Author Topic: Trauma goes to a wrestling convention (Read 158 times)

Trauma-san · « **on:** February 02, 2004, 08:01:21 AM »

I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is heaven to a wrestling fan. Lots of guys live here, and there was a HUGE wrestling convention over the weekend, here's a partial list of guys I met there.

The American "Dream" if you will... Dusty Rhodes - Total class act, my buddy even had a book of pictures he took in the 70's, and the Dream leafed through them until he saw a picture of his old buddy Dick Murdoch, who's now dead, and said "Ah, my boy Dick" and slammed the book shut, handed it back. I think it kind of depressed the dream a little bit, if you will...

Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat - we ran into him about a dozen times in the hall, I don't think he wanted to sign that many autographs outside of the booth, because he'd get all caught up with a hundred people standing around him.

Tully Blanchard - yeah, from the 4 horsemen. Nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. He's a christian now, signing autographs and putting bible quotes under them.

Arn Anderson - The 4 horsemen's "enforcer". I used to live right around the corner from Arn, nice guy. I've probably ran into him a dozen times, at least. He was looking all hollywood, wearing a Wrestlemania XX hat, was real nice to people. Probably one of the biggest attractions there, everybody wanted to see him.

Ole Anderson - Yup, the OTHER Horsemen. GREAT guy, stood around all weekend signing autographs in the hallway, in the lobby, etc. etc.

J.J. Dillion - The Horsemen's manager. Nice guy, still looks exactly the same. You probably remember him as WCW's commissioner. The only one not there was Ric, but I've met him several times, too. He had to be at his son's wrestling tournament.

Dory Funk Jr. - Terry's brother, and a legend himself. Nicest guy you'll ever meet. Talked to him in the bar for a few before he had to go catch his plane.

The Nature Boy, "Buddy Landell" - Buddy was cussing and fighting with everybody at the show. He did a live shoot interview on Ric, Arn, all those guys, it was hilarious. If you remember, on the Ric Flair DVD, there's a hidden promo of Ric ripping on Buddy, calling himself the Nature Boy. This guy was crazy.

Bobby Eaton - from the midnight express, I used to live around the corner from Bobby, too, he's always a nice guy. Actually had one of the longest lines to see.

Tony Atlas - the BIG guy. Still in great shape. Unbelievable. Was probably the most available of all of them, he was all over the place having fun and talking to people.

Sherry Martel - Scary Sherry, Sensational Sherry, Macho's Manager, Hogan's Manager, she's been everywhere. She was really, really nice, too.

the Rock and Roll Express - both guys were really available for autographs walking around the whole weekend.

Charles Robinson - "Little Natch" - yeah, the WWF referee. Charles showed up just to visit some old friends, and I talked to him in the lobby for a little while, great guy. Probably the most down to earth guy in the building.

The masked Superstar - played "AX" in Demolition, was probably more famous as the masked superstar. Nice guy.

"Rugged" Ronnie Garvin - the guy in the WWF that did the Garvin Stomp. LOL what a finisher. Another nice guy. Basically everybody there was a nice guy.

Larry Zybysko - yeah, you guessed it... nice guy. Big line to see him.

"The Truth" Ron Killings - they had a little TNA booth at one end, The Truth showed up for a while Sunday, again, nice guy. Went and hugged Dusty before he left.

Trinity - Trinity wasn't there, but her agent was. I got a couple autographed 8X10's of her he had, and he even showed me some pics he took of her posing in her living room the day before, lol. It was so funny, it was like her sticking her ass out, then sucking her thumb, and posing all these shots in her living room, LOL. They were on his digital camera, he was like "Hey!!! Let me show you these!!!" lol. She's awesome man, I hope she blows up someday.

Magnum T.A. - this guy is old school, dont know if you know him, but his career was cut short by a horrible auto accident.

Greg "The Hammer" Valentine - was drunk off his ass the entire weekend. I really wanted to meet him, but he couldn't even hardly see me as he signed my 8X10. LOL.

Jim Cornette - Stood up and cut a promo on a vendor selling tapes that refused to give him a free copy. Everybody stopped buying from the guy, LOL.

Jimmy Valiant - OLD SCHOOL, you probably don't know who he is.

Ivan Koloff - the Russian Bear. Nice guy, went and did a charity thing for kids afterwards.

It was pretty interesting to see all the local guys show up to visit the guys signing autographs. Some idiot in the hallway was dressed up as the warrior, and the kid selling his shirts kept insisting that it really was the warrior. This is some fat, out of shape kid who looks nothing like the warrior. He also informed me, that the Warrior is undefeated. Hogan never beat him at Halloween havoc, he said, because the Warrior was dressed up as Hogan, and beat the fake warrior at the end of the match. Yeah. that's what the guy told me. I then realized , well, maybe he DOES know the warrior, because that sounds like some of the warrior's bullshit.

PLANT · « **Reply #1 on:** February 02, 2004, 08:52:57 AM »

I remember all those dudes...Sounds like a fun time, and lots of old school memories.

ARYC · « **Reply #2 on:** February 02, 2004, 09:20:29 AM »

"Magnum T.A. - this guy is old school, dont know if you know him, but his career was cut short by a horrible auto accident."

I've seen some tapes of him as he was before my time , his"I quit cage match" against Tully Blanchard for the U.S. title is till one of my favorite matches ever ...it was such a beatiful match , they didn't have to jump off the cage or nearly kill each other like in today's cage matches but they still pulled out a classic , god I miss gimmick matches like that where the guys wrestle and the cage/ladder is a part of the match and not the entire match

T.A. is one of my favs

The Watcher · « **Reply #3 on:** February 02, 2004, 02:24:24 PM »

http://www.wrestlezone.com/articles/77740721.php

has something about Arn Anderson threatening another wrestler, and Cornette(?) ejecting ICP after they started yelling & shit @ him

Trauma-san · « **Reply #4 on:** February 02, 2004, 02:41:23 PM »

I was there... Landell WAS being a bitch during the session, I mean I was standing right in front of him when all this went down. He was drinking a lot, and basically... just staying in character. He kept going "I don't know your financial situation, but I did pretty well! I'm here for the fans, fuck the rules!" and saying "This is a Rolex, not a Timex" LOL. He stood up at one point, and said "I think Magnum really revolutionized the industry. All these other guys are weak as fuck" LOL With Arn sitting a few people away from him. Arn was saying some shit to him, but Landell didn't leave early, he stayed his entire signing session. Later, he stood in the hall and did a shoot interview with someguy with a recorder on a table, which is where he was running Arn and Flair down. He said @ the signing "I came here for Retribution!" LOL.

Later, he headed up to the bar, and sat there for quite a while drinking talking to women. The incident with police was he went out in the parking lot, about half drunk, or hell maybe soused, anyways, a woman who was a fan of his was yelling at him, and he walked up and kissed her. Her man pulled a knife from his pocket and threatend to kill him, Landell was like "I can do whatever I want, I'm Buddy Landell" and the woman WAS flipping out about him in the first place. She didn't mind the kiss. Anyways, a security guard got the guy, Landell left, and the police showed up later.

Jim Cornette Saturday night had a 2 hour session in the ring (they had the NWA ring there) and was taking questions from the audience with Ole Anderson, Beautiful Bobby, Jimmy Valiant, etc. in the ring. ICP asked why Cornette hated the insane clown posse, and Cornette got pretty wild on them about how they were an example of why wrestling was fucked up, the guy acted like he was going to get in the ring, and Beautiful Bobby Eaton basically got ready to kick some ass, and they drug them off. I saw ICP Saturday morning chillin' at a table looking at tapes, and then saw them check out Sunday morning, so they didn't get arrested or anything. There was 3 of them though, I recognized Shaggy 2 dope and the other fucker, I don't know who the third one was.

Trauma-san · « **Reply #5 on:** February 02, 2004, 02:45:28 PM »

Oh, and the Landell /Arn stuff I'm pretty sure was Landell just being in Character, even if Arn didn't think so. later, in the interview, he was ripping Flair, and he got quiet for a minute and said (paraphrasing) "Look, you always hear wrestlers saying they blew up so and so, or they blew up this guy... when have you ever heard somebody take credit for blowing up Ric Flair? He's 54 and can still blow up anybody in the ring"... then said "Don't get me wrong, he sucks, but...." LOL so he went out of character for a minute and gave Flair props.

On the table though, he was just completely rude, which was why Arn was pissed. He was saying a lot of vulgar things... Magnum T.A. can't use his right arm, so he had a nice woman sitting there holding his pictures while he signed with his left, The guy next to me said "How you doin' buddy?" and Buddy said "Oh, you don't know? About 8 inches straight up. I'm about to slap her in the mouth with it and fuck that thing till it's cauliflowered". This is with kids in the line and shit, and he was talking loud as hell. So they kept trying to calm him down but he thought he was putting on a show for everybody. They'd say something, and he'd be like "Fuck you, I don't need the money, I'm here for the fans. A buddy Landell fan gets his money's worth, You, Who's your favorite Wrestler? Me, Right?" and shit like that, lol.