Okay smart asses... it has been 3 days since my weekly blog and I promised a shorter daily blog in addition to my weekly. I forgot to tell you weekend days don't count as days.
I have received many e-mails asking about Gabe and him trying to look at me and they just can't believe it. Okay, here is living proof...
After looking at this picture, I now understand how people thought he was my younger brother. Damn, I looked older in this picture from 8 years ago than I do now. No wonder every young woman wants to be with this successful older gent. Gabe looks older now than he did 8 years ago. I guess dealing with idiots takes its toll. I used to take the abuse from the idiots and it was wear and tear. Now he takes the abuse with the idiots and he has aged. The idiots kind-of like me now.
When I re-read the weekly blog and read the section on old-APW, something came to mind I just had to blog about. We have been very gifted when it comes to managers and refs. They don't get much press because of the talent our wrestlers posess. But, we have always been gifted in that department.
REFS
Most of these refs were trained by our first ever ref, Max Marquez. He was good until an accident and illness along with the normal getting older took over.
J. J. Perez - He first broke in as a ref with APW and later became a star wrestler. People forget how good a ref that guy was because of how good a wrestler he is today
Vinny Massarro - I don't know he would have been the star in APW he became if not doing the ref thing while going through the training.
Jimmy Ripp - He never became a star wrestler but later became a star manager and had more heat than almost any manager. They certainly wanted to kill him many times when he was a manager.
David Taub - David later became a manager also and had lots of heat as a manager primarily because he was a nerd ref who later, when least expected, became a heel ref and screwed one of the more popular APW wrestlers.
We even had guys like Will Cuevas and a few others that never wrestled but were damn good managers. If I am forgetting any names, post your comments on who they might have been. Matt Fischer was a very good ref. I think he might have made his pro debut later as a wrestler but it didn't last long.
MANAGERS
David Taub - I mentioned him earlier above and he had heat as a manager after the angle with him as a heel ref.
Jimmy Ripp - Again, he had lots of heat as a manager. The fun part was watching teen age fans at the house shows wanting to beat Ripp up and who knows, they probably could have. Ripp was a solid ref but more solid as a manager.
Nathanial Sweete - Many probably don't go back far enough but Nate Rulez debuted as a manager. He was Vinny Massarro's manager when Vinny was the gigollo. He was very good and had lots of heat and knew his role as a manager and filled in quite nicely while he was getting his wrestling training.
Shane Dynasty - By far, hands down, the most valuable ref and/or manager we ever had. In the wrestling business, the key to being a ref and/or a manager, especially in the big leagues was your value outside the squared circle. While managing Maxx Justice, Shane had lots of heat and he was one of the best on the mic. He could articulate but his real strength came when he took over the APW souvenir program. He did such an awesome job and got compensated very little for it especially when you compare the quality of the program. I really never had the chance to say thanks as many times as I would have liked to and should have. I don't think anyone I know could come up with the kind of program he used to come up with. He relocated and we cut back on house shows and he now wrestles in SPW. I may not be a huge fan of his wrestling ability and you all know I am not a huge fan of the SPW product. They have to many wrestlers who don't belong in a wrestling ring but I will always love and respect Shane Dynasty. He always did what he was asked and always kept his mouth shut in the locker room and with management but let his mouth run during promos cause he was damn good at them. I only remember blowing up at him one time and that was when he showed up to a show 10 minutes before bell time. It made it difficult to sell the programs and it was such a waste because of how good he was at the program. He kept up with the story lines. He did what a booker is supposed to do and that was to garnish interest in the product and sell the product. My job as booker was made so much easier with his quality souvenir program. I felt like decking a fan one time in support of Shane Dynasty and his program. We never made money with the programs. By the time we paid Shane for production labor, printing the programs, we had about $250 to $300 in the program. We rarely sold more than 75. We sold them for a $1. I didn't even have the heart to sell them for that amount because of the quality. A fan walked up to buy one while I was standing near the merch table and he asked how much. The gal said a buck and he threw the program back down and said, that is too damn much. I nearly came unglued as I had to resist saying something stupid to him. He was what I call an "IDIOT". I thought he was insulting APW and insulting Shane Dynasty and the quality of the program. Trust me, Shane should have been paid much, much more for the quality of that program he produced. The pictures weren't always the greatest but I am not sure that was even his fault. We threw many of these away. They really are collectors items. Every Indy promotion should be so lucky to have a guy like Shane design and print the souvenir program and be the guy in charge of content. I swear, sometimes I would go braindead with booking and read one of his programs and steal ideas from what he wrote in articles, stories, columns etc... I used to think he was great with creating fictional names of writers for each article, column or section and it was Shane for every one of them. I used to look forward to getting home after a show so I could read the program from cover to cover. That is right, I never edited his work because I had that much trust in his work.
I miss you Shane and hope you and your family are doing well. I hope you realize how valued you were in APW and it is something we probably would never do today but your program was awesome and I couldn't have told you that enough. Stop by and say hello sometime.
I'd also love to see more people make comments on these blogs and especially, when these type of topics come up about the olden days. I love hearing your thoughts about some of the guys and some of the stuff we did back then.
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