One of the Japanese job boys probably found it and kept it. He was a very nice guy so he deserves it. Later, I find out 3400 yen is about $34.00. That was the end of steak and eggs in Japan for me and I didn't even consider sushi although I was a sushi rookie back then. If I ate sushi back then the way I do today, I'd probably had stolen all the boys (Modest, Bison and Donovan)wrestling gear and sold it to pay for my way out of the country I would have been so broke from eating. I tried to ask them if they had any bargain buffets. They didn't seem to understand me and I tried to the best of my ability to describe HOMETOWN BUFFET and they just looked at me like I was some sort of poor carny. I felt insulted because a poor carny I am not. I have stiffed the boys, not paid the boys and made so much money with promoting Indy wrestling that the last thing I want to be known as is a poor carny. So I lost about 15 pounds on this 7 day trip because I never ate until I got to some huge celebration they were doing.
They had a huge bash that Noah was putting on and everyone was there and dressed to kill. I can't recall if any free agent wrestlers showed up or not or if that was the huge bash I also attended earlier in the month when I was with New Japan. This was a big shindig and they held it in a very classy hotel. Hell, even I wore a suit and tie. Mr. Misawa gave me this wierd look early in the evening and mumbled something and I couldn't make out what he was saying and a translator said, "Mr. Misawa wanted to know what I did with the shorts, pager and flip-flops." I guess there are certain things I will always be known for
1. Not paying anyone money
2. Solid fundamental training
3. Shorts, pager and flip-flops
I got to meet many of the Noah wrestlers and I have to tell you the classiest guy was Kobashi. He kept telling me he had heard lots of good things about APW. He seemed very humble. I am not trying to pat myself on the back but when he first broke in with All Japan, I often wondered why he wasn't being pushed hard because I saw Hall of Fame written all over that guy when he broke in. They had the APW wrestlers get on the stage with me and the press began to shoot many pictures. It felt good to be recognized in that manner. I will say this about Pro Wrestling Noah. Even though I felt wronged by their actions later on and I will explain why, I feel moreso than any other wrestling promotion in Japan, they do things the right way and the traditional way and are a classy organization. They might not be the largest as far as financial backing but they sure know how to put on good matches and they know how to stay within their limits and they never try to grow too fast. I know New Japan is very strong but in my mind, the best promotion in Japan is Pro Wrestling Noah. After this bash, I couldn't wait to start the tour and go on the road with the boys. I couldn't wait for Budhakan Hall.
There was lots of politics even with the American wrestlers on tour. Van Vader was known as pops. All the young guys on tour carried his bags, did his laundry and it was considered paying your dues. That is why I always tell young guys, you never stop paying your dues no matter what level you are at. Here Mike, Donovan and Bison are at as high a level as if they were at WWE in my opinion and they still had to pay their dues. Noah does things a little differently but not too much different than a good Independent promotion. They reminded me very much of APW when we did house shows but with very large crowds and big name superstars. Heck, we had a merchandise bunker, they did it with folding tables side-by-side. Their production level didn't seem to be anywhere near what you see today from APW. The Americans rode together on the tour bus and Pops sat where he wanted. He chewed my ass out for accidently sitting in his seat on the tour bus. Hell, I didn't know and none of our guys had told me. I don't think he like me. I didn't exactly like him either but I respected him. I knew he carried weight and I would never had done anything to jeopardize the guys on tour. I was so proud when I saw the guys in their matches. I sat at the Timekeepers table with Mr. Nagata at just about every show I was at. Later, on footage, I would always here the words APW repeatedly by the broadcasters. They were pushing APW as a huge company in the U.S. that trained good wrestlers. I don't know if this is how they really felt or if it was their old-school way of pushing Mike, Donovan and Bison. 2Cold Scorpio was really cool and he was knowledgeable about Japan, about pro wrestling and was a nice guy to hang out with eating, drinking and telling stories. He was so over in Japan. I couldn't figure out why they used him mid-card. I would have pushed the crap out of him because he was over more than any American and at times even more over than Vader. Scorpio had more women than almost any wrestler there and he could speak Japanese and the Japanese girls loved him. He had his pick. I could never find out how the Japanese wrestlers faired with fans and women. It was almost as if they kept that king of stuff away from us.
I guess the towns were so far apart that they carried a weight room on the ring truck which allowed all the wrestlers to get a good workout in before the show. I really liked that concept. I am sure a couple of the current APW wrestlers would like that but most of them probably wouldn't mark out for that concept. Don't ask me why but in the history of APW, the majority of the students have refused to work on their look and their bodies. They don't lift weights, they don't eat right and they don't supplement their diet with the supplements. If they did work on the look, there would have been no school to come close to our success as far as wrestlers earning a living with the top promotions in the U.S. and Japan. We have had many talented graduates in the ring but many that had "IT" which is mainly the look. Hell, even today, I wish MPT, Scotty Aboot, A. J. Kirsch would develop the look that Kafu, Oliver John, Derek Sanders and Nate Rulez has. Even our ref, Tom Castor has a hell of a look. Besides taking the weight room on the road, the dojo was run for the most part on the road prior to the start of the shows. At around 2 p.m. in the afternoon, some of the young boys would come to the ring and they would train. Jun Akiyama was an instructor and oversaw the training and drills. He reported to Mr. Misawa's good friend, Ogawa. Those guys worked hard. Years ago when our 1st Head Camp Instructor, Ric Thompson toured overseas to Japan, I asked him what was the biggest difference you saw in what they do compared to what we do here in the U.S. Ric
said all the Americans were in the locker room playing cards while all the Japanese wrestlers were running laps around the building in the snow. I watched the workouts and took notes to bring back to the Boot Camp. We currently use one of their drills. There was one student I felt sorry for but I knew this kid would be a star if he could survive the "paying your dues" part. I watched them ride this kid hard. The slapped him around. One time I watched Jun Akiyama beat the crap out of him because when he washed Jun's wrestling gear, it shrunk. He gave this kid an ass whooping and slapped him around. At the shows, he was a one-man ring crew and helped usher the wrestlers to the ring, took the ring jackets back to the locker room etc... I felt the same about his in-ring abilities as I did when I watched Kobashi when he was a rookie. This kid was much more raw. His name? Kenta... Anyone that has seen him will attest he is solid. He just may have passed up Marafuji in ability.
I can see all the fuss over Budhakahn Hall. I sure hope I am spelling it right. You could just feel the history of this building when you entered it. Everyone came to these shows. Even wrestlers themselves from other promotions on nights off would attend. We sat in the stands early before the show started with Jessica. Let's see how many can help me with her last name. I remember giving her boyfriend a tryout. Her boyfriend happened to be Al Snow's stepbrother. I told the kid he needed to be re-trained but we could use her. She later became somewhat of a star in female wrestling in Japan. As the show started, I took my position at the Timekeepers table with Mr. Nagata. There are 2 things that really stuck out about that show. One was how proud I was of Mike and Donovan. I believe it was the 1st time they were matched up against Misawa in a tag-team match. They had a solid match that night. The other thing I remember was feeling the vibes that Mr. Nagata was upset at me. My guess is he didn't like it when Samoa Joe came to the table to say hello to me in between matches. It could have been because it was in the middle of the show but if I were to guess, it was because Joe was involved with Zero One at the time. In 2001, there were still some heavy politics. I think he was the enemy and I was talking to the enemy. We had done alot of business with Joe and UPW and I always liked Joe. Heck, I remember running into his cousin one time at Disneyland and I completely marked out for him and it got back to Joe and he was cool that I took a liking to his cousin. I always thought Joe had big-time potential and could never figure out why Zero One misused him and rarely used him. In King of Indies, I thought about putting Joe and Ki in the finals with Joe winning. I battled that thought for a 1/2 a day. I ended up putting them in the semi finals and they had a heck of a match. I always thought Joe would succed if not in the traditional pro wrestling match but more of the MMA stuff like you see him doing in TNA. I didn't mean any disrespect to Noah or Mr. Nagata but a friend is a friend and even though he was, in their eyes, the enemy, I had to shake his hand and say hello and chat for a minute.
It looks like this blog will require one last part. I will finish up with the 2 hour meeting in Mr. Misawa's office, what went wrong with the Noah relationship and how I felt PWI played a part in it. How those that started PWI felt I was wrong in trying to push the Lo Ki's, Doug Williams, Samoa Joes, Spanky's and American Dragons to Pro Wrestling Noah and that might have been the last straw to create the split from APW.
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