Meet my Family... and Me

PRO WRESTLING HERO OF THE WEEK
My son, KAFU
"Hardest working student in APW BOOT CAMP history!"

I have a new concept to my blogs I want to introduce. I want to have weekly guest bloggers and have the APW fans guess who they might be. They will tell you a little about their week behind-the-scenes in pro wrestling and in their personal life and have you guess in the comments who the guest blogger might be. It might be fun and at the same time will let you get to know my family members. I will be soliciting the wrestlers this coming weekend and hopefully, throughout the holidays, we will have guest bloggers. In the meantime, I thought I would introduce you to myself and some of my family members. Some of this information is on my personal my-space page. I don't know how the long the blog will be so if it gets too long, I'll break it up into a 2 part blog. For the holidays, I will continue to pick a PRO WRESTLING HERO but I will not pick my IDIOT OF THE WEEK unless the idiot has really earned it. It will be my way of saying HAPPY HOLIDAYS to the idiots.

THE BEGINNING OF MY OBSESSION WITH PRO WRESTLING
I was born in 1954. At age 7, I was introduced to pro wrestling by my dad who was a former boxer who fought in Fall River Mass as "Kid Boston". He introduced me to pro wrestling by purchasing "Ring Magazine" which was a boxing magazine with a small section in the back for pro wrestling. I was hooked. I convinced him to show me more magazines and he soon introduced me to "Wrestling Review". I loved that magazine because it had color centerfold pinups of the pro wrestlers. My mom began to dislike my dad for purchasing me this magazine because I was taping them to my bedroom wall and when I took one off to replace it with another, the paint would peel. I promised my mother I would put the new one up over the old one cause my dad could not paint because the smell made him sick. I used to think my dad was working my mom so as not to have to paint until I got older and also became sick with the smell of paint. My father passed away at age 9. I have so much respect for my mother. She refused to remarry. She worked two jobs to provide for me as a single mother and didn't speak a word of English as she was born in Portugal. I always miss her during the holidays! I continued with my pro wrestling obsession by attending wrestling matches with my uncle and cousin. Eventually, my uncle lost his wife to diabetes and his son in a head-on collision with a drunk driver and I took my uncle into my home in 1985 and we became very close. We played in pool tournaments together on the weekends and he showed me how to play poker. He was one of those smart old-timers. I'll never forget when he got followed home one night from playing cards. He always kept his gambling bankroll in one pocket and his pocket change for buses and haircuts in the other pocket. He was held up at our doorstep one night. I'll never forget him telling me the story. I wanted him to call the police but he insisted on telling me the story first.


"This son of a b**ch puts a gun in my side and says give me your money. I reach into my spare change pocket and hand him $32. The dumb bastard goes running. He was so stupid. He should have checked my other pocket, I had $1,600 in it because I made a score last night playing cards"

UNCLE AL
Some of the APW wrestlers and students got to meet my uncle. Sara Del Rey and Bryan Danielson used to get a kick out of my uncle and we celebrated his birthday with a surprise birthday party that many of the students attended and I don't remember why but we all wore masks. Bryan and Sara were kind enough to prepare the birthday cake with candles that would not go out when you blow on them. Great rib on my uncle. To this day I don't know what happened and I have no proof but I think Melissa Anderson's dad, Doug Anderson, who really liked my uncle, changed the rib and had something to do with it because he loved ribs. He wrestled himself in the 80's and was very familiar with ribs. I think he replaced the candles with ones that blow up and the birthday cake caught on fire but Bryan and Sara were able to put it out and eventually serve some cake. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below.




In 2002, Bryan Danielson and Sara Del Rey prepare the birthday cake for my uncle's 87th birthday - a surprise birthday party


FIRE!!!


When he came out of his bedroom, he was greeted by APW students in masks singing Happy Birthday... Guess who the students are? Guess who the trainer is?

That same uncle took me to pro wrestling at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. My cousin used to show me 8mm silent footage of the Cow Palace shows. I used to beg him to go but he said he'd take me when I got older. I used to tell myself when I got older and learned some of the moves, I would put my cousin in a figure four leg lock (I learned it from Bearcat Wright. Bearcat was 6'9" and everyone was convinced he would beat Ray Stevens for the U.S. title) to get even for him not taking me to the Cow Palace at age 9 and 10 in 1963 and 1964 which was the Ray Stevens VS. Pepper Gomez era. My first show in Pleasanton involved the Mighty Midgets. It was Cowboy Lang and Little Beaver VS. Sky Low Low and Fuzzy Cupid. I didn't go to the Cow Palace until 1970 which is when I started to attend all the pro wrestling events in the regional promotion Roy Shire promoted in. That was about the time Mr. Paul DeMarco (wrestler who trained Oliver John) was defending his U.S. Title against the Rock's grandfather, Peter Maivia. They were causing riots because many Samoans were moving to San Francisco and Peter had a huge following and of the 12,000 fans at the Cow Palace for these title matches, at least 3,000 were Samoan. They were ready to riot and the Security wore riot shields! Quick story, I'll never forget the time some fan took a sucker punch at Harley Race. The riot shields went down over their faces and they started swinging the billy clubs to get Harley back to the locker room. My friend and I were standing in the back because his mom knew the head of security. We watched these security cops get brutal with the guy that sucker punched Harley. The next thing surprised us - Harley tells the cops,

"You are being too brutal with this guy, please let him go"

I am thinking, what a cool guy Harley is, he isn't really a tough guy or a heel. The moment security let go of the guy, Harley beats the crap out of the guy. He punches and kicks the guy until he is down. He then spits on him while swearing at him - WOW! I am sure he remembers and I always say I am gonna ask him at the CAC Banquet but I always have this fear that he is going to deny it ever happened and beat the crap out of me. Harley was a true tough guy in this business both in and out of the ring and he deserved being NWA World Heavyweight Champion.

FIGHTING AS A KID
All my friends knew of my pro wrestling obsession. Heck, when I used to get into fights, they'd stop the fights and reschedule them for another day because the older teenagers wanted me to come dressed like a pro wrestler since they knew I didn't fight but wrestled whenever I got into a fight. One of my favorite wrestlers was Chief Big Heart. He always wore an Indian Headdress and came to the ring with a vest and trunks. So, I wore high top tennis shoes, swimming trunks a vest and I had an Indian Headdress I made my mom buy me. I am sure you know the next part. Since I didn't fight and I wrestled, my head would take a pounding as I was trying to do a single leg shoot take down. When I took enough of a pounding to the head and begin to get a headache, I would break away and do the Indian War dance. Every Indian wrestler did them when I was growing up. The teenagers got a big kick out of this so I played it up. I would then wrestle the guy I was fighting to the ground and eventually get him in a "Bow and Arrow". The teenagers used to instigate the fights just to see which wrestler I would come to fight as next. One time, I was actually getting the crap beat out of me when they broke up the fight and scheduled the fight for 4 pm on a Friday. Good thing, they stopped it when they did. For one, I was getting the crap beat out of me and secondly, I wanted to wrestle as BearCat Wright. I had just seen him wrestle on television and I wanted the opportunity to do the cat walk for my comeback and get the guy in a figure four leglock. You think I wasn't obsessed with pro wrestling? I almost snapped the guys ankle. Even today, I teach the guys how to shoot it on. Nobody knows the proper way of applying the hold today, not even Ric Flair. BearCat Wright and "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers knew how to properly apply the hold. I have put the hold on students and made them tap out. I finally had to give up fighting because of the Shiek. I came to fight as him one day. When the guy started pounding on my head, I went into the famous Shiek trance where he stared into the sky while drooling at the mouth and nothing hurt this wrestler when he went into a trance. Well, I finally had enough of that because the trance didn't really work in real life and my head was hurting. My head hurt for days after that fight. After that fight, I gave up the fighting thing.

PRO WRESTLING and HIGH SCHOOL
I graduated from high school with honors and I am a lifetime member of the California Scholarship Federation. You must have a 3.5 GPA throughout high school to qualify and must have taken College Prep courses such as Chem Study which is a more complex Chemistry involving more math. I wasn't a smart guy and had to work hard for my grades. I hung out with the smart guys so I could learn from them. Heck, I wasn't even smart to the wrestling business back then, let alone smart. Little did I know that I would eventually be a smart guy and add CARNY to my Portuguese as other languages that I speak. Of course, I got straight A's in Spanish and spoke broken English. I split my time hanging out with the smart students and jocks because I played basketball. The wrestling coach would always try to convince me to come out for the team but when I would tell him I was playing basketball, he would ask me if we thought we could win 3 games that year (3 out of 14). Of course, the wrestling team went to the state championships every single year. In 1968, when they had the racial riots and the blacks fought the Green Berets (Latinos), the wrestling coach would send the wrestlers to the parking lot to kick everyones ass.

In 1972, I met the Rock's dad, Rocky Johnson and became really obsessed with pro wrestling. He didn't know I was smart and I didn't let on because I figured I'd learn more when they tried to avoid business conversations with me present by speaking carny. Meanwhile, I spoke better carny than some of the boys and was learning the business quickly. The ride might have been rough, I may have taken a rib or two but my education in pro wrestling came quickly and I considered myself a lucky teenager. I almost gave away that I was smart. I would ride to the shows with Rocky in his car and he'd be blasting country and western with his cowboy hat on. When we got to the arena, he'd take off the cowboy hat and pull the country and western 8 track tape (remember those?) and put in Jr. Walker and the All Stars and play "Shotgun". The work was evident and the transition had taken place. He was now Rocky "Soulman" Johnson.

Good thing I had a 4.0 going into my senior year because grades declined after meeting Rocky. I didn't even play Varsity basketball my senior year. I was too busy traveling the circuit. Much to my mothers dismay, I traveled the circuit with Rocky and the boys. That is how I learned pro wrestling - sitting in the middle of two big guys in the back seat of a car while they all spoke carny. I went to college and after 5 quarters of analytical calculus and geometry, I dropped out of college to hustle pool in bars, pool halls and pursue pro wrestling. Little did I know I had no chance in the business because of my lack of body. I tried lifting and eating right and taking the supplements but I refused to take dyanabol (a steroid). It didn't help that I was on the lazy side and had a lack of genetics. They all contributed to me not building a body and becoming a pro wrestler. Things haven't changed much today other than the doors opened for the little guy but you still have to have a very good look for television.

I PAID MY DUES
I paid my dues including babysitting the Rock when he was 2 but he never mentions me in the Hayward part of his book, LOL. Rocky had a replica of the U.S. Championship belt on the wall and at 19, I was brave enough to take it off the wall take my shirt off, put the strap on and pose in front of the mirror. Can you imagine if him and his wife, Ata came home early from dinner and dancing and found me without my shirt on and with the belt on. She liked me and would have thought it was cute, Rocky would have flipped. I used to play cribbage with them and Dewey's Godfather and his wife all of the time. I also used to go take care of the horses with Rocky all the of the time. The stables were on Industrial Blvd - very close to the APW BOOT CAMP.

ROCKY JOHNSON RIBS
One time, Rocky told me to get on the horse. When I said no, he called me a pu**y and said,

"How the hell can you be a pro wrestler when you won't even get on a horse".

Good point... So I got on the horse with no idea a rib was coming. As I have my right leg in the stirrup and am about to kick my left leg over, he hits the horse in the ass with a two by four and off I go. Not Bay Meadows but Industrial Blvd. I decide to not go for the rough ride and get off the horse and scrape my elbows to the point of blood, the hardway. I must admit it was a funny site watching a 252 pound grown man with muscles run after the horse. What wasn't funny was him saying as he was running,

"If anything happens to the horse, I am gonna kick your fu**ing ass"

I am sitting there wiping the blood off. I close my eyes to regain normal breathing and picture Rocky giving me the beel with two dropkicks and finishing me off with the Boston Crab. There were many more ribs that I enjoyed. A great rib on him would have been to really juice deep and scare the crap out of him when he finally returned with the horse. I'll never forget the time at the horse auction, he convinced Manny Cruz (Jose Gonzales - the alleged killer of Bruiser Brody) to bid on a bum horse with injuries for $700 and Cruz was the highest bidder. He was pissed at Rocky. Good thing he was green at the time. Had this been Puerto Rico and many years later, who knows what might have happened.

GAVE UP MY DREAM
I finally gave up my dream of pro wrestling, used my numbers aptitude to secure a job in accounting starting at $800 per month and worked my way to a $50k+ annual salary after 10 years with the company. I couldn't go much further without the degree. Any young children reading this, remember. Cody, you listening? College education works wonders. Therefore, when the company got bought out in 1989, I waited for an offer from the new company. They offered me to go to Canada but I chose to stay here. I didn't know what to do other than sell my house until the following year when I opened Pacific Coast Sports in 1991.

MY MOTHER CALLS ME A BUM
My mother never liked Rocky Johnson and let him know that when he would come to our house. One time, Ric Thompson came to the house and she chewed him out thinking he was Rocky, LOL. Poor Ric. She thought Rocky was taking my mind off college and brainwashing me with pro wrestling. The brainwash took place from age 7 through 17 not when I met Rocky at age 18. In 1991, when I opened the training school, I went from making $52k a year and wearing suits and ties to wearing cut offs, jogging outfits, flip flops and tennis shoes and only making $20k a year and she thought I was on drugs. I was in in heaven making less money. I had always wanted to be involved with pro wrestling and was having fun. Money didn't matter. I had made good money for several years and had most material things I wanted from it including a house, new car, season tickets to Warrior games and trips to NBA All Star weekends. Why not have some fun with my new job? I was burned out with accounting after 10 years and needed a break.

The same uncle from above and a friend helped me de-rust my first pro wrestling ring. It was an old NWA 20 x 20 wrestling ring that I bought in Atlanta, Georgia. It cost me more to ship the ring than it did to buy it. I got lucky with the business. We ran television commercials of Buddy Rose and a cocktail waitress from the card room as a valet with my business partners daughter as another valet. We ran them on WWF Monday night programming and now that I look back, they were cheesy but it was the first television commercial I produced and I was proud of it. Besides, it produced 14 sign-ups in a 5 week period of airing the commercial and we generated more revenue in 5 weeks than the entire capital used to start the business. It got Woody Farmer's attention as they tried to tie up our phone lines (we had 3 in the early days) when the commercial ran so they couldn't get through to us and we were standing by live just like the infomercials you see on television today with a huge staff of 3 answering the phones, LOL. Woody probably knew nothing about it but his secretary was the leader of the prank. Later on, business was bad until Spike Dudley got to ECW in 1996 and then APW sort of took off. APW has never grown to what I invisioned but then again, I was the only guy with a wrestling school that earned a living solely from the training school. Most school owners had day jobs and did the school as a night-time hobby. APW signed up a record number of students in 2000 when the movie Beyond the Mat came out. Roland Alexander is a nobody in this business and they wouldn't even know who I am if it weren't for that movie. Even today, I see people in the stores who'll walk up to me swearing they know me from somewhere but they can't peg it and then it hits them and they say, APW, you were in the movie "Beyond the Mat". We chat and I realize they live in Hayward and never knew about the school or Gym Wars until that movie and still haven't attended a show. We did many live shows in the early days of APW. I can't even tell you how we did what we did back then. Those were the days when I had energey and I would awaken at 10 am, hit the phones till 4 pm marketing lining up fund-raisers for live events and then go to the gym and oversee the training while squeezing 2 hours of phone marketing for Boot Camp. I'd then work at the gym until 3 am or 4 am. Those were long days. I did that until my mother died in 1998 and it has been one big blur since. My sons Jason Deadrich, Gabe Ramirez and his wife Shannon Ramirez have been the backbone of the company since then. They have done everything with the exception of Boot Camp and I thank them. In 1998, Jason suggested we call the company All Pro Wrestling and rename the "Superstars Pro Wrestling Training Camp" to "APW Boot Camp" and I think it was a smart move. It is tough handling Boot Camp with my health complications today but somehow, APW has survived and has entered our 17th year of business.

MY INTERESTS
My interests have never been a good thing. Nothing one enjoys in life is any good for you. I have been obsessed with many things in life including, pro wrestling, sports, food, gambling and music and not necessarily in that order. I have attended some great music concerts over the years and have seen Huey Lewis and the News, Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye. I used to attend the Jazz Festivals at the Oakland Coliseum when Friday evening was Jazz and Blues while Saturday was Soul. There would be 5 or 6 bands each night. It was great. Heck, this year alone, I have seen Lynnard Skynard, O'Jays, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder and I saw Diana Ross this past weekend. I have been a Raider season ticket holder (the good ole Kenny Stabler days - I gave Playboy Buddy Rose the New England game cause he was good friends with Russ Francis who played tight end for the Patriots before becoming a S.F. 49er. Russ's dad Ed used to promote pro wrestling as a region in the state of Hawaii), Oakland A's season ticket holder and attended many games in 1968 as a teenager when the A's moved here from Kansas City in the Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson days (A's Hall of Famers). Of course, I have been a Golden State Warrior season ticket holder for many years and was in attendance when Sleepy Floyd scored 29 points in the 4th quarter and 51 for the game in a playoff game versus the Lakers. Speaking of the Lakers, I refuse to take Ramirez to a Laker game this year because he chears for them and they usually blow out Golden State. Ronnie Lott and Keena Turner, S.F. 49ers from their Champiohsip years, rode in my Lincoln Mercury Town Car rent-a-car from the airport to the hotel for the 1987 NBA All Star game in Houston Texas. Of course, that would never have happened had my secretary not gotten into a conversation with them about Michigan State Football on the plane. Funny how rich athletes will bum a ride from the airport to avoid spending the money on a car rental. Pro Wrestlers are the same although they don't make the money the NFL or NBA or Major League Baseball players make. To show you how spoiled I am with basketball, I paid $500 per ticket for the Slam Dunk Saturday with the Old-Timers game at the Summit and $750 per ticket for the All Star game on Sunday at the Astrodome through a ticket broker. I sat in the 7th and 10th rows respectfully and had Thomas "Hit Man" Hearns, Patti LaBelle, Roberto Duran just to name a few celebrities, sitting above me at both games. Those were some good times in my life but nothing beats being around family. I wish I had time to tell you about the food side of me. I love nice restaurants and used to eat in them all the time in the 70's and 80's. Now, I look forward to a good bar-b-q with BBQ Chef Ramirez when he hosts for all the boys and our family to attend. I love kids! I love watching Gabe's daughter Gianna get up on the ring or Pudge interrupt a ringside meeting with his announcement of Mr. Kennedy. I will tell you more about my grandson and granddaughter in my next blog.

I am a huge fan of sitting in the sports book in Vegas and betting a game and watching it while sipping a Capucino Blast (I am working you - I have never had a blast in Vegas but Shannon once found me a place at the Riviera that came close). I am a huge fan of poker. As I get older and have watched more poker on television and my game has gotten better. I am a low ball player and was a damn good one until this thing called Texas Hold'em came along. Almost everyone I know went through a transition of losing money at the game. I have won more money than I have lost but have not been a top-notch player because I don't take it serious enough. I use it to get away from pro wrestling, the stresses of life and like to relax while playing the game. If I am $300 winner in the 1st 30 minutes, I don't get up and hit the window because I just got there. The longer you play at the tables, the worse it is because you lose time and time is money and eventually, the house gets all the money the longer you play. I now take a more serious approach and have tightened up my game and I have only booked 3 losers in the last 3 months of playing. It is very competitive and almost everyone is playing these days since the television boom of poker on television. Nick Aragon where are you? Let's go play!

POPULARITY/UNPOPULARITY
Some people hate me, some people love me but most of the people respect me and know who I am although I am not a household name. So, I am proud of the fact people in pro wrestling respect me and especially those at the lower level. Well almost everyone. There was some SoCal wrestler who reached out to shake my hand in Bakersfield and called me dude. Some of the people at the major league lever have been known to have a problem with me but not because of anything I have done to them. This business has a way of changing some people once they get to the top. Most people that have a problem with me either owe me money or or have made more money in the business than I ever have but yet they are broke so they have a problem with someone that has never wrestled but yet is making money in the business. The wrestling business can be funny in that way. I don't really hold any grudges although I refuse to help anyone that has stiffed me of any money. I also refuse to help anyone that chose a different path but come to you later realizing that many successful have come from APW. I don't begrudge anyone that shows passion and wants to learn. I believe I am a teacher and I believe someone has to pass knowledge. One of the thing that gripes me about legends is to hear them complain about the way the industry is today but they do nothing to change it other than complain. This is no longer the business that I wanted to be a part of as a young kid but at the same time I am humbled by the fact I have earned a living from it for 16 years which is longer than I earned a good living as an accountant.

FAMILY
I never had much of a family so the people I surrounded myself are considered family since my mother and uncle were the only family I had. Since I never married and never had children, I figured I would adopt a family of adopted children from pro wrestling.

NEXT BLOG
In my next blog, which I promise to make before the weekend, I will introduce you to my family. It is large family and it consists of sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters. I will introduce you to my oldest son, Robert Thompson, my hardest working son, Kafu, my son that looks like me and is so much like me, Gabe Ramirez. You will meet my daughter in-law Shannon Ramirez my grandchildren, Shacara, Gianna and Pudge. My "Never have a minute to spare - I love Apple Computers" workaholic son, Jason Deadrich. I will even introduce you to a son that is getting ready to move out on his own. That is always an exciting time because I do have adopted sons that live with me sometimes and when a son grows up and moves out, that means another one or two move in. With the January 2008 Boot Camp around the corner, I have adopted two new sons. My new son Alex from New Mexico and new adopted son Roy from Bakersfield are preparing to move in. Like I said, it is a huge family and I don't know where I'd be without them and I want to write a paragraph about each. I can't tell you too much about them because they might be guest bloggers in the coming holiday weeks and I don't want to give away who the guest bloggers are once they blog.

Don't trust me when I say I'll blog again before the weekend because I never keep my promises on blogs but I will try to blog before the weekend because if I don't it won't happen until Sunday or Monday because GYM WARS is SATURDAY 11/10. During the pro camp Saturday, I will be talking to several of the APW wrestlers and/or students and telling you about them.

Before I close this blog, I must report, I am now doing blasts only every other day which is an improvement. I am doing 20 minutes of cardio twice a day and walking a mile each session. My sugars have dropped so there is still hope for me and I am hoping to eliminate all my diabetic complications that have come into my life in the last month or two. Although when my sugars were 88 yesterday, I almost had a stroke from excitement of my sugars being so low.

WARNING!
If anyone picks a fight with me, I am not going to yell and scream but will come home and put on my Indian Headdress and come down to the gym and get in the ring with them. Don't piss me off because I might do the War dance and put you in the bow and arrow. Until my next blog, enjoy your family, I know I enjoy and love mine!