SATURDAY - LOCUST, NC to FEDS CREEK, KY:
Grant had to work third shift on Friday night (Saturday morning) and didn't get in until around 6:00 a.m., Brad filled the hours of the early morning by watching Grant's copy of the Bobby Heenan shoot interview before finally crashing with Katie. Grant came in and abruptly crashed for a few hours himself and around noon, the six stranglers arose and headed for the van, which coincidentally has only four seats. So with Yamaha in one of those fold-out chairs like you'd take to a high school football game or to go fishing and Katie in a bean bag chair, we headed north. For much of the trek through Virginia, the wrestler name game kept us occupied, with Katie being eliminated first, then Yamaha, then Amber, then Grant (!) leaving only Gee and Brad. Brad was stuck with E after all other imaginable E's had been used, before finally pulling out Erotica D'Vine (!) for the big win. Once we finally hit Kentucky, the roads got screwy and mountainous (although the worse --far worse-- was yet to come) but after a long trek through some backroads, we finally arrived at Spruce Pine Bottom, the venue where this show was scheduled to take place. Admittedly, we were all kind of puzzled as to what type of placed would be called that but they were not quite prepared for the eventual finding. Spruce Pine Bottom is, essentially a big empty field. There is a wooden stage set up in front of the woods, where concerts assumedly are held periodically and in front of that is just a big empty field, which for the Bluegrass Championship Wrestling shows houses a ring. The ring itself was quite interesting, with a metal frame (which showed, essentially that these guys at least had a clue, you never know what you're going to get on these far off shows) but no canvas, instead there was spruce padding provided by those foam puzzle-piece looking gimmicks that fit together that children play with. We were hesitant about such unusual practice but beyond that, the ring looked good enough. The boys were nice enough and eventually, they unveiled the canvas for the ring --which had been removed due to fear of rain. With the ring fully in tact, it actually looked kind of cool. The road was just down a hill and beyond a fence which signified the boundaries of this big...well, field...and there was a mobile concession stand off to the far end. We met Chuck, the promoter who was very high on Mike and the girls and he was an incredibly nice guy, especially as promoters go. He promised to take good care of us and not only made good on everything but was also very easy going and accommodating. Real easy going guy, looking to have fun. A light was supported over the ring and no sooner than Yamaha jumped onto the apron, the light exploded sending sparks into the ring, as if it had been rigged as pyro, lol. That kinda spooked everyone but once the crew got that light fixed, there were thankfully no future technical difficulties. The girls (and Yamaha) changed in the second floor of an old country store a hundred or so feet from the ringside area, Stutts took the night off and Sawyer naturally filmed. The most notable of the local boys was a mild matted big dude named Ben, who informed me he worked as Big Ben Vader, an obvious tribute to Leon White who worked as Vader for over a decade. Like most, initially the name came across like most of the gimmicks based on popular former stars, was kind of silly. The results from that show:
Bluegrass Championship Wrestling, July 3rd, 2004, Feds Creek, KY
1. "Too Sweet" Sammy Stylz over Izzy Fahreal (No selling, no psychology, typical "two light heavyweights go out there and do every spot they've ever seen" match that is unfortunately a staple of the indy circuit)
2. The Janitor over John Stone (Nothing special, some botched stuff but the presence of ring psychology here and there automatically made it better than the opener)
3. Big Ben Vader over Ric the Lunatic (Holy lord. I kinda snickered when that dude told me his gimmick, but he put the replica hood on and looked EXACTLY like Leon White. After seeing him do that, I can understand why he wouldn't use any other gimmick but that one, it looked very natural for him. He sold way, way too much for his smaller opponent, but this was an okay match. If we could get away with it, I would love to bring him to NC, just call him "Vader" and put him under to Corey Edsel on TV in like 12 seconds. We could stick with the wide camera angle the whole time, don't let him talk or ever zoom in on his face. It'd be tremendous, lol)
4. Brock Singleton over Cousin Sambo (Sambo does a hillbilly gimmick and was obviously well over with the crowd. Singleton is a HOSS who works for OVW periodically also. Sambo looked not only reckless but outclassed)
5. BCW Champion John Noble over Mikael Yamaha (Yam worked babyface for the first time since I believe February against the heel champion, who is real good. This was a real solid match, Noble has six or so years under his belt and looked to be a real solid talent)
6. Amber O'Neal over Geestar (Gee worked heel and as per usual was her usual wonderful bitchy self. Katie reffed this and it was quite possibly Amber and Gee's best singles match I have seen thus far. They did great)
7. The Stormbringers over Big Daddy Venus & Gabriel (Gabriel and his usual partner, apparently injured, are the BCW tag champs and babyfaces against the Stormbringers, members of the Creative Control faction that includes Singleton and Noble. This was learned from the long opening segment done to establish the characters which was interrupted by friendly promoter Chuck, who was apparently bringing his wrestling persona, Venus, out of retirement to aid Gabriel. This was a pretty long brawl that held the crowd's interest throughout. The rest of Creative Control interfered to cost Venus & Gabe the belts, setting off a big brawl with the top babyfaces against CC. There was a looong closing segment setting up a big tag match for the next show.)
Overall, this was a real fun show. The atmosphere was admittedly unique, but it totally worked for this crowd and felt very much like a big extended family of mountain folk (who were ultimately respectful) getting together for a big party of sorts. These words cannot truly do the uniqueness of the environment justice. It had a very old school feel with just the way the show was ran, but the atmosphere was great. Fans paid when they entered the gate and just parked their cars a few feet back from where the chairs were set up in a row. We met a couple who are getting married shortly, the guy is a longtime photographer and loved the girls, the wife ran a gimmick table with a ton of cool pics he (assumedly) had taken. The guy is tight with Mr. Jim Cornette which just drove me nuts at the prospect that he could potentially get Corny to do an NC appearance. Stutts spent much of the rest of the down time over the trip contemplating if he could get Cornette for his oft-talked about first show if he ever ran a promotion. The entire evening was pleasantly surprising and we cannot say enough good things about Chuck the promoter, totally great guy. He hooked us up with a hotel in Pikeville, KY, which Grant and Brad immediately marked for because Smoky Mountain ran regularly there. Place was kinda rough, but it was free and we ultimately weren't that hesitant, as long as the van was still there in the morning, we were cool, lol. The room actually was not bad at all, we had all slept in far worse. It even had a small fridge in it, that strangely enough, contained a five or so pound pack of ground beef. Yamaha made this discovery on Saturday night and we all laughed before doing the only thing we could think to do...we put it back in there, lol. We ordered pizzas and Katie & Brad stayed behind while the others made what they thought would be a beer run. Turns out we were in a dry county, which didn't particularly affect Katie and Brad a bit (straight edge and better than you!!! lol) but I think the others were disappointed. The gang rested up for the trip south to Tennessee for July 4th.
SUNDAY - PIKEVILLE, KY to HUNTSVILLE, TN:
In the morning, there was a cryptic knock at the door. Katie woke up first and answered and it was of all people...the lady who had left the ground beef in the fridge. She was nothing short of frantic, almost giving the impression that there was no other ground beef in the area that she could have possibly procured. It was unusual to say the least. We woke up thirty minutes after check out time, but thankfully never heard a word from anyone at the front office. We loaded everything up in the van and got on the road. We stopped at a Bob Evans restaurant in Pikeville for lunch, that was pretty good with the exception of a waitress who was cute enough to get at least one of the guys in trouble. As a result, the girls were kind of ill so the ride to Huntsville wasn't quite as pleasant, everyone pretty much kept to themselves. Suffice to say he did learn his lesson and I even learned a bit from it myself. The most noteworthy thing from the trip down to Tennessee was the absolutely ridiculous terrain of the mountains. All of us have driven on mountains before, including me previously in the pursuit of (unfulfilling) nookie. It was so bad that at one point, Amber, Gee, Katie and Brad all had motion sickness and Yam was nauseous from reading the map. Grant was a trooper and drove on, although the roads were just nuts. We did finally make it into Tennessee and the roads straightened up. All of us but Katie had been to Huntsville to work for SWA before, but not in several years, since the ill-fated (but tremendous) ladder match involving Yamaha. As a result of that match which went horribly wrong but is ultimately a story for another time, we weren't sure if we'd be welcomed with open arms for our return or not. The show was outdoors (again) at a big fourth of July festival sponsored by the Huntsville Fire Dept. The set up was quite nice actually, the ring was set up over the street in front of the county courthouse, with the boys and girls changing inside the courthouse and the fair itself just across the street. The promoter, Doc Hall, is to say the very least eccentric. Yamanutts and Grant have concocted a scenario where he would actually get on the mic and set up our match: Yam & Stutts vs. Amber & Gee. The match, complete with Brad's patented (as if I am the only one who ever thought of it) woman-bashing mic work, went great. The crowd ate it up. Katie reffed for us and did a great job and overall, it was a blast. The tape is highly entertaining as well, filled with potatoes and fun stuff all around. We didn't get to watch the SWA show, aside from highlights here and there, but the official results read like this:
Southern Wrestling Alliance, July 4th, 2004, Huntsville, TN
1. C.J. Summers over Ripper # 2 in a two out of three falls "lucha rules" match
2. Amber O'Neal & GeeStar over Mikael Yamaha & Brad Stutts when Gee pinned Stutts after he collapsed due to exhaustion as O'Neal also pinned Yamaha following a DDT
3. Trinity H. Campbell over Sienna Blaze
4. Eric Adams and Bad Medicine fought to a no-contest against Gabe Casteel & Adam Antienum
5. Jack Diamond fought Rage and Da Studd to a no-contest in a three-way number one contender's match
After the show ended, we decided to stay for the carnival as everyone was hungry so we bought some turkey legs and funnel cakes and walked around for a bit. It was another very cool atmosphere, with carnival type games and music and food, there were a ton of people there also. Fireworks started at 10:00 p.m. and it just isn't quite the fourth without fireworks. It was a real good little display and Yamaha even took a pic on his cell phone of the other five of us gathered in front of the finale. It looks really cool.
The trip home from Huntsville produced arguably the most entertaining moment of the entire journey. We stopped at a gas station to fill up somewhere around Statesville. I opened my door to stretch my legs out and after filling up, we departed. We got 3 or so miles down the road before Brad realized he suddenly had much more foot room. My shoes, removed hours earlier once we left Huntsville, had fallen out when the door opened. After quickly dismissing his initial theory that Yamaha had stolen them as a rib, he beckoned to Katie in a tone that Yamaha himself would go on to mock several times since, asking if she knew of their whereabouts. We quickly surmised that they must be back at the gas station and after much, much laughter, Grant did turn around and we headed back to the same gas station. Grant composed himself long enough to pull into the gas station and find...no shoes. In the five minutes we'd been gone, they had disappeared. We quickly ran over several options, the most popular of which was that some homeless man had acquired a new pair of New Balance sneakers. Someone realized that the gas station attendant ("Out for five minutes" according to the sign on the door when we initially pulled up for gas) had returned and picked them up. The girls managed to ask the attendant (us guys were laughing way too hard) and he answered yes, he'd seen them -- and thrown them into a nearby dumpster. Everyone lost it all over again and all of us, including Stutts in socks, walked over to the dumpster where Yamaha & Gee found them, already with cigarette butts and other assorted garbage inside them. Yam quickly pulled out his trusty camera phone and snapped a few more pictures as we all laughed hysterically. Yamaha's attempts to get Brad to hold them up and walk through the carwash were unsuccessful as he slipped on the sandals he'd also brought and walked back towards the car.
That kept most of us going for the ride home, which also included variations of the wrestler name game using movies, bands and eventually things that are not connected whatsoever except by a common thread (for instance in response to "Ear" one could say "Mick Foley" and the next person could say "Book" and the next person could say "Library" and so on) we got lost pretty quickly on that one. For the drive back, since it was the only time we had driven at night for a long distance over the entire trip, we invoked the traditional wrestling road trip rules (nobody sleeps) and everyone made it all the way back to Grant's house, where we pretty much all promptly crashed. Monday afternoon after we all awoke, Yam 'n' Am headed back to Smithfield, KK and I back to Liberty.
In my time in the business, I think this was the most fun I've had thus far. Trips like this are what the business is all about. It was a blast for all involved and I think a part of me is most happy that the rest of the gang had a chance to bond with Kristina. This leaves out a lot of the cool stuff like stopping at gas stations and seeing how much food one can stock up on for the least amount of money or Yamaha free styling on the way to Tennessee or Mike & I deciding what to name our new group in CWF in a hotel room in Kentucky and other cool stuff that just sorta happens on the road out, but I did hit the high points. Our crew is planning to return to Kentucky for BCW on September 8th and follow that up with an excursion to Virginia the next day. Wrestlers or not, everyone should take every opportunity they get to take road trips with their buddies. Good times, much much love to all...
