Breaking In By Bruiser Bob Part FOUR is on another page, CLICK HERE to go to PART FOUR... I remember the first time when my dad took me to see live wrestling for the first time. The WWF was coming to town and I persuaded my dad to get tickets. They weren't ringside, but they were like gold to me. I always watched Maple Leaf wrestling and couldn't wait to see it live. I was in awe as my tv superstars were right in my hometown. There was fan-favourite Ricky Steamboat, and the likes of Jake The snake Roberts getting cheered and booed by the jammed packed London Gardens (now London Ice House). I grew up wanting to do that, make people yell and scream and be in amazed at feats of strength and power. I wanted to be a wrestler. I continued to watch WWF and then began to watch WCW and any wrestling on tv. Do you remember watching CNWA on TSN based out of Calgary? It was a small independant promotion which lasted on TSN for about a year and a half. I watched it devotingly as it was a change from the WWF and WCW on tv. The crowd yelling like true Canadians "GO RON GO" as Ron Ritchie was wrestling the evil "Champane" Jerry Morrow with his Iraqi manager, Abu Wizal. I was getting sick of seeing Doink the Clown and the cartoon characters working the jobbers and getting no reaction on WWF Superstars and wanted to see real people win and lose. At this time, I videotaped everything I could. Watching it and studying it, learning little things here and there. I believe it was the Summer of 1991 or 1992 when my friends and I decided to wrestle. We wrestled in basements and backyards and it lasted for 3 years or so. We had taped our matches and studyed them and learned from our mistakes. Luckily, no one broken any bones or furniture while we were 'backyarding'. Graduation time was creeping up and we decided to send out our tapes to some wrestling schools that we found out about in a wrestling mag. We sent out tapes to Winnipeg and to Ohio, Galion Ohio i think. Anyways, we heard back from them and they thought we looked good but needed some work. We passed up on that idea and that summer, I decided to go to college. Thank god I had a job to pay for school and all the things that go with it. I believe it was 1997 when go ol' Ike Shaw brought ICW, a now defunct promo, to the Western Fair. Like a good mark, I and my friend Ryan, rushed to get front row tickets, since the WWF had cancelled its last show a year or two ago due to poor ticket sales or something. (side note: little did we know that we saw Edge and Christian wrestle each other at the ICW show and then arrive into the WWF a couple of years later) We found out that ICW had a school in Cambridge, Ontario only an hour away from home. I'm glad that I didn't have $2500 and a car to get me there, as I have heard of bad things from there. I visited there with my friends once. Got yelled at by Ike, for not booking an appointment with him. He wasn't in his happy mode, but we ended up talking to somebody there, looked at the pictures on the wall and left, never to return again. Summer 1998, and Renagade Wrestling Allinace, now defunct Burlington-based promo, came to London bringing in Tito Santana. I sat ringside with my friends watching everything and learning everything I could, and occasionally yelled at Otto Bahn and the Hollywood Hunks. After the show, this was the first time I bumped in the ring. They let a few of us fans in the ring, and my friend Ryan and I felt daring and he hiptossed me in the ring. All the kids in the ring froze as 200 lbs crashed into the mat. I wanted more, but we left. I remember talking to the promoter Steve Hart during the show, who also ran a school, but it was farther away in Burlington area. Then, one day came along the Hardcore Wrestling Federation, based out of London, Ontario. Yes!!! Finally a wrestling promotion in London. I found it on the web, thanks to the free internet at Fanshawe, and contacted the promoter, Mark Anderson. He allowed me to help set up the ring at Medway and then later shows( I think help set it up 8 or 9 times). I decided to rent a car, since i didn't own one yet, to get take my girlfriend (her first live wrestling show) and friends to the show. I met Shooter Shawn Brown and Dangerboy about 11am at Medway area as they had begun setting up the ring. My friend Ali, and I helped eagerly as this was the first time we setup a ring. Little did I know that the same to guys that I helped setup the ring that day, would train me a year and a half later... Check back next week for more (i cant believe it typed this much...) PART TWO I was very glad the wrestling was back in London thanks to Mark Anderson and crew. Now, a promotion was in my own hometown. Anderson put on several great shows that years including one that was a 5 min walk away from my house. But there was one that I will never foget. On September 8th, 1999, Anderson put on a soldshow at the Ceeps(bar located on Richmond Row in London - wrestling + university students + beer). Around 10am that morning, I took the bus downtown to help setup the ring and such for the outdoor show. I remember the ring had to have wood footing on the one side of the base frame as the pavement was sloped. It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when Mark and his brother Dave, invited me for lunch and to check up on the stars of that night, Jimmy Snuka and Honky Tonk Man. We spotted Jimmy having lunch at outside at Oskars Steakhouse. We then called on HTM at the hotel and he agreed to come down to have lunch with us with Jimmy. I was honoured to meet them. I was totally speachless and didn't ask a single question. I just sat there like a sponge listening to everything they had to say. After lunch, I said my goodbyes and immediately called my gf, then friend Ali, then Ryan (what a mark i am eh?). I then went back and helped finishing setting up the chairs. I then met Danny Steele for the first time here too. For almost a year, I kept bugging Mark Anderson about opening up a wrestling school, it was around March 2000 when he was close to opening one up in Belmont(10 mins south of London). I was so prepared to go but needed a buy a car. I found myself a nice reliable car, purchased it( but still paying for it) and now I was set, wrestling school here I come! But things fell though and the HWF wrestling school was a no go. I believe it was ICQ that saved me, as Mike Lutz wanted to be on my list and I wanted on his. Im pretty sure he told me about CCW opening up and that they are having a training center. This was around August 2000. The HWF was running two shows in London. The first show was at Labbat Park (after a baseball game). During the game i again met Danny Steele and he also told me about CCW in Chatham was opening up a training school and that he, Mike Lutz, Dangerboy and Shooter Shawn Brown would be the trainers. I told him we would be heading down one night to check it out and that I would contact Lutz. Once again, things were looking good! It was a late warm August night that Ali, Chris, Ryan and myself drove down to have a tryout. We met Lutz, Shooter, and Dangerboy, talked abit about the training, signed the waivers and stepped into the ring. PART THREE Its been almost 4 years since my dad had passed away. I still remember when he took me to the London Gardens for my first live show. I also rememember when we travelled to Nova Scotia to visit my Grandparents (my dads parents) for the summer. I remember seeing an ad in the newspaper for GRAND PRIX WRESTLING at the Halifax Forum. My grandpa, my dad, my sister and I went down to the matches and had a blast. I remember my sister was in shock to see a wrestler face covered in a mask of blood. It was independant wrestling at its best. I had no idea who any of the wrestlers were, but still i wanted to go because it was wrestling. And now, I am in the ring, getting the chance to train. I know my father is looking from above, helping me along the way. I can look up and say ,"Look at me dad, I'm going to do what I love". And to top it all of, I here with my best friends. If I remember correctly, we warmed up with stetching, followed by squats, pushups, sit ups and jogging around the school acouple of times. Then it was time to learn how to bridge on out necks. I think I held it for about 10 seconds, (but now its so easy to easily last 3 mins.) Then we were taught the most fundamental thing of all and thats the bump. We were only taught the hand stand bump on this night and if we committed to train, we would get learn more. We talked to Lutz about payment and I told him that I was very interested in training and that I would have to look at my finances and see if I could keep payments up, with all my other payments. Chris was also very serious as I was, and also was in the same boat as me. Ali really wanted to train as well but he's was getting married soon and had to save as much as he could. And Ryan, well I'm sure he wants to train, but I don't know. Still to this day, he hasn't said why he doesn't want to train. I ask him occasionally if he's going to train but he just doesn't know what to do i think. After about a week or so of deciding, I travelled down to Chatham again and this time I was commited to train. Each training session got progressively challenging. More squats, learning the hindu pushup, and holding the bridge for longer periods. About my 4th session in, about 7 or 8 guys arrive for a trial lesson. They were mostly 18 or 19, but the youngest being 15 years old weighing like 100 pounds. (I had a very good feeling that they were backyarders). I thought to myself, surely a couple of them would be serious to train. Again, they were taught what I was taught on the first day. Some of them showed potential. After the lesson, they all left together in one pickup truck and drove back to Wallaceburg. CCW had their first show at the Wall in September. From that, three more people came to the next session to have a tryout. By now i had been there for about 3 or 4 weeks and felling the aches and pains creeping up. I remember there names except on guy, there is Tim C, John D, and the other guy (i dont remember his name) who was buddies with John. Once again, we begain with a warm up of jogging, then sittups and pushups. Then it was time to bridge. I went first, then Tim went then John, we turned around for the other guy and he was gone! He came back like 10 mins later and looked dead. We think he took one look at the bridge and that was enough for him. He didn't even try it. When he gets older, he will probably say my life would have been different only if I had bridged (or at least try). After that Tim C signed up and got the hang of bumping really good. John then dissapeared as well as his buddy. Not to long later, my friend Chris had heard how well i was doing and decided to come back down again. He wanted to train so bad. He then to decided to commit to training and now i had someone to travel with down that road they call the 401. I had many atimes where i would have to work a 12 to 9pm shift wednesday night, work a 6am to 2:30 pm shift on thursday, leave london about 5:30pm to get to chatham about 6:45pm to start training at 7pm. Bump and bump and bump over and over. Leave there at 10pm. We would get home at 11:15pm and i would finally fall to sleep at 1am by the time i would calm down after training. Then I would wake up sore as hell at 7am, get to work at 8am for another 8 hour shift and put up with crabby customers. But anyways that's the life I have chosen to do. Thats the life which I have dreamed to get into. TO CONTINUE WITH PART FOURCLICK HERE!!!