Godfather Blogs...

Again, my apologies for not posting in a while but things have been very busy.

WARRIORS
They finally got eliminated but boy did they compete the entire series with Utah. I have been a season ticket holder for approximately 14 of the last 32 years and I have to tell you this was one of the more enjoyable seasons. My favorite season ticket year prior to this year was 1987. In 1987, I attended the All Star Weekend in Houston Texas with a poker playing friend of mine and my secretary (who was cute but one of the boys who drank beer and went to Michigan State the same year as Magic Johnson). It was a fun experience for all and I'll never forget it becuase we rented a big White Lincoln Continental at the Houston Airport. My secretary had made small talk with Ronnie Lott and Keena Turner of the 49ers and they were staying at the same hotel (Hilton) as us and hitched a ride with us to the hotel. We hung out with them at the All Star Saturday festivities. I had a discount card that got me half off and it only cost us $200 a night for the Presidential suite at the Hilton. In the playoffs that season, we were down 3 games to none VS. the Lakers when Sleepy Floyd went bonkers in the 2nd half and scored 39 but had 29 in the 4th quarter. I had never seen anyone be in such a zone. This years Warriors were more enjoyable down the stretch as we went 16-5 over the last 21 and the playoffs turned Oracle into a sea of yellow. This team was tight both on and off the court and they had some attitude which was good but always had me sweating their uncontrollable tempers. Thanks Warriors for the great year! Now I can get my life back and can concentrate on business at hand. GO PHOENIX!

KAFU
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Kafu has done everything ever asked of him. He has trained hard in the weight room, managed his nutritional diet properly, supplemented his diet with the necessary vitamin supplements, tanned, bought the proper wrestling gear and he hasn't spared a dime in his career and that is what it takes. He also has one hell of a marketing portfolio which he updates the resume, photos and DVD every 6 months ago. Someone in the management capacity in a major promotion recently noticed the changed portfolio. I'd love to see the guy spend more time in the ring but he is a degreed Civil Engineer and puts in a good 50 to 60 hour work week in addition to doing all the pro wrestling things above. Congratulations Kafu! This is only the beginning of much success in this industry. APW has certainly had better technical wrestler graduates in our 16 years but never anyone as marketable and as prepared as KAFU!

CAC
APW always plays a huge part in the festivities at the CAC Annual Banquet. We try to do our part every year and all year long. I don't know how many other training schools contribute as much but we always have 2 or 3 tables of 10 at the annual awards banquet. In addition, the APW Boot Camp always contributes the first year membership for all new students. This year, we took them a check and some applications for new members for students that signed up in 2006. This year when they did away with the in-ring training, APW came to the rescue and put together some seminars that we felt were of value to Indy wrestlers. We talked about many topics including, Locker Room etiquite, Marketing, promos etc... The reviews were great. We also had some guest speakers. We were recruiting the guest speakers for 10 minutes and almost everyone gave 30 minutes to an hour. It was like a who's who of who I grew up watching when I was a kid. The new CAC President, Nick Bockwinkle dropped by and talked to those in attendance. Nick was a former AWA Champion for many years and was a second generation wrestler as his father, Warren was also a great wrestler in his day. At the end of day one, Rock Riddle came by and he was great in talking about marketing. Rock made the transition from pro wrestling to Hollywood and has appeared in many movies. There is a tremendous cross with commercials and Hollywood. Look at the success of many of the former pro wrestlers in movies including the latest, The Rock. Rock Riddle was great and talked with passion. On day two, Pepper Martin, who MC'd the banquet, talked at length and he had the same crossover in Hollywood as he was the truck driver who picked a fight in the original Superman. Pepper was a great wrestler in his day and he could really sell. He was so good at selling that sometimes I would look at his face as he sold and I could swear his face was red from the punch. That is a brainwashing effect that comes with tremendous selling. I was always taught the most important things you learn in pro wrestling is the sell. Pepper was very good. It was nice to see the guys I grew up with at the Cow Palace come in and speak and they all put me over and what we were doing over. That is always nice when the legends put you over because it assures me that I learned the business the right way. Again, most students today are not learning the sport and artform of professional wrestling from someone that was taught old-school. The last speaker was Pat Patterson who I have never met in all my years and he was great when he came up to speak. He said, "I don't know who the hell you are but you know your stuff. Who the hell are you?" or something to that affect. With a year of experimentation under our belts, we are sure that we will make the necessary adjustments and obtain many more speakers. We are going to have stations next year where people can hop from station to station to hear different guest speakers talking about many important topics. I guarantee it will be educational as well as entertaining. I want to thank everyone that attended and I always welcome feedback from anyone that attended.

The banquet was fun as was the baloney blowout where they honored Owen Hart and Bret accepted an award on his behalf. The APW wrestlers, Marion Camacho, the only Beginners Camp student to attend, and the Black Pants production staff all had a great time. There was some partying going on but you know the story, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"...

GYM WARS
The 5/5/07 Gym Wars was a tough one to pull off as many of the regular stars were not there. Scotty Aboot is doing his thing with some amateur wrestling coaching while MPT was nursing an injury and KAFU was in Puerto Rico. I think everyone stepped up and had good matches. The Dana Lee match and the Melissa VS. Oliver John had a major league feel to them. Anyone who hasn't seen that match, can check it out at www.clickwrestle.com It is worth seeing. Oliver dominated early and it was a wrestling lesson for Melissa. When Melissa felt the match had turned into a Pro Camp, she took her frustration out on John and got really physical. That might have been her mistake as she ends up on the wrong end of a clothesline from hell. We all look forward to the next event at the famous GARAGE on Saturday 6/2/07 and there should be a surprise that night that I am sure all the fans will enjoy...

ROAD SHOWS
APW is on the road the weekend of Friday June 22nd in Santa Maria and Saturday June 23rd in Bakersfield. There should be some announcements concerning those events on our message boards and on the front page of our website. Road shows are always a great experience for the new students. The wrestlers enjoy the road trips and the fans are always treated to the best in Indy wrestling.

BOOT CAMP
Our next camp starts in July and we have some interesting changes made in the way Pre-Camp Orientation will be conducted and it should be fun. We are taking deposits for all the 2008 and 2009 camps. Remember, we take 25 names and deposits per camp and they start every JANUARY and JULY. We just signed up our first student for the January 2010 camp.

We began privately training Strongman Jon Andersen. Our Director of Public Relations, Dominik Jerry will be conducting a series of articles and interviews with Jon about his pursuit of pro wrestling and all his experiences in Strongman competition. Many of you have probably seen him on Fox Sports and ESPN. Look for this series on our website. We feel we are so lucky that we have developed the kind of training reputation worldwide where many celebrities and other pro athletes come to us for training as do many that were not trained properly or want additional training. We are even in the process of working with the same people from India that brought us Dalip Singh to train and they have 3 top notch bodybuilders that will soon be coming to America to train at the APW Boot Camp.

PRODUCTION
I don't know if I am letting the cat out of the bag but Cheerleader Melissa has a new music video out and I got a preview at our staff meeting the other night and it is HOT! It is amazing how much time and effort goes into something of quality and I tip my hat to Chris Kelsey from Black Pants Production who did an outstanding job that took 4 days to complete. From what I hear, he was sleeping on the production room couch.

IDIOTS
My blog would not be complete if I didn't talk about the idiots of the wrestling world. The ones who think they know everything, were never trained properly, are not humble. You can find them usually posting on message boards. You know, the guys who refuse to work on their bodies by eating right and hitting the weights and figure they'll wear a shirt to the ring as part of their wrestling gear to hide all the fat and paleness from not ever attending a tanning session. You all know who I am talking about... Come a little closer so I can tell you about a dream I had the other night.

The leader of the idiot group came to the garage for a gym wars and was sitting with the fans. He took his shirt off (nasty stuff) and challenged me to come out and talk to him. I ran to the ring in my shorts and flip-flops and did my Muta ring entrance and told him to bring it on. His stare could have burned a hole through my body. He was a pretty big guy and ugly as hell. I told him, "Bring it!" He climbed into the ring and came at me and I gave him two flying arm drags and a drop toe hold and his nose hit the turnbuckle and his look began to improve and he no longer looked Big and Ugly. I went after him and peppered him with some forearms to the side of the head and beeled his fat ass out of the corner. He bumped like he needed some bumping fundamentals from the Boot Camp and I exploded and nailed him with two dropkicks where one foot hits the jaw and the other the nose. I made sure to do the "Ali Shuffle" in between dropkicks. I yelled at him, "You better scoot or you'll be on the receiving end of a flying headscissors." This big ugly idiot came at me again and I applied the claw to his forehead, lifted his fat ass (he did not go up light) and I slammed his back to my knee. I looked up at the crowd which was shouting, "Pin him, pin him" I grabbed the mic and said, "This one was for you Kafu" and I told the crowd as I left the ring, "This idiot isn't worth my time - I was only looking for a work out" I then looked at security and told them to toss this guy out but check his pockets to see if he has $3,500 and that is when I woke up. I was sweating big-time. I put some clothes on and went and got a CAPACINO BLAST at Baskin and Robin! I'll tell you there is nothing better than having these kind of dreams except when I dream about the Warriors winning the NBA Title. As much a Warrior fan as I am, that dream is horrible. I wake up in a sweat also but Gabe is lying in my bed wearing a Warrior "I believe" T-shirt telling me to lay off the blasts.

I will be blogging weekly and discussing my thoughts on the happenings around the pro wrestling world in addition to telling you about some of the behind-the-scenes stuff at APW... Thanks for reading...