RE-POST: WAW Diary Part 3 (Originally Written in 2001)

Fightmare, a disgruntled fan, and an offer I wasn't going to refuse!

APRIL 21ST, 2001

And so, the day of the Fightmare event was soon upon me. Having worked a little overtime, my gracious boss allowed me to leave work thirty minutes early, so I could get ready. A shower, a shave, and a quick meal later, I stood outside, awaiting my taxi.

My driver for the journey to the Sport Village was Bernie, co-owner of Best Taxis, and a very likeable chap from the Lancashire area. Bernie was himself something of a local celebrity, being a member of the Cromer Smugglers folk group. Ironic, when you think about it, because unlike the majority of the group, Bernie didn't hail from Cromer.

It seemed that Bernie was somewhat of an old wrestling fan himself. On our journey there, we discussed the upcoming event, some of the recent goings on in the American wrestling world, most notably the recent purchase of WCW by WWFE, and a couple of other things.

Bernie then told me of his a couple of encounters with two of British wrestling's most famous men (although one was an indirect contact). The first involved two men asking him for directions, one of the men being Marc "Rollerball" Rocco. Perhaps Rocco's last major achievement on the world of wrestling was making the first ever PWI 500.

The second story involved a friend of Bernie's from his days in Lancashire. The friend at the time was selling his house, and one day, got a phone call from someone who wanted to view the house. An appointment was made for the next day. The time for the appointment came, and low and behold, who should it be, but one of the true giants of British wrestling, Giant Haystacks. (American fans will know Haystacks from his short time as Loch Ness in WCW a few years ago, a tenure which was cut short by his sad death from cancer.)

The poor man was apparently in awe to see this seven foot tall, six hundred pound man standing in his front porch, with his considerably shorter wife standing next to him. Bernie told me that as Haystacks sat on this man's sofa, taking up the entire seat by himself, the poor fellow was worried that his furniture could give way at any moment!

Bernie also told me who apparently wore the trousers in the Haystack's marriage - and it wasn't the big man!

I enjoyed discussing the old times with Bernie. He spoke of Ricky Starr, an American who wrestled in Britain, mainly in ballet shoes, and I spoke of my childhood hero, a certain Kendo Nagasaki.

I wished I had more time to discuss things, but the journey soon ended, and Bernie had other fairs to collect. I wished Bernie well as I joined the long que that was forming outside the Sport Village.

And boy, was it a que. It seemed like the hard marketing work of Martin Marshall was paying off. Judging by the numbers that were going in, it looked like Fightmare was a sell out!

It took me about five minutes to actually get into the arena, and I was slightly annoyed because I couldn't find a seat. I had purchased a ringside ticket, but could not actually find a ringside seat. It was then announced that some sneaky people, who had not paid the full price, had taken up some of the ringside seats! Shame on them!

So, taking my seat in the third row, and getting a pretty good look at both the entrance way and the ring, I settled myself down, notebook in hand, can of cola beneath my seat, for my night of entertainment.

And I was not let down. From the first match to the last, this was a night of top notch entertainment. There were a few hiccups, one of which involved an idiot fan jumping into the ring (which earned the insult "wanker" from Ricky Knight himself), and a couple of fights at the bar, but apart from that, this was damn good stuff!

A few of the wrestlers stood out from the rest though. The likes of Zebra Kid, Jody Flash, Jonny Storm, and in particular, Big Dave and The Bulk, known collectively as The UK Pitbulls, really showed their worth.

In short, Fightmare was a success, both critical and commercial. At the time, I left the arena thinking that if British wrestling was going to get back on national television, then perhaps Ricky Knight and his band of merry men (and women) were the ones to get it there.

LATE APRIL/MAY 2001

Having written up my Fightmare report, put it out in my own newsletter, and sent it out to my various editors, I began to wonder if, apart from the NRG Films website, if WAW had their own website.

WAW had entertained me, and I wanted to find a way to thank them. So, with the aid of the Lycos search engine, I began my quest to find WAW's home on the Internet.

I soon found it, but to my disappointment, all I got on the official WAW webpage was "coming soon". This I found a little disappointing.

So I continued my search, and soon got a result! The Pitbulls themselves had their own website, not only with a message board, but with two contact e-mail addresses, one for WAW, and one for the Pitbulls.

The first thing I did, though, was post a message on their message board. I congratulated everyone on their work, and in a piece of shameless self-promotion, said that if anyone from WAW wanted to read my report to get in touch with me.

It was the next day when I got a response - from WAW. One of their wrestlers, Crash (not Holly) was calling on behalf of Ricky and Julia Knight. He said they were very interested in reading my report. Happy to oblige, I sent a copy to them. A short time later, I got another e-mail from Crash, saying that he, Ricky and Julia had enjoyed reading my report.

Pleased with this little success, I sent off an e-mail to Dave and Mike, congratulating them on their work at Fightmare, and asking them if they would be interested in putting my Fightmare report in the results section of their website. They were more than happy to!

It seemed like I was on a roll when a few days later I was contacted by a young lad called Danny Smith, the nephew of WAW wrestler Steve Quintain. Danny, who had hopes of becoming a wrestler himself, and who often went by the name of "Dynamite" Dan Quintain, offered his help in educating me more in the ways of WAW. Being more than pleased that the people of WAW were taking an interest in me and my work, I accepted Danny's offer. It wasn't long before Danny's cousin, and Steve's daughter "Classy" Chloe Quintain, who wanted to be Danny's valet/manager, also got in touch with me. They provided me with a ton of information about WAW, mainly through their websites.

It seemed that everything in the WAW garden was rosy. But then, the rose showed that it had some sharp thorns.

I had begun to pay frequent visits to the UK Pitbulls message board, and after a couple of visits, I saw that someone who was very unhappy, and who apparently had some sort of gripe with the Knight family was making her views known.

A woman called Libby, who claimed not to have Internet access from home, and who carried out all of her "work" from an Internet cafe, posted several messages on the Pitbulls board mocking and insulting everything WAW did. She heavily criticised Ricky and Julia Knight, saying that they always put themselves and their family in the most prominent positions on the roster (at the time, Ricky was the number one contender for the British title, Julia was the woman's champion, and Ricky's son, Zebra Kid, was the Cruiserweight champion). She also criticised the fact that Ricky and Julia's ten year old son, Zack, dressed up as a clown and competed in the ring.

The bombardment of abuse continued for a number of days. I put in my two cents worth, as did Julia herself. From what I read, it seemed like this Libby woman was apparently a disgruntled former trainee of the WAW wrestling school, and had rubbed someone up the wrong way.

Despite the fact that Fightmare had been a tremendous success, Libby continued her verbal tirade against all things WAW. One of my replies to Libby's message was this - if she hated all things WAW, why did she continue to spend her precious logging onto WAW-related websites and insulting everyone, when she could be spending her time doing something that she enjoyed?

This debate soon died down, and soon, some good news from WAW would be coming my way.

It was about ten days after Fightmare, around the time of the first May Bank Holiday weekend here in Britain, that I received an interesting e-mail from Martin Marshall. Martin had read my Fightmare report, and was apparently impressed, impressed enough to make me an offer.

Martin asked me to telephone him, with a view to setting up an "informal chat", where we would discuss the possibility of my becoming an announcer for WAW, first for the Fightmare pilot, and then, should that be successful, for a full series.

After the response my report had received from Ricky & Julia Knight, I jumped at the chance. One slight problem though - because of the Bank Holiday weekend, the NRG Films office was closed! I must have tried about a hundred times to get in touch with Martin, but to no avail. All I got was his damn answering machine!

So, leaving a couple of messages on the machine, I persuaded my bosses to let me have the following Tuesday off, in the hope that I'd be able to set up the meeting with Martin.

I was eventually able to speak to Martin in person, and a meeting was arranged for the aforementioned Tuesday.

To say that I was pleased with this little chain of events was an understatement. Without blabbing the news to the entire world, I let a select few - close family, friends, a few of my editors, in on the little secret. The support I got was a little overwhelming. Everyone wished me well.

When the day came, I was as nervous as hell. Should I wear my suit? Should I wear a tie? What the hell should I wear? To be honest, I hadn't a clue!

Opting for the "smart, but casual" appearance, I took the train to Norwich, and made my way to King Street, hardly one of Norwich's most "profitable" areas, and known more as one of the city's red light districts.

NRG shared the building with a couple of other businesses, and occupied some space on the first floor. So, entering the building, I pressed the buzzer, and awaited Martin.

When Martin emerged, I saw that my worries at looking smartly dressed were all for nothing. Martin was dressed in jogging trousers, with a baggy jumper covered by an orange fleece jacket. He also had a couple of days worth of stubble to contend with.

Martin and I went to the cafe next door, and after collecting a couple of cups of tea, we began our little chat.

Martin massaged my ego by saying how impressed he was with my work, and asked me a few questions about how I began to write about wrestling, which I was more than glad to answer. We then got down to the nitty gritty.

The Fightmare event, which had lasted a little over three hours, was being edited into two forty-seven minute films, in the hope that Sky Sports would like what they saw and commission a series. However, the commentary that was recorded on the night, by Julia Knight, Robbie Brookside and Drew MacDonald, was apparently not of a high quality, so they wanted to re-record it. This is where I would come in. The idea was that I would have a try out, and if successful, I would re-record the commentary with Julia.

But that wasn't the end of it. If Sky gave WAW their series, Martin also wanted to use my writing talents, by commissioning me to write three articles promoting WAW - one for tabloid newspapers such as The Sun and The Mirror, one for broadsheets like The Times, and one for so-called "lads mags" like FHM and Loaded. Martin said that the combined fee for all three articles could get me nearly £1,000.

Although the commentary work excited me, this exicted me more. After years of writing, for pleasure, writing science fiction, fantasy, for fanzines, and in the past year, wrestling articles for various websites, I was finally getting my break. I was actually going to get paid for doing something I enjoyed.

I accepted Martin's offer. While we drank our tea, we discussed many things. Martin told me of his intention of turning Ricky Knight into the sort of character you'd see in a Guy Ritchie film, an idea I quite liked.

I thought then I would take the opportunity to perhaps get Martin's view of a couple of things from the Stateside wrestling world. At the time, the two hottest topics were WCW going under, and Jerry Lawler's constant ramblings on how Vince McMahon had screwed over him and his wife. I began to give my view on these, but Martin didn't really seem to have a view. Perhaps he didn't follow the US wrestling scene as closely as I did.

Shaking hands, I thanked Martin for his time, and for taking interest in me, and made my way into the city. Pleased at what I had apparently accomplished, I wanted to tell as many people as possible about my good fortune.

And that, I would later learn, would be a mistake.

TO BE CONTINUED....