The Road (Trip) to Hell is Paved

The Road Trip to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions

I went on a road trip from Montreal to Ottawa on Saturday. The C*4 Wrestling promotion's last show of their "Season Two" Crossing the Line II saw them crown their first champion (Kevin Steen) Good show, a little long for my tastes, but it had great matches and some absolutely hilarious moments that I will write about in the comings days.

Our topic of the moment is how I got there. I wasn't planning on going to the show until Pat Laprade offered me a ride to Ottawa and agreed to drop me in Morin-Heights at my parents on the way back. Little did I know that I was agreeing to the Road Trip to Hell!

In the car: Me, Pat Laprade (driving), James Stone, Bakais and Pat's cousin, Maxime.

On the basic principle of saying some nice things about the drive, before I get to the good stuff, I reluctantly admit that the drive was not a total disaster:

• We did arrive in Ottawa before the doors opened.


• Miraculously with all limbs and organs intact.


• I did get dropped off by my parents safely.


• As James Stone discovered, Put Me, Laprade and Bakais in a car together and we will completely rebook your life, your promotion and your career, including booking James Stone's heel turn "But I'm not turning Heel!?!" in an angle that we called: Red Lips, Black List. Which would be a great title for a blog by the way.


• There is nothing better than letting Pat Laprade say something stupid and then James Stone and I spending fifteen minutes tag-teaming him as we prove point by point that he has no idea what he is talking about.


• Like James and I patiently explaining to Pat that HDNet is owned by Mark Cuban who invented streaming video and has more money than Vince McMahon and Donald Trump combined, so while the fact that HDNet got booted off Time Warner Cable in a contract dispute is not great news for ROH, it is also not the apocalyptic doomsday that Pat and other Chicken Littles are predicting. Heck Nickelodeon got booted off Time Warner Cable last year for a weekend in a contract dispute. Getting kicked off Time Warner Cable is practically a badge of honour.


• Or James and I explaining that while the Kevin Steen who succeeded in 2007 in ROH was certainly a better wrestler than the Kevin Steen who did not succeed in 2005, the biggest difference between the two runs was that Kevin was given a chance to succeed in 2007 that he was never given in 2005. There is a huge difference between being given the Briscoes as opponents and told to show off what you can do and being sent out in a five minute match. Patrick tried to counter by listing moves that Kevin did in 2007 that he never did in 2005. James and I patiently explained that these were moves that Kevin had used well before 2005, but that they were moves inappropriate to five minute matches which is why you never saw Kevin using them in ROH until 2007. In any case, it is a silly argument because the biggest difference between Kevin Steen 2005 and Kevin Steen 2007 wasn't his move-set, but his maturity in the ring and backstage, a better understanding of when and how to use that move-set and a better opportunity to do so.


• I had heard of Kevin Steen standing up to CM Punk backstage at ROH in 2005, but I had never heard of the 2007 postscript to that story where CM Punk came back to ROH for a show in 2007 and Kevin Steen walked up to him, held out his hand and said, "Hi, let me introduce myself. I'm Kevin Steen." As though the two men had never met and that is HILARIOUS.
  

So enough of the namby-pamby polite stuff, let's start really dishing the dirt shall we?

At the risk of ending up as an entry in James Stone's soon to be infamous Black List, it came as a complete shock to me and Pat Laprade and I suspect Bakais that James Stone is the most bitter, sad-sack, miserable excuse for a human being that I have ever been trapped for three hours in a car with. And I say this as a man who once drove from Montreal to Philadelphia and back with PCP Crazy F'N Manny, the IWS photographer Technical Diffulties and Chris Mergle whose idea of luxury is camping out in a burned-out wreck in the middle of an otherwise empty field somewhere in the Laurentians. Seriously James Stone hates EVERYTHING. He makes misanthropes like Dick Cheney, Conrad Black and Lex Luthor look like Mother Theresa by comparison.

The only halfway negative thing that I can say about Bakais is that the man can choose a monster bag of potato chips, pay for it, open the bag, inhale its contents and begin complaining that he ate too much as a prelude to the emission of toxic gases in the amount of time that the rest of humanity would still be looking back and forth trying to choose between Salt and Vinegar or Barbecue.

The rest of the problems of the trip: All Pat Laprade's fault.

1. He started the trip by locking the car with the keys inside it.


2. Despite normally calling or IMing me so much that he legally qualifies as a stalker, Pat waited to call me to tell me that he was picking me up until he was two blocks away from my office.


3. My office is on Sherbrooke and Metcalfe. Despite plenty of parking spots on Metcalfe, Pat drove two blocks further West to park on Stanley. Not that I mind walking but we were already late because of 1)


4. Pat is apparently allergic to driving with both hands on the wheel for any length of time whatsoever.


5. When stopping for gas, Pat feels compelled to inform his passengers that while he is filling up the car, they are now free to exit the vehicle and purchase refreshments, because apparently up until then, we were his prisoners.


6. Pat waited until we were circling Ottawa on the auto-route to inform us that he had no idea where the venue was.


7. Prior to telling us this, Pat spent about fifteen minutes programming his GPS with his right hand while searching the Internet on his Blackberry with his left hand for the venue address despite the fact that Bakais was sitting in the back seat with a perfectly useful iPhone. And yes, Pat was driving at the time.


8. Worst of all, Pat knew that Bakais had an iPhone because we had just spent a half-hour arguing as to what the most useless iPhone app is with half the car picking the "pouring a virtual beer" app and the other half arguing for the "light a virtual lighter" app. For the record, I was arguing that the virtual beer was more useless. At least the virtual lighter you can hold up at rock concerts.


9. Finally there is the small matter of Pat's GPS which is no doubt the infernal device handed out during your initial orientation on your first day in Hell.

Design Flaws of Pat's GPS
Note that some if not all of these problems may be due to operator failure rather than equipment failure

• It takes half an hour to program the damn thing by which point you are either already at your destination or you have already missed your exit.
• For some bizarre reason, despite how long it takes to set-up, Pat always begins by asking you what address to enter and then after asking for the address, telling you not to give him the information that he just asked you for because he is still programming his GPS.
• It has a disconcerting tendency to tell you to turn left while you are in the middle of an intersection.
• Because it apparently gets its signal from an Albanian spy satellite that was no doubt launched into a wobbly partial orbit by a giant sling-shot, the only way that Pat's GPS device can acquire and retain a signal is if Pat holds the device in his right hand and slowly waves the device around the car while driving with his left hand.
• It threatens to run out of battery power when you in the exact middle of nowhere.

Despite all of this Pat Laprade calls the Tom-Tom GPS, a brand of GPS other than the infernal device he currently uses, a piece of shit.

...

So what are the odds that I can continue to weasel out of paying my share of the gas money?

Info-Lutte Translates IWS X Results!

It is always cool when your written work gets translated. Info-Lutte previously translated my IWS X preview press release that Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer called "Fantastic" HERE. And now they have translated a portion of my X results focusing on the Nash/PCO match.

There is one amusing bit about this translation that I am about to post. One of the things that I quickly came to grips with as a wrestling publicist is that every once in a while someone was going to take what I wrote, copy it and pass it off as something that they wrote. I am completely fine with this. I know that in some circles this might be called plagiarism, but anything that gets wrestling and the IWS or ISW extra publicity is fine with me.

Proper credit is a bonus.

Sometimes this is done subtly. The French version of the history article on Kevin Steen on luttemedia was originally published with no author's name attached. I thanked them for using and translating my When We Were Marks article: The Kevin Steen Conspiracy which I will eventually polish and post up here some Wednesday when I have nothing original to put up.

After I thanked them, they put up a link to the original article admitting that it was a translation and calling me Mike Llakor leaving out the Ryan. And hey again credit was nice, but the reason that I wrote that article was to boost Kevin Steen's career. If it moved somebody to do the work of translatine everything that I wrote than I more than did my job.

Proper credit is a bonus - not a requirement.

The Info-Lutte link above to the preview is pretty subtle: it calls its version of the preview a special bulletin, "Bulletin Spécial sur Info-Lutte.Com". Not quite taking credit for writing it, just implying it. Of course it was then read more than 5000 times which probably translated into 5-10 ticket sales for us, so I don't care. Besides translating is hard work. Especially translating stuff that I write - which has its own unique pacing and phrasings and grammatical tics.

Selling tickets is more important to me than proper credit.

That being said, Julien Pernici translating what I wrote and then calling it a JTG Special Report is pretty fraking hilarious.

Amis du jour, bonjour et bienvenue dans ce JTG Report spécial ou vous saure tout sur ce qui s'est passé récemment à l'IWS entre Kevin Nash et Pierre-Carl Ouellet!

Il semble bien que Kevin Nash soit le seul homme à être mécontent après la grande fête que fut le dixième anniversaire de l'IWS au Medley. Nash était souriant après avoir abandonné aux mains de la clef de bras de Pierre-Carl Ouellet, félicitant PCO et la réaction positive du public à l'égard de PCO. Mais son sourire n'allait pas jusqu'aux yeux malgré tout. Une fois débarrassé de PCO, de son ancien partenaire Brick Crawford, et de quelques camarades de musculation de PCO qui étaient de le public, le masque est tombé. Le chauffeur de Kevin Nash, Joseph Fitzmorris, nous a confié que sur le chemin de l'aéroport, Nash a passé son temps à pleurnicher sur le fait que personne ne devait toucher son bras, se remettant d'un staphylocoque doré.

Revenons à ce main-event qui a commencé par Nash arrivant dans le ring et disant "Je suis un lutteur, je fais ça pour gagner ma vie. Je ne suis pas quelqu'un qui fait des combats libres. Je suis payé pour lutter, et non pas faire des combats libres. Je suis payé par avance, donc, si quelqu'un en coulisses décide que ce sera un combat libre, je sortirai mon vieux cul parsemé de poils gris de ce ring et je retournerai en Floride!"

Respectant les demandes de Nash, ce match fut un match de lutte (très divertissant d'ailleurs). Au début du match, le public était partagé, avec une majorité de justesse derrière PCO, mais au fil de match, le public s'est tourné en grand partie derrière PCO, surtout après une réaction ronchonne de Nash à un chant du public ("Super Shredder"). Nash a pris le contrôle du match après avoir trouvé des ciseaux pour couper la protection d'un des coins du ring, et après avoir envoyé PCO tête la première sur le coin en fer. PCO est immédiatement sorti du ring, saignant abondamment de la tête. Après une bagarre en dehors du ring, Nash a ramené PCO dans le ring pour lui porter son Jackknife. Et Nash a semblé abasourdi et dégoûté par le fait que PCO se soit relevé après le premier compte sur les trois de l'arbitre. Nash s'est vengé avec quelques coups de poings durement portés sur PCO, mais ce dernier l'a surpris avec ses capacités de Mixed Martial Arts, qu'il a appris avec Steve Bosse, et lui a porté une clef de bras sur son bras convalescent, et Kevin Nash a abandonné rapidement, se tenant son bras endolori, même en faisant le signe du Wolfpack face aux huées du public.

Mais on ne connait pas totalement le fin mot de l'histoire, semble-t-il, puisque Pierre-Carl Ouellet a sa version de l'histoire, et va la raconter en exclusivité ce dimanche dans une interview vidéo accordée dans les studios d'Info-Lutte.com!

Pour voir des extraits du match tant controversé, cliquez ici!

Sur ce, je vous dis bon vent!

Posté le: 5 Jun 2009 à 5:15
Par: Julien Pernici
Lu: 3230 fois

Of course, Julien could have chosen to translate Pat Laprade's recap of the results of X from SLAM! Wrestling and didn't, so in your face Laprade!

The only original bit in the Info-Lutte article was the pentultimate paragraph: "Mais on ne connait pas totalement le fin mot de l'histoire, semble-t-il, puisque Pierre-Carl Ouellet a sa version de l'histoire, et va la raconter en exclusivité ce dimanche dans une interview vidéo accordée dans les studios d'Info-Lutte.com!"

Translated, "We have not heard the last of this story, it seems, because Pierre-Carl Ouellet has his own version of this story and he will tell it to us exclusively on Sunday in a video interview conducted in the Info-Lutte.com studios!"

Pat Laprade's reaction to this bit was priceless. When I read to him that paragraph he laughed and said, "How can Info-Lutte have a studio? Jaoson Descoteaux doesn't even have a house!"

Moitié-Moitié Lives Up to His Name

The biggest wrestling gossip in Québec is Drénuke who I affectionately call Moitié-Moitié because 50% of the time he is half-right.

This is his latest bit about the IWS:

De nouveaux venus à la IWS

Lors de leur prochain gala (Hardcore Heat) le 29 Août prochain au Cabaret du Musée Juste pour Rire, deux nouveaux lutteurs tenteront de s'illustrer à la IWS, après une brève apparition dans le combat royal à X.

Ces deux lutteurs sont:

Alex Silva, le Portuguese Man'O War québécois
(Sorry Rod Rigues!)
Facebook Fan Club Alex Silva

Et Pauly Platinum, celui qui souhaite voir Bob Gainey quitter un de ces jours
(Il n'est pas le seul!)
Pauly Platinum Official Fan Club
(coudonc, c'est à la mode les fan clubs!?)

P'tite question: va-t-on les voir performer sous de nouveaux noms? ;-)
Publié par Drénuke à l'adresse 16:47

So just to translate briefly:

Newcomers to the IWS
During their next show Hardcore Heat (August 29th) at the Just for Laughs Museum Studio. two new wrestlers will try to make an impression in the IWS. (Both wrestled briefly in the Battle Royale during X.)
These two wrestlers are:
The Portuguese Man of War Alex Silva
And Pauly Platinum who just made an appearance in a streeter interview saying that Bob Gainey should be fired for hiring Jacques Martin to coach the Montreal Canadiens.
Small question: Will they be given new names?

Allow me to respond:

1. When I read the headline at first I read venus as venue and thought that Drénuke was going to talk about our return to the Just For Laughs Museum Studio. Proof that Hell has officially frozen over.

2. The snarky bit at the end, is Drénuke reminding everyone that we changed Mike Sydal's name to Mike "Speedball" Bailey and we changed his tag team partner's name from Van Hawk to Brian Corcoran. For a while, I was calling Corcoran "Cock-Knocker" because that is what Shane Matthews called him during their first appearance against 2.0. Sadly due to a restraining order I can only refer to Brian Corcoran as "Cock-Knocker" in order to explain why I am no longer calling him Cock-Knocker.

Here is my explanation for why we changed their names in the IWS. Their old names were stupid names. Bailey is not a member of the Sydal wrestling family, and he doesn't look like he should. And Van Hawk is not only a stupid name, it is too close to Shayne Hawke. But a tag-team called Speedball and Cock-Knocker? That would be AWESOME!

Oh right. Stupid restraining order.

And to answer Drénuke's question: No their names will not be changed.

3. Here is what Drénuke got right. Alex Silva and Pauly Platimun are booked on Hardcore Heat. Actually, I can't really confirm that. I assume that they are booked on Hardcore Heat.

4. Just like they were on X in the Veteran Battle Royale where any one could have entered as long as they had previously been in the IWS; just like Alex Silva was at Know Your Enemies; just like both men were at Violent Valentines in their IWS debut in the 4-Man Nic Paterson Invitational. (The other two men were Lex Lerman and Stratos.)

Lex Lerman won the match, pinning Stratos, but it was Alex Silval who impressed the most and he has been booked in every IWS show since. He has already gone through the rite of passage that all IWS rookies have to go through eventually and survived his match against EXesS at Know Your Enemies.

So...
Yes Moitié-Moitié: Alex Silva and Pauly Platinum will be wrestling at Hardcore Heat.
No Moitié-Moitié: They will not be making their debut. They did that in February. Only five months late on noticing though.
No Moitié-Moitié: We will not be changing their names. We didn't do it back in February, we aren't about to start now.

But you know hitting 1 for 3 consistently would get you a muti-million dollar baseball contract, so you always have that.

Mark Evanier Squirrels Llakor

It has been a surreal two weeks for me.

-I set up an interview with Kevin Nash for Tim Baines of the Ottawa Sun.
This led to:
Kevin Nash calling me at my office.
A full page article in the Ottawa Sun, reprinted in SLAM! Wrestling.
A full page article in the Journal de Montreal liberally translated from Tim Baines article.
The Journal de Montreal tabloid has the most widely read sports in a rabid sports market, so getting a full page article from them was huge.

-The Xth Anniversary show was a huge success. We had the second biggest crowd at the Medley ever and because of the Kevin Nash vs. PCO match with its controversial finish, wrestling fans all over the world are talking about us, including a full page review of the show on SLAM! Wrestling written by Pat Laprade.
And always a bonus, no one got seriously hurt despite Manny and Phantom's best attempt to kill each other.

Plus I got name-checked on the internet three times in less than a week.

-Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer called my press release for the IWS Xth Anniversary "Fantastic". The Wrestling Observer is the oldest and most reliable of the wrestling newspapers or "dirt sheets".

-Chris Sims of The Invincible Super-Blog name-checked me in his review of Inter-Species Wrestling's Slamtasia 2.

-Mark Evanier of News From Me name-checked me on his blog.

WHUH? Mark Evanier?

There are a lot of reasons to like Mark Evanier. He writes a blog that I read obsessively; he is an expert on ton of things that I care deeply about - comics, cartoons, cartoon voices, broadway musicals, Las Vegas, magic and more; he writes faster than I read and I read fast seriously, he writes fast enough that I suspect that he was standing nest to Barry Allen when the lightning hit the chmicals only in Marks' case the lightning and chemicals hit just his hands; he has either met, worked with, interviewed or been mistaken for everyone worth knowing; and, perhaps most importantly, he is one of my favourite comics book writers ever.

I would say that even if all he did was write the dialogue for Sergio Aragones' brilliantly funny Groo. But Mark is also responsible along with artist Dan Spiegle for the criminally underrated Crossfire. It falls into a category of comics that I love, protagonists who fight crime wearing a costume, when there is no real reason for them to need a costume. This includes Will Eisner's The Spirit, CC Boyer's Masked Man, and I would argue Bob Roazakis' 'Mazing Man.

Today the pitch for Crossfire is easier. It's Dog the Bounty Hunter fights crime in Hollywood. Back in the Eighties when I was buying comics at Wilkie's Wonderful World in Halifax from Ken Hwang before I started running the Wilkie's Dartmouth branch in 1990 it was a harder sell.

"You should buy Crossfire."

"What's it about?"

"Bounty hunter who fights crime in Hollywood."

"Don't all bounty hunters fight crime?"

"Well, yes."

"Why is he wearing a costume? Isn't he a bounty hunter? Aren't all bounty hunters supposed to catch crooks? Why does he need to hide his identity?"

"It's a Spirit thing."

"Nice try, you're not going to convince me to buy this book, just so that you can convince me to buy a book that was published in the 1940's. Who's the girl?"

"Rainbow. She's a member of the DNAgents."

"What are the DNAgents?"

"Sort of a cross between The Metal Men and the X-Men."

"The Metal Men?"

"Series by Robert Kanigher, remember he did The Haunted Tank war series that I convinced you to buy back issues of? The idea of Metal Men is that they are intelligent robots built by a mad scientist with powers based on the metal that they are designed from. Lead is strong and heavy, Gold is the leader, Mercury is liquid at room temperature. And because they are robots, they pretty much get destroyed at the end of each and every adventure."

"OK, as awesome as that sounds, before you send me scrambling to collect another old DC series that will take me years to complete, explain what the DNAgents are like without making abscure references to series that aren't published anymore."

"Well, they are like the X-Men in that they have different super-powers because of a genetic mutation. Unlike the X-Men though it wasn't an accidental mutation. They were made in a lab."

"That I will buy."

Cue Llakor banging his head. Note that in the Eighties, without cheap Showcase reprints, back issues were the only way to know about books like the Metal Men or Haunted Tank, The Spirit was available in reprints from Kitchen Sink, but convincing people to buy them was a struggle.

Since Mark Evanier ALSO wrote DNAgents only with Will Meugniot on art instead of Dan Spiegle he did better no matter what, but it always drove me crazy that I couldn't sell the series that I loved, but I could accidentally sell the related title that I honestly was kind of MEH about.

All of which explains why in a store that would sell 100 copies of X-Men a month, they would also sell 40 copies of DNAgents, but only 3 copies of Crossfire.

Long story short. Too Late. I am a big fan of Mark Evanier's writing. I have e-mailed him about stuff that he has written before and never gotten a response. Wasn't expecting one, he probably gets gobs of e-mails, but a recent post of his about Jesse Ventura prompted me to write to him.

The first time I saw Jesse Ventura lecturing people about truth and integrity, I did a double-take that would have seemed excessive on The Benny Hill Show. The man's first claim to fame was in professional wrestling, an occupation where you can't utter five sentences without lying in at least two of them. But he parlayed the skills from that profession into a brief career in politics, where I suppose they came in handy...

Now Jesse Ventura has always been a bit of a hero of mine. If for no other reason, no one has ever encapsulated the philosophy of the Heel as succintly as him, "Win if you can. Lose if you must. But always cheat!"

That sentence probably doesn't sound like much of a contradiction to what Mark is saying, except that when Jesse Ventura says that he is doing so as part of a performance. Because as I will argue at any opportunity, wrestling is a story-telling art form.

So, I wrote to Mark expressing thoughts along those lines and he decided to quote me in full and verbatim.

Here is what I said:

I am not going to try and convince you of the merits of professional wrestling. Speaking as someone who writes about it and for it and helps promote shows in Montreal, it can frequently be a sordid world where the talent is ruthlessly taken advantage of by the promoters putting on the shows, much like the rest of show business in fact except without even the fig-leaf of union protection that writers and performers like you have.

And this is why you are wrong about Jesse Ventura, specifically about this: "The man's first claim to fame was in professional wrestling, an occupation where you can't utter five sentences without lying in at least two of them.

OK, yes technically this is correct, the same way that it is true of any actor. Unless you would like to suggest that June Foray is in fact a flying squirrel? Would you have said the same thing about Norm MacDonald?

Jesse Ventura played a role on camera. His famous line was "Win if you can; Lose if you must; But always Cheat!" But that character was not him.

(Sure wrestling had a huge advantage of other show business professions that the suspension of disbelief is easier if people believe from the outset that what they are watching is real, an advantage that wrestling no longer has. And you may not necessarily believe this, but wrestling is a story-telling art form. Like any such art form it can be brilliant or wretched.)

From all that I have heard from wrestlers of that time period, Jesse Ventura was a gentleman backstage. Opinionated with an ego like any star, he nonetheless was one of the few wrestlers to stand up to promoters famously with Vince McMahon to argue for the protection of all wrestlers not just the well-paid stars. That the promoters should provide health care and other benefits for the wrestlers and that they should allow the wrestlers to form a union. Rare among his peers, he said this publicly and openly while he was a star and in fact Vince fired him from the WWF as a result. (He landed another gig with WCW soon after.) Unfortunately, wrestlers are as hard to organize as cats and no one has ever been successful at organizing a wrestler's union, but no one ever risked as much when they were a star to try and bring one about.

One quick note, I didn't mean Norm MacDonald. I meant Al Franken whose race and never-ending recount for the Senate seat in Minnesota both Mark and I have been following closely. And yeah, Al Franken and Norm MacDonald are so much alike. The lesson as always: I'm an idiot.

Mark's response:

Having once produced a special for CBS with a cast of pro wrestlers (and Vince McMahon as exec producer), I know a fair amount about that world...and all you say about working conditions is true. All you say about Mr. Ventura's rabble-rousing to improve them is also probably true. But when I wrote about wrestlers lying, I was referring to one key part of their job and it's where your analogy to June Foray or Norm MacDonald doesn't work.

There is no one alive who thinks June is really a flying squirrel and if you ever asked her, she'd tell you that every line she utters that suggests that is fiction. On the other mitt, there are actually people on this planet who think that the outcome of most pro wrestling matches is not predetermined...or at least think the games are a lot less scripted than they are. And whenever I've seen someone ask Jesse Ventura if his old wrestling matches were rigged or planned or fixed, he changes the subject, attacks the questioner, and generally fudges the truth as baldly as any politician he condemns for the same kind of tap-dancing.

Now, granted: Lying about whether a wrestling match was rigged is nowhere near the same sin as lying about C.I.A. intelligence or the circumstances of war. And I suppose a case could be made that since Jesse's wrestling days are behind him, he's just trying to not piss on his old livelihood and perhaps disminish it for those still working in those salt mines. My point was just that his old job afforded plenty of practice at avoiding the truth and fighting dirty...two skills that come in handy when one runs for elected office.

I like Jesse in a way. I don't always agree with him and I don't feel qualified to say if he was as poor a governor as the polls in Minnesota would seem to indicate. But I like that he's not out there parroting Talking Points or hedging his views to protect his political options. I also think it's great to have a few loud Libertarians out there, especially of the kind that don't compromise their views of the Constitution for the sake of personal expediency or gain. He adds a lot more to the public debate than any dozen Democrats or Republicans...even when I think he's wrong. I just think that back in his wrasslin' days, he did an awful lot of fibbing.

A few thoughts:

1. Getting into a name-dropping contest with Mark Evanier would be like trying to out-stare a cat. Vince McMahon? Oh yeah, I wrote a CBS Special he executive produced.

2. Bringing up June Foray was a bit of a cheap shot, a bit like flicking a towel on a lion's nose to get his attention. That said, I imagine that every time June Foray makes an appearance and is announced as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, there is at least one person in attendance who freaks out because Rocky's a Girl?!?

3. I probably would have been better off comparing wrestlers to magicians. They both come from a carny background. They both are protective of their secrets. The difference of course is that magicians may not be willing to explain their trick, they do at least acknowledge that there is a trick involved. The problem for wrestlers is that the biggest secret is that there is a secret; the biggest trick is that there is a trick.

4. As Mark does mention above, "Lying about whether a wrestling match was rigged is nowhere near the same sin as lying about C.I.A. intelligence or the circumstances of war."

I think that I would go further than that. Lying about wrestling is an almost harmless lie, designed to preserve an illusion for those who want the illusion to be preserved. It is on par with Disneyland insisting that their animators stay in character until they are out-of-sight of the general public. Mickey does not take his head off in front of the kids.

Leave aside the CIA. Mark lives in a town populated by people whose only problem with lying is that they sometimes forget which lie that they are telling. No lie, no performance that Jesse Ventura has ever hoodwinked the public with can compare with one of those pit vipers. Wrestling fans want Jesse Ventura to lie to them. I am fairly confident that neither James Garner nor Jack Klugman are impressed with the magic trick where NBC and Universal hid the profits of The Rockford Files in Quincy and the profits from Quincy in The Rockford Files, somehow managing to turn two profitable series into two money-losing series in the process.

Or as William Gibson says in Spook Country:

People who didn't know the music industry, Inchmale said, believed that the movie business was the ne plus ultra of vicious, asshole-chewing, hyena-like behavior.

Remarkably accurate description of music executives, wrestling promoters or Hollywood executives, probably one that Gibson earned through bitter experience. Not that having your best ideas ripped off (in films like The Matrix) or having one of your best short stories (Johnny Mnemonic) turned into the very definition of puerile crap should make anyone bitter or anything!

Jesse Ventura's level of mendacity simply doesn't seem proportional to what Mark encounters on a regular basis. Not that I am going to win an argument with Mark Evanier. Nice to be invited to spar with him publicly though.

When We Were Marks: The Foul King

When We Were Marks
The Foul King
Retro Column February 2006

Where Llakor Got His Avatar: The Foul King

Those of you who stumble across this blog, may be asking yourself: Where did Llakor get his avatar?

It's from the greatest (non-documentary) wrestling film ever (prior to The Wrestler) a Korean wrestling movie called The Foul King.

(The runner-up is a Japanese film called The Calamari Wrestler about a Japanese (heel) wrestling champion who is challenged from beyond the grave by his ex-partner whom he betrayed in the ring (and then stole his wife/girl friend outside of the ring) This ex-partner died, but was then reincarnated as a Human/Calamari hybrid. Honest to God. I couldn't make this shit up. It's by the same director Minoru Kawasaki who did Executive Koala, about a salaryman who is also a Giant Koala, The Rug Cop, about a hardboiled Japanese cop who takes down crooks by throwing his toupee at them, and Kawasaki's only real mis-step The World Sinks Except Japan, a apocalyptic satire about the rest of the world being covered by the rising seas except for Japan and the weird chaos that ensues.)

The story of the Foul King is pretty simple. The main character is a mild-mannered banker who gets pushed around by everyone around him: his co-workers, the commuters on the subway with him, the punks who hassle him and mug him on the way home, and his disabled Dad who browbeats him at home.

(One thing about Korean and Japanese subways is that they are so crowded that there are subway employees called Push Men whose only job is to literally cram the passengers into the cars so that they are as filled up as possible. There is a hilarious sequence where our hero is trying to get out of the subway at his stop and literally can't partly because the subway car is too crowded, partly because the other passengers are being ass-holes and mostly because our hero is too damn polite.)

One night, our hero is running from the local hoodlums and ends up hiding inside a local warehouse which turns out to be a small wrestling dojo. Attracted by the owner's daughter and convinced that wrestling will solve all his problems, our hero tries to convince the old and cranky owner of the dojo to train him. This takes a lot of convincing because the owner is suspicious of someone who literally just stumbled in out of the rain.

The training is mostly done by the owner's daughter who naturally knows more about wrestling than any one in the country other than her Dad.

It turns out that the grouchy owner wrestled under a hood as the cheating heel Foul King. (Possibly also called Tiger Mask.) When the time comes for our hero to be finish his training and choose a gimmick, the owner's daughter conspires for him to become the new Foul King.

The thing on his chest is not just his wrestling symbol and a fancy chest protector. It is hollow and inside there are all the "international objects" as Gordon Solie used to call them that a cheating wrestler would want - powders, rope, but especially a fork. There is a great sequence when our hero is presented with his wrestling fork and all the wrestlers gather around in respect and someone says reverently "Abdullah" and all the wrestlers nod.

(When I originally saw it, at this point, I was literally dying with laughter and about 500 non-wrestling fans in the theatre with me at Fantasia were looking at me like I was some kind of mutant. I think the only other guy in the theatre who understood the reference was the film programmer who organizes the El Santos films and the Godzilla movies.)

The new Foul King does a tour of the Korean countryside and becomes more and more popular. At which point, the Korean Vince McMahon approaches the dojo owner and former Foul King to put his new Foul King into the main event of the big Seoul show for the year which will be a tune-up match for the Korean champion before the Tokyo Dome show in Japan.

(In and of itself, there is an interesting display of hierarchy here as the wrestling dojo is lower on the totem pole in Korea than the big Korean fed, which is lower on the totem pole than Japan.)

Naturally, the former Foul King is suspicious and protests that his student is not yet ready for the main event of a Seoul super-card, but he allows himself to be convinced.

Admiral Ackbar: It's a trap!

The Korean Vince McMahon's plan is not just for his champion to have a tune-up match before Tokyo, it's to settle some scores that he has with the old Foul King by humiliating his student and to kill the Foul King character dead Dead DEAD by unmasking him.

And we all know what happens when you try and unmask a masked wrestler. SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE.





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That was probably more information that you needed.

Point is Foul King is a fricking amazing wrestling film. Hilarious with all kinds of references and jokes that you have to be a wrestling fan to get, but at the same time non-wrestling fans aren't alienated.

I should point out that I saw the film three maybe four years before I originally wrote this review in 2006, possibly longer. It was the summer before I saw my first IWS show, when Jericho won the indisputed title, so 2001? I haven't rewatched it since, so I am writing this from memory. Now, okay admittedly I am the guy with the freakish memory a la Archie Goodwin, still for a film to engrave itself into my memory for me to be able to literally quote scenes from it - it has to be a fricking incredible film. There are films that I saw within the last month where I would have to search my memory HARD just to remember the title, but this film is as fresh for me as if I saw it yesterday.

If the film has a weakness/weaknesses there are two - one the film is filled with clichés and two the hero goes from trainee to main event waaaaay too fast. But to its credit, the film is aware of these weaknesses and does its best to address them. For instance, while the film follows the structure of the 98 pound weakling at the beach comic book ads, it does make it clear that the problem is not the hero's physique, it is his reluctance to use his size and strength, his refusal to be assertive.

In terms of the speed with which our hero goes from trainee to main event, the film does document the various steps that a wrestler has to go to to get from one stage to another. One of the standard techniques of drama is to compress events to heighten drama which explains the pace. And the film does make it clear that normally there would be a longer "paying your dues" process.

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To answer the original question...

I use the Foul King avatar, because it's an amazing film; because it's an avatar about wrestling and I love wrestling especially masked wrestling; because it's an avatar about cinema and I love cinema especially foreign cinema and especially especially Asian cinema; because it's an avatar about Korea and I am rather fond of Korea even if I have never been there, the combination of Asia and Catholicism is irresistible to me; and finally, because I adore obscure pop culture references and you don't get much more obscure than a Korean comedy about a masked wrestler.

How's that for a run-on sentence? (And a run-on answer?)

SLAM! Wrestling Article about IWS X

Patrick Laprade wrote an article for SLAM! Wrestling about the IWS Xth Anniversary.

Ouelett makes Nash tap out in grudge match
By PATRIC LAPRADE - For SLAM! Wrestling

MONTREAL - In what was billed as the second biggest grudge match in the history of Quebec wrestling, trailing only behind the 1985 match between the Rougeaus and the Garvins, Pierre-Carl Ouellet and Kevin Nash fought once again on Saturday at the IWS 10th anniversary show.

And fighting is a good word to use since prior to the show, both PCO and Kevin Nash talked about it as if it could easily turn into a shoot fight.

After Nash made his entrance at the Medley to his old NWO theme, he took the microphone and told the fans that he was indeed a professional wrestler and if the match turns into a shoot, he would just leave and go back to Florida.

Then Ouellet made his entrance, looking great, tanned, with a new hairstyle that gives him a mean and tough look. Surprisingly though, the crowd was 50-50 on who they cheered -- even though Montreal is Ouellet's home town, a lot of people came to see Nash for his first indy presence in the city. Back in the days when the nWo was really over, WCW never ran a show here. (The Jacques Rougeau versus Hulk Hogan show at the Montreal Forum was promoted by Rougeau himself.)

Even if it was announced as a grudge match, Nash and Ouellet started things off with a lock up and a test of strength. Twice in the match, Ouellet struck Nash with a series of punches and after each of them, Nash took a powder to the outside. Even with half of the crowd behind him, Nash played a great heel. After he did the famous cross chop popularized by his good friends from D-Generation X, Nash removed a top turnbuckle. Ouellet’s forehead hit the corner and he started bleeding. Nash then did his big boot/jackknife powerbomb combo to the great pleasure of his fans. After taking some time to cover Ouellet, he finally did -- but shockingly Ouellet kicked out at one.

To make it look as much as a shoot as possible, Nash ground and pounded PCO, trying to connect a few punches which the former Quebecer turned into a juji-gatame armbar. Applying the hold on the arm Nash got infected a few weeks ago made Nash tap out right away. Even if it wasn’t the best finish they could have pulled off, it was a strong finish for the kind of a work-shoot match they were having.

Ouellet had the same intensity after the bell than he had coming into the match. He looked like he just won a big championship. But for Ouellet the win closes a chapter of his career and perhaps is even more important than any championships he has won.

"I certainly didn’t want to look like a chicken again," said Ouellet the day after his match, referring to the match in Quebec City he had against Nash in 1995 for WWE where he got pinned by Nash. That match was the day after he refused to job to Nash, working at the time as Diesel, in Montreal. (The match ended by a double countout.) To make things worse, in Quebec City, while doing his leg drop for the top rope, Ouellet landed on Nash’s face by mistake. "It wasn’t the right time to give Nash a potato," admitted Ouellet, reinforcing the fact that it really was a mistake and he had no bad intentions.

Saturday, after he was done celebrating, Ouellet flipped Nash off before going to the locker room, buried under the applause of the 679 fans in attendance. Nash then stood up, selling his arm, and as the guitar of Voodoo Child started to play, he pleased the crowd with the "wolfpack" sign and left the ring.

This was probably the most talked about eight-minute match in the recent years of Quebec wrestling. The biggest newspaper in the province, Le Journal de Montréal, picked up the story from the Ottawa Sun. Translating the story written by the Ottawa Sun's Tim Baines, Le Journal gave them a lot of exposure, with a full color page in the sports section the day of the show. This is definitely the best coverage pro wrestling had in that newspaper for the last 10 years, alongside Jacques Rougeau’s shows and Abdullah the Butcher’s retirement show. As well, both Ouellet and Nash did interviews with Martin Lemay on CKAC, the most listened to French sports radio station in Montreal.

It was really a smart thing for the IWS to give Ouellet, their best known champion ever, a chance to get his long-awaited revenge on the biggest stage of the company’s history, celebrating their 10th anniversary.

This show was supposed to be held the week before, but because TNA changed their PPV date and it is not allowing talent to work indies the Saturday of a PPV, IWS had to change their plans and do the show one week later. Due to that switch, the two best known IWS stars, Kevin Steen and El Generico, couldn’t work the show as they were doing TV tapings for Ring of Honor in Philadelphia. Despite that, the other matches went well and the crowd was really pleased with the overall performance they witnessed.

RESULTS

* The IWS tag team champions The Untouchables (Don Paysan & James Stone) beat 2.0 (Shane Matthews & Jagged). As a result, 2.0 won’t be allowed to team anymore.
* Former IWS star Damian won a 28-men battle royal that included wrestlers from all of the 10 years, like Tomassino, Manuel Vegas, TNT, Evilicious, Kid Kamikaze, Firestorm, the Hardcore Ninjaz and former IWS champion, Arsenal.
* The IWS Canadian champion Shayne Hawke held to his title by defeating long-time friend Twiggy.
* Max Fury beat Exess in a Hardcore MMA Rules match, meaning there were no rules, no rounds and no weight classes.
* The IWS Heavyweight champion Beef Wellington defeated two former champions, Franky the Mobster and Sexxxy Eddy, in a three-way match.
* The main-event of this special night was an IWS Death match between two guys who were there at the very beginning of the company, The Green Phantom and the owner of the IWS, PCP Crazy Manny. The Green Phantom won the battle after a crazy spot where he did a tornado DDT to Manny from the balcony into six tables on fire.

RELATED LINKS

May 30, 2009: Nash promises a 'fight' for Ouellet

An edited version of the PCO vs Nash match

www.iwswrestling.com

Patric Laprade has been involved in the Quebec wrestling indy scene for nine years and he is at work on a book about Quebec wrestling history. He can be reached at patric_laprade@videotron.ca or on his website at http://www.quebechof.com.

I may actually have to come up with something non-wrestling related to talk about tomorrow.

Nash Unhappy with Results IWS Xth Anniversary

Nash Unhappy with Results IWS Xth Anniversary
Montreal 05/30

It seems like Kevin Nash is the only man unhappy after the crowded party at the Medley last night for the International Wrestling Syndicate's Tenth Anniversary. Nash was all smiles backstage after tapping out to Pierre-Carl Ouellet's arm-bar, congratulating PCO on the win and the crowd's positive reaction to PCO. The smile never quite reached his eyes however. Once clear of PCO. PCO's ex-tag team partner Brick Crawford and a crowd of PCO's friends from his gym, the mask slipped. Nash's IWS Chauffeur back to the airport, Joseph Fitzmorris, reported to me that Nash spent most of the drive snarling that no one was supposed to touch his arm (still tender from a recent staph infection.)

The main event of the IWS Tenth Anniversary started with Kevin Nash coming out to his NWO theme and announcing to the crowd, "I'm a professional wrestler, that's what I do for a living. I'm not a shoot-fighter. I get paid to wrestle not to shoot-fight. I was paid in advance, so if anyone in the back decides to turn this into a shoot, I will roll my old, grey-haired ass out of this ring and go back to Florida."

Meeting Nash's demands, the match was a (highly entertaining) professional wrestling match. At the start of the match, the crowd was split,with PCO backed by a slight majority of the crowd, but as the match went on the crowd swung solidly behind PCO, especially after a grumpy Nash's negative reaction to a "Super Shredder" chant. Nash took control of the match after using a pair of scissors to cut off one of the top turnbuckles and (eventually) dropping PCO face-first on the exposed metal. PCO immediately rolled out of the ring, coming up with a face covered in blood.

After brawling outside of the ring, Nash rolled PCO in to finish the match with a huge jack-knife power bomb. Nash seemed startled and angry when PCO kicked out of the power-bomb after one. Nash leaned into PCO with a couple of stiff punches, but was caught by surprise when PCO demonstrated some of the MMA tricks that he has picked up sparring with Steve Bosse and grabbed Nash's bad arm for an arm-bar. Nash tapped quickly and was clutching his arm in pain even while acknowledging the crowd's cheers after the match with his famous Wolf-Pac salute.

You can see clips from the match here:
http://www.youtube.com/​watch?​v=MDHafWra82I

*****

IWS Tenth Anniversary
Results - Quick and Dirty
Saturday, May 30th
The Medley, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

IWS Tag Team Title: Champions The Untouchables (Dan Paysan and James Stone) vs. 2.0 (Jagged and Shane Matthews)
The Untouchables retained their titles in 11:30 with Dan Paysan pinning Shane Matthews after a Jimmy Stone chair-shot. Because of the loss, 2.0 can no longer team together in the IWS.

IWS Veteran Battle Royale:
More than twenty men (and one woman) from the ten years of the IWS battled in an over-the-top Battle Royale won by Damian who threw Wonder-Fred over the top rope after 14:35.

IWS Canadian Title: Canadian Champion Shayne Hawke vs. Twiggy
Shayne Hawke retained his title in 11:09 pinning Twiggy

MMA Match: EXesS vs. Heavy Maxx Fury
Maxx Fury won by submission after 9:58.

IWS Title Match: Champion Beef Wellington vs. former champions Sexxxy Eddy and Franky the Mobster
Beef Wellington retained pinning Sexxxy Eddy with his E. Coli pile driver after 11:12

Grudge Match: Kevin Nash vs. Pierre-Carl Ouellet
Kevin Nash tapped to a PCO arm-bar after 8:38

IWS Death Match: The Green Phantom vs. PCP Crazy F’N Manny
The Green Phantom pinned Manny after 13:55 of completely and clinically insane hardcore action

*****

.IWS Tenth Anniversary Detailed Results

There is so much stress and heart-ache planning an IWS Medley that it is easy to forget until you are in the middle of one, how much damn fun they are. Last night we came within about fifty people of setting a record for a wrestling crowd at the Medley, cramming just over 700 people into a wild enthusiastic celebration of ten years of the IWS in Montreal.

Our best-ever crowd at the Medley was the Sabu show at Un F'N Sanctioned 2006 which had the advantages of a better economy, no hockey the night of the show, and we caught lightning in a bottle by featuring Sabu two days before his 2006 debut on Raw, so many people came in from out-of-town to see his last match in the indies.

It was a surreal day. We woke up to find out that there was full-page article about the Nash/PCO match in the Journal de Montreal, the biggest source of sports news on the island of Montreal. This was a translation of an article in the Ottawa Sun by Tim Baines - reprinted on SLAM! Wrestling:
http://slam.canoe.ca/​Slam/​Wrestling/​2009/​05/​30/​9624436-​sun.html
The French Journal de Montreal article can be seen here:
http://img30.imageshack.us/​img30/​7598/​iws1w.png

We need to thank Tim Baines for the article, the anonymous staffer at Journal de Montreal who translated it, Kevin Nash for agreeing to the interview and especially to Kevin's agent Bill Behrens for making the interview possible at the very last minute.

X stared with a quick=paced enjoyable match between the IWS Tag Team champions, the ersatz Italians, James Stone and Dan Paysan, the Untouchables and one of the most successful tag teams in IWS history, Jagged and Shane Mattews, 2.0. The Untouchables retained their title with a pin on Shane Matthew after James Stone clobbered Shane with a chair-shot and then used the chair to ward off Jagged from saving his partner.

With the loss, 2.0 can never tag again in the IWS. As a small consolation, Jagged and Shane are about to leave Montreal for a six-show tour of Big Japan with CHIKARA. So while they can no longer tag in Quebec, they can tag together in Japan!

We announced a 20 man over-the-top Battle Royale of IWS veterans from the tn years of the IWS. There were some that questioned whether we could come up with 20 IWS veterans. In fact, we ended up with 27 men and one woman entered in the match. IWS ring announcer, "Iron" Mike Paterson started the match by announcing that he was going to win the match because his brother, IWS President Nic Paterson had promised him the win. The other entrants were less than impressed with this announcement (especially since most of them were lured to the Medley with similar promises) and eliminated Mike first.

The remainder of the eliminations in order:
2. Former IWS colour commentator Peter Lasalle
3. Former IWS Commissioner and Manager Joseph Fitzmorris
4. Former IWS Technical Director Little Brown Joe (with an impressive back-flip out of the ring
5. From the very first IWS show The Insurance Policy
6. John Fury
7. Alex Silva
8. Former IWS Valet D-Vyne
9. Former IWS Champion TNT
10. Pauly Platinum
11. Carl Choquette (of Above Standards)
12. Lex Lerman
13. The fire-breathing Firestorm
14. Malice (of Evilicious)
15. The Latino Kid
16. Latino Mysterio (hurled from the ring by Tomassino like a javelin)
17. Former IWS Manager The Motivator of Madness
18. Soul Rage (of Eviliciou)
19. Tomassino
20. Manuel Vegas
21. Former IWS Champion The One Man War, The Arsenal
22. Former IWS Tag Team Champion and IWS Canadian Champion Kid Kamikaze
23. Mike "Speedball" Bailey continuing his impressive rookie year. With the match down to just four men, Mike tried to ally himself with Fred la Merveille against the Hardcore Ninjaz. A rookie mistake that saw Fred throw him over the top.
24. Fred la Merveille was no match for the Hardcore Ninjaz as a team
25. Multiple time IWS Tag Team Champion The Evil Ninja
26. Multiple time IWS Tag Team Champion Hardcore Ninja by Wonderfred

It appeared that the Hardcore Ninja, an IWS original, had won the Battle Royale until Fred snuck into the ring and threw the Hardcore Ninja out. Fred explained that he had entered the Battle Royale twice, once as Fred la Merveille (who was eliminated) and once as Wonderfred who had won the Battle Royale.

27. Wonderfred by 28. and winner Former IWS Tag Team Champion The God of War Damian

Wonderfred's celebrating triggered Damian's music. The God of War came out only to be embraced by Wonderfred who declared the original SLI (Syndicat de Lutte International) reunited. Wonderfred only made three teeny, tiny errors:First, the original SLI was Fred la Merveille and Damian not Wonderfred and Damian, second the original SLI broke up when Damian betrayed Fred and kept Fred from beating Kevin Steen for the IWS Title, third Damian really likes hitting people and with only Wonderfred in the ring, that meant that Wonderfred was going to get beaten. After taking a number of stiff shots, Wonderfred made one of his celebrated rallies, but it was not enough to stop the God of War from spilling Wonderfred to the outside to give Damian the victory.

Shayne Hawke and Twiggy had a fun little match. Twiggy is one of the most passionate wrestlers that I now and by far the smartest wrestling mind in the province. Unfortunately for Twiggy, Hawke is no dummy and the raging redhead is the only guy I know with more passion than Twiggy. Add that to Shayne's considerable size and strength advantage over Twiggy combined with Shayne's advantage as champion and it was just not in Twiggy's destiny to win this night despite a valiant effort.

EXesS and Heavy Maxx Fury had an official MMA referee for their match: Gerry Calasurdo. Maxx also had David Saxby. the Light Heavyweight Sancho Kick-Boxing Champion in his corner. Maxx is a kick-boxing champion in his own right and while Maxx may have won the match by submission, it was his educated feet that softened up EXesS for the submission with Maxx tagging the IWS Bully repeatedly every time the two men broke from grappling. Since the match was fought with no round breaks, EXesS never had a chance to recover from the repeated kicks and was eventually forced to tap out. To his credit, EXesS for once made no excuses saying that the only reason that he had lost was because Maxx was a better man. Only time will tell if the IWS Bully has turned over a new leaf or if he has only learned that Maxx is the one man in the IWS that he can't bully.

In the past year, Beef Wellington has combined the charm of a pit-bull with a toothache with the moral teachings of Jesse Ventura, "Win if you can; lose if you must, but always cheat!" to become the most disliked man in Quebec wrestling. Two former IWS Champions, Franky the Mobster and Sexxxy Eddy tried to take Beef's gold, but the Champion cleverly played the two men against one another and cheated to preserve his title once again.

I should probably announce here that originally the three-way match for the IWS title was scheduled to be a four man. Unfortunately, the scheduled fourth man in the match, the man to hold the IWS title longer than any other man, Viking, could not make it. Apparently while drinking his morning six-pack, Viking tripped over his ego and gave himself a concussion.

We always organize our IWS shows so that people can leave after the main event and be happy that they have seen a dynamite show, but than we throw in some hardcore topping on the wrestling sundae for those who want just a little bit more.

This show was no different. If you had left after the Nash/PCO match, you would have felt like you got your money's worth. And if you had stayed Well you would have seen two men damn near kill each other (along with a couple of referees and IWS President Nic Patterson) as PCP Crazy F'N Manny and the Green Phantom went hardcore medieval on each other using barbed wire, light tubs, chairs, tables, ladders, mousetraps, panes of glass, staple guns, thumbtacks and FIRE!

Ten hardcore weapons, one for each of the IWS' ten years. The two men were already a bloody mess before they battled to the second floor of the Medley at which point the Green Phantom in one of the most disturbing, sickest and yes stupid bumps that I have ever seen, gave Manny a Tornado DDT off the balcony through five burning tables.

This is not for the squeamish:
http://www.youtube.com/​watch?​v=c3Ur6Qrk8Fo

From another even more disturbing angle:
http://www.youtube.com/​watch?​v=NqViM224YdM

After that burning car-crash, the Green Phantom added insult to injury by spearing Manny with the leg of a bar stool and then dragged Manny's barely conscious carcass back to the ring to add injury to injury by putting Manny through an exploding table for the win.

Somehow after the match, Manny was able to stand and grab a mike after the match. As the ring filled with IWS veterans, Many thanked the crowd for supporting the IWS over ten years and promised another ten years of hardcore wrestling.

*****

After celebrating ten years of hardcore violence, the IWS is taking a bit of a summer holiday to catch up on our sleep and heal our various wounds. We will be helping Inter-Species Wrestling during their Vans Warped Tour show on July 11th (Montreal, Ile St-Helene).

Then the IWS returns to downtown Montreal for Hardcore Heat at the Just for Laughs Museum Studio, 2111 Boulevard Saint-Laurent on Saturday, August 29th. And this event will prove that Hell has Frozen Over or boiled over or something, because after the last time that we were at Just for Laughs, wrestling was banned from that venue for all eternity, which in this case meant until a new management team desperately needed to bring in an act that can pack the place and sell lots of beer despite the shitty economy.

The IWS starts another ten hardcore years with: Hardcore Heat, Saturday, August 29TH, at the happiest place on Earth, the Just for Laughs Museum Studio, 2111 Boulevard Saint-Laurent , near the St-Laurent Metro. Montreal, Quebec, CANADA. Doors open at 8 PM, show starts at 9 PM. VIP tickets are $20, Regular tickets are $15. VIP ticket holders admitted first. No reserved seating. Tickets can be purchased on-line from Llakor@hotmail.com. 18+ Card and times subject to change. For more information go to www.iwswrestling.com or write to Llakor@hotmail.com