TALES FROM THE ROAD
updated: 12/23/99
TRUE STORIES OF WRESTLING, by MIKE SAMPLES
WRESTLING IN PUERTO RICO
On December 5th, we finished our last BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING tour for the year. I fly to Japan again on December 31st and will stay for 17 days. So I should be relaxing and resting for these 25 days at home. But not me, on December 16th, I sat down in a first class seat on another Northwest Airlines flight and this time, I was headed for Puerto Rico.
I did not want to take these four bookings. I wanted to stay home. Ever since I had started wrestling, I had heard the "horror" stories about wrestling in PR, and I did not have a good feeling about this trip. However, three of my friends from BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING were already in PR and they were waiting on me. Yamakawa, ShadowX, and Homna were also booked for these four nights and they were there waiting for me to show up, so here I go.
These were the last four shows of the year, for Carlos Colon's World Wrestling Council and they were also the biggest shows of the year. In addition to us, they had booked ONE MAN GANG, JUNGLE JIM STEELE, KENDALL WINDHAM, REX KING, and DUTCH MANTELL on the cards as well as their fulltime wrestlers. They wanted to make sure that these events were something special, since on the first two nights of this tour, they would be going head to head with the WWF. We were there to do our BARBED-WIRE BOARD MATCHES and we were going to bleed and bleed heavily.
If you have ever wondered what happened to "old style" wrestling and to the "crazy" fans. Wonder no more, they are in PR. This was GREAT! The shows start late, here. Most nights at 9:00 or later. In fact, on the last two nights, we were the last match, match #12, and we went to the ring at about 12:30. But the fans are great. They are wild. They throw things. They charge the ring. They yell and scream and they get with it. The very first night, the building was packed to the rafters with several thousand screaming fans. They didn't come to see lights and pyro and fancy entrances followed by 10 minutes of microphone work, they came to see ACTION! Every night was like this. Full houses of wild fans that would start a riot at the drop of a hat. This is wrestling! Every night we all bled like crazy and I took the FRANKENSTEINER from the top rope through the barbed-wire board, and these fans went nuts.
After the first night, I ran into my old friend ROAD DOGG JESSEE JAMES when we went out to eat. The next day, at a steak house, I met TAKA MICHINOKU and had a nice chat with him. I was really glad that I had come to Puerto Rico. Things were going well. During the day, we went to the beach and sightseeing and had fun. At night, we went to another town and had great fun wrestling and meeting new friends and listening to that wild crowd.
FIRE in the dressing room!
I had a good time every night talking about old times with my good friend REX KING, and meeting new friends like JUNGLE JIM STEELE, HARLEY LEWIS, and ONE MAN GANG, as well as the PR boys. But the funniest of all is ONE MAN GANG. This guy is great. He cracked me up the whole tour and I laughed my ass off listening to him. On the last night, I was watching the matches and I walked back into the locker room and there stood ONE MAN GANG. About 10 feet behind him, in a bathroom stall, I could see a pretty big cloud of smoke rising up. I looked at him and asked him if he was having a BAR-B-QUE and he looked at me a little strange and said "no". About that time, huge flames jumped up and were hitting the ceiling, so I said, well, "what the hell is that", he turned around and screemed "FIRE"!!!. I grabbed Gang's water jug and ran into the changing area and there was CHICKY STAR'S suitcase on FIRE!!! Flames were 6 or 7 feet high so I dowsed the flames with the water and put out the fire while ONE MAN GANG is yelling for CHICKY STAR to "get over here and put your fire out". What had happened was that Chicky had lit a cigarette and then put his lighter back into his wrestling bag. He had laid it on his trunks and the heat from the lighter and actually caught the trunks on fire and since everything was nylon, it had went up fast. So, Chicky Star lost some wrestling gear and a wrestling bag, but, as he turned to me, and lit another cigarette (with a borrowed lighter) he said, "well now I've got another story to tell". Gang and I laughed and then started choking, since the locker room was full of smoke. It gave me another story to tell also.
I must tell you that I had a great time in PR. All of the boys were great. Carlos Colon, and Victor Jovica were very nice to me (they are the owners) and everyone connected with the office did everything that they could do to make our trip enjoyable. We had gone to PR without a solid money deal. We were told that they would "take care of us", so we didn't know exactly what that would mean. When Victor Arroyo brought the money envelopes, the four of us were a little tense. The office had paid for our hotels and transportation, but how would they pay us? We all turned around and opened our envelopes and started counting. As we all turned back around, we were smiling to each other. I had stopped counting the money when it reached the $1000 mark. The Japanese boys had done the same. We all thanked Victor Arroyo and had him send a thank you message to the other locker room to Victor Jovica and to Carlos Colon.
What a great time I had. The Japanese boys got a little vacation and made some extra Christmas money, and we had all made new friends. I liked Puerto Rico, I think that I will be going back!!!!!
Check here for more TALES FROM THE ROAD. I'll be doing some of my "old" stories from my days with the USWA as well as telling about my trips to Japan. Also, if you want more information about me, or BJPW click on the link to my web page and find more there. You will also be able to e-mail me with questions and/or comments. If you would like BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING merchandise and VIDEO TAPES, that link will be located on my web page, also. THANKS!!
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