David, Author at Diva Dirt

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #12

June 9, 2017July 14, 2010 by David

I don’t get out much anymore. Balancing a job, a mortgage, a wife, and 2 kids doesn’t leave a lot of time for other interests. We try to see friends and family as much as possible but it’s difficult to get everybody’s schedules to match up. I try to do a little acting here and there, just to keep the creative juices flowing. I contribute to Diva Dirt for the same reasons. It’s all good and I’m certainly not complaining, but life is sure different than when my wife and I met in college. Back then our most important decision was “Bud or Bud Light?” Now we worry about things like parent-teacher conferences and soccer practice (By the way I’m officially a soccer mom now…who needs orange wedges? Off to McDonald’s!) It’s not like we were the Rolling Stones once upon a time, but my wife and I used to love hitting the DC clubs and staying out a little too late. We used to have 2 or 3 house parties each year that wouldn’t wrap up until the sun was shining. Good times. Now a wild night for us is staying awake until they announce American Idol results. So when my friend Patrick invited us to his summer party a few weeks ago, we reacted like lions at Morton’s Steakhouse. “We’re going….OUT?”

If only it were that simple. Should we both go? Should I go? Should she go? Are kids invited? Do we bring the kids even if they are? Do we drive? Should we get a taxi service? Should we spend the night? All things to consider. It’s not that we never go out just the two of us, but it better be for a damn good reason. Once you start getting babysitters involved the complexity of the evening triples, as does the cost. So normally we’ll all go somewhere, or one of us goes out while the other stays home and keeps the family train on track. The question though is “Which one of us gets to go?” I know, romantic right? (I’m happy to say the honeymoon is never over around here.) Here’s where we bring in our legal teams.

Attorney 1: “Well, David, your wife feels she should go because you went out 3 weeks ago for 45 minutes.”
Attorney 2: “Objection! That was to pick up flowers for his mother-in-law!”
Judge: “Overruled!”
Me: “Crap.”

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #11

June 9, 2017July 1, 2010 by David

I told my wife last week that “I think we should rename our daughter “Gail” because all she likes to do is Eat D’Feet! Well, either she didn’t like the joke or she didn’t understand it, because she just looked at me with a blank stare. It was the same look I get when I forget to take out the trash or pick up milk. A look that conveys general confusion at the choices she’s made in her life (I’m also starting to believe the laws of Virginia prevent her from laughing at anything I say.) But, personally, I love this joke. I loved this joke last week and I still love it today. I’ll love it even more next week.

I guess I should have expected that response from her. She’s not really a wrestling fan so why did I waste my best material at home? I tweeted the joke. No response. No “re-tweets” or “direct messages” (how geeky does that sound Michael Cole?!) I’m pretty sure that stupid whale crashed Twitter that day. That must be it, because I’m sure SOMEBODY would have thought that joke was funny!

You get it right? (I hate when I have to explain a joke, but here goes.) My daughter is 5 months old. Her middle name is Phoenix. We call her the Baby Glamazon. She doesn’t play with rattles she plays with dumbbells. She prefers a tiara to a bib. Perfect. But now she spends all day throwing her legs in the air and sticking her feet right in her mouth (seriously, I can’t wait for the teenage years.) All day long she likes to “eat d’feet”! You know, which sounds like Gail’s finisher. So…um… maybe we should rename her “Gail”. (Groan).

I continued to think everybody else was crazy. How could nobody like this joke!? I’m pretty convinced I know what’s funny. I actually think I have a very sophisticated sense of humor. If I’m laughing, you should be laughing. (No ego problems here!) But then it hit me. Some might not think that joke is funny because it refers to Gail’s finisher, which has the stupidest, dumbest, goofiest, most ridiculous name in wrestling history! Of course the joke isn’t funny in the same way jokes about the Hindenburg and the Titanic aren’t funny. What a disaster!

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #10

June 9, 2017June 20, 2010 by David

Natalya and I have something very unusual in common – we were both raised in a dungeon. The impact of this can’t be overstated and it obviously impacted our passageway to adulthood. As a member of the legendary Hart Family, Natalya was raised in Stu Hart’s dungeon. As a kid growing up in York, PA, I was raised in my dad’s living room. Both featured a lot of screaming and foul language. Both featured a lot of stretching. Both were probably not the cleanest places in the world. And in the end, both were places we were happy to escape from. Natalya graduated to the next phase of her career as a professional wrestler, and I graduated high school. These stories are so similar there are times I think I am actually an honorary Hart brother (and I have been known to wear pink…just not in my hair.) Natalya and I were both finally free to pursue our dreams.

Why was my dad’s living room similar to a dungeon? Well, when I started falling in love with pro wrestling, I had to beg, and plead, and beg, and plead, and beg some more for my parents to take me to nearby Hershey Park Arena to see the touring WWF shows. Neither parent was thrilled that I was starting to love wrestling (that “fake stuff” as they called it) which was probably because I was ripping off my t-shirts and calling everybody “brother” (you can’t deny Hulk Hogan’s impact on a generation of kids). But my dad was even less thrilled because I wanted to watch the WWF on TV each week… and our one TV was his. It wasn’t for the family. It wasn’t for the parents. His. His TV. I can’t stress that enough. I had to beg him to watch ‘Wrestling Challenge’ and ‘Prime Time Wrestling’ each week. Thank God he was asleep by the time Saturday Night’s Main Event came on the air. I felt trapped because I could feel something inside of me changing… I was becoming a huge wrestling fan and I wanted to jump in with both feet.

I remember the day when my dad reluctantly bought our first VCR. He looked at that thing like it contained plutonium that would blow up the house if we used it. He reluctantly agreed to buy it because my mom is a dancer and she wanted to watch some dance videos. I was a brainy kid so I tried to learn how to program it to tape my WWF shows (remember when programming a VCR took 43 steps?) and Lord have mercy if I screwed up and accidentally changed his channel by accident. “Time to learn the ankle lock, kid!” AHHHHH. (PS – I’m not a psychology major, but Freud would probably find a correlation between this story and the fact that I now own two giant TiVos, one for my family and one just for me. No one is telling me what I can tape now!)

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #9

June 9, 2017June 12, 2010 by David

EXCUSE ME! I said EXCUSE ME!! It’s time for some “Real Talk”! This week I am turning in my tiara for a full-zip custom hoodie…and I gotta admit, I’m pretty fired up. I’ve wanted to write about Lay-Cool for a while now but I keep getting distracted. First by Beth’s knee injury. Then by my sudden fascination with the Bellas. Then by my favorite French Canadian Maryse (I’m proud of that column by the way. It only took me 2,300 words to prove that Maryse is “hot”. I know, impressive.) But no more. Now is the time. Now is the time for me to write about one of my favorite tag teams ever. Honestly, I haven’t enjoyed a tag team, male or female, this much since the Hart Foundation broke out the pink and black almost 25 years ago. (Seriously…go back and watch WrestleMania 3 and tell me if you ever saw a cooler tag team.)

First off, let’s get this out of the way – some of you might not think Layla and Michelle are officially a “tag team” because the WWE doesn’t have an official women’s tag team division. Well, I think you’re wrong. I think Lay-Cool can be classified as a traditional tag team because they meet the required criteria, as defined by yours truly…and in this case I am the judge, the jury, and the executioner (no, not THE Executioner who lost to Tito Santana in the first WrestleMania.) Trivia time: What big name grappler played the Executioner that night? Did you know it was that Executioner’s only WWF appearance (and it happened at WM?!? WTF?!?). It also led to one of my all-time favorite Gorilla Monsoon lines: “I don’t know much about this particular Executioner.” There were others he DID know a lot about??? God I loved the Gorilla. My favorite Monsoon expression ever? Every time Nikolai Volkoff would wrestle Gorilla would say “the Big Russian doesn’t have a clue how strong he is”, usually right before Volkoff got pinned. Killed me every time. In Gorilla’s honor I have a framed Volkoff signature in my basement and I know all the words to the Soviet National Anthem. “Mr. Glamazon requests that you all rise and respect his singing of the Soviet…National…Anthem.” Boooo! USA! USA! USA! I would make a great heel.

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #8

June 9, 2017June 3, 2010 by David

I switched the topic of this week’s column at the last minute. I was all set to write about Michelle and Layla and the “Rise of LayCool”. I had completed the outline and had my hoodies all picked out. But something has been nagging at me for a few days…

In my last column I broke one of my own rules. Truthfully, this has been bugging me ever since I posted it last week. I promised myself when I started writing this column that I would try to be informative, insightful, and funny, all within certain boundaries. I would not go for the cheap laugh at somebody else’s expense unless there was some validity to what I wrote. At first I thought the joke was funny. The more I kept reading my column the more I began to wonder if the joke was as clever as I originally thought. After reading my column for the 457th time (hey, somebody has to read it!), I really started to sour on it because I realized I may have just gone for the cheap laugh. I am a little disappointed in myself because I know better. There is really nothing funny about hitting below the belt. I’m also not a fan of obvious humor (think Tiger Woods jokes, Monica Lewinsky jokes, etc.) Anyway, I spent a lot of time reflecting on this specific joke and decided that I needed to either 1) defend it or 2) apologize for it.

Before I do, however, I want to be very clear about how I define “smart humor” and “cheap humor”. My boy Mike Knox is actually the perfect person to use for this example. Here is something I think is funny: During his last few months in the WWE, the announcers would make a big deal about how Knox studied “kinesiology” and knew all kinds of special ways to hurt people and inflict pain. Personally I think he should have spent more time studying “how to win matches” because he didn’t do that very often. (Insert laugh track) Now that to me is funny, and it is also fair game based on the silly commentary and poor character development. (Note – If you didn’t find this joke amusing, I’m probably not headlining Second City any time soon.)

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #7

June 9, 2017May 26, 2010 by David

Thanks to several readers I have decided to join a Beth Phoenix self-help group. I didn’t realize I needed professional help, but after reading some of the comments from my last column, my eyes have been opened a bit. For example, Agent E suggested I was suffering from “too much Glamazon love” and even called me creepy! Jennifer L134 suggested I check out AA. Ouch! Who knew I had this problem? Who knew these types of problems even existed? I mean, I save every Beth match on DVD, I call my daughter the Glamazon, and I back flip into my office cube every morning, but is this an actual medical problem? That’s preposterous…ummm…right?

Maybe, maybe not. But the comments of some readers pointed out to me (albeit in a playful way) I should examine this a little closer. Truthfully, I have probably been in denial for quite some time. For starters, I guess I shouldn’t check every day to see if Smackdown is coming to DC so I can pre-order tickets. And I guess I shouldn’t walk around with a women’s title belt raised above my head. (I could go on and on, but in the interest of time, I’ll stop there.) So I thank the readers for helping push me forward. In some ways I’m starting to feel like I belong in the Straight Edge Society because my eyes have now been opened. Actually, I thought about cutting my hair, buying a Punk T-shirt, and going completely “straight edge”…but then I realized something. I could give up drinking. I don’t smoke or use “prescription medication” (God Punk is a great promo). But I can’t be “straight edge” for one very big reason – I am much, much, much too vain. Nobody is shaving or cutting anything on this money maker. The hair…it stays.

Side note – I always have my hair cut by a hot chick. Just a quirk of mine. I find a beautiful hairstylist and I stay with her. It is a deep and meaningful relationship is some ways. There’s lots of chit-chat, lots of head rubbing, and I always leave happy. The only difference between her and my wife is the money exchanged. (Joke alert! Thank you, thank you….I’ll be here all week.) First there was Tina. She got me through high school and college. God I miss Tina. Then I moved to DC and was in a tailspin for about 12 months, bouncing from one barber to another. I hit all the ones in Northern VA looking for my new girl. I thought I found the right one…Brenda…but then she tried to set me up with her sister. That went horrible wrong, mainly b/c there was little family resemblance…if you know what I mean. Plus her sister’s name was Wanda…that didn’t work for me. It was my one and only blind date. And yes I can be that shallow. Cut me a break, I was 24.

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #6

June 9, 2017May 16, 2010 by David

The bartender could tell something was wrong. “You doing OK, man?”

I just kept shaking my head and staring at the ground in disbelief. Finally I said “Man, this started out as such a perfect night…” but it was barely loud enough for him to hear.

“What’s the matter dude? You’re in New Orleans…laissez le bon temps rouler!” I wanted to have fun, I wanted to “let the good times roll”, but instead I felt like I just got “coups de pied dans les noix.” (Translation – if you’re a guy that hurts.)

Seriously, it should have been a perfect night. I was strolling around Bourbon Street drinking a cold beer, the weather was beautiful and life was good. No problems at home, the job was fine, and Beth was the WWE Women’s Champion (I have always contended we are co-holders of the title, but that’s just a technicality). Then I thought I’d jump into a local bar, grab a refill, and check the Diva Dirt SmackDown spoilers. Just wanted to make sure my girl was still the champ after the Tuesday night tapings. Then I read the news… a 2-on-1 title match, Vickie’s back, a confusing ending, Michelle or Layla wearing the belt… what?!?! All I knew was that Beth wasn’t the champion anymore and I felt like my heart would explode from my chest. Not so much because she lost the title…but because I knew what this really meant – something was seriously wrong with her knee. “OH MERDE!” (Translation – very, very not good!)

The bartender said, “Hey, umm, can I get you a beer?”

I put my head in my hands and said, “Nah, I’ll take a Johnny Daniels over ice.”

“You mean Jack Daniels, right?”

I looked at him and mumbled, “He may be Jack to you, but when you’ve known him as long as I have…”

The bartender poured the drink and said, “Wow, you must really be upset about something.”

“You don’t understand, man, it wasn’t supposed to go down like this…I didn’t even get to write my Extreme Rules column yet.” Being that we were in New Orleans, lord knows what the bartender thought that meant. But I thought I had a few weeks you know? I wanted to be able to let the moment sink in and then write a coherent, entertaining column about one of the most exciting nights of my life. Now, the moment had passed, Beth had a severe knee injury, and Baltimore, MD seemed like a 100 years ago. The bartender said, “OK, then this one is on the house, you look pretty bummed out. Decu dans le Big Easy.” (Translation – I’m the only loser in New Orleans not having fun.) I looked back down at the floor and just kept thinking, “Did I jinx her? In some cosmic supernatural way did writing that stupid column about Melina’s injury cause Beth to blow out her knee?!” I don’t know.

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #5

June 9, 2017May 8, 2010 by David

On the April 30^th Smackdown, WWE Women’s Champion “The Glamazon” Beth Phoenix and Kelly Kelly defeated Michelle McCool and Layla. Read that sentence again, because I think it is THE turning point in Kelly Kelly’s career. I think it might be the most important match Kelly has ever wrestled. Teaming with the current women’s champion and picking up the victory over the hottest heel group in the company is a major step in the right direction for her. And the best part? Not a leprichaun, talking car, magician, or game show host anywhere in sight. Just a solid wrestling match that saw Kelly trade actual wrestling holds with girls who know what they’re doing. Heck, Beth even let her get the victory for her team.

Was Kelly great in this match? Hardly. Did Kelly do her “whirly-bird” flying head-scissors thing that looks really goofy? Take a guess. Did Kelly stumble through her “Kelly Killer” leg drop finisher? A big, big yes. Does Kelly have a lot of work to do to elevate herself to the class of Melina, Beth Phoenix, and Michelle McCool? Obviously. But she won’t have the chance to do that…to learn, grow, and improve…just wearing bathing suits on RAW. But here is the thing, we know (right or wrong) that the WWE is going to market this girl, to use her as one of the most prominent faces of the Divas. Therefore Kelly needed, repeat absolutely NEEDED, to move to Smackdown. The entire division will benefit from Kelly becoming a legit star and that can only happen on Friday night with this current group of writers. My fellow Diva Dirt writers and I don’t necessarily see eye to eye on this, but I felt it was the most critical move of the entire draft. (Please don’t stop reading, give me a few paragraphs to explain.) Along with Natayla (moving to RAW) and Mickie (moving to RAW), I felt these were the 3 most important “draft” picks of the year (well, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad right?!) Miss you already Mickie…when’s the CD coming out? Here is what I wrote before the draft:

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes – Issue #4

June 9, 2017May 2, 2010 by David

You never forget the sound. Never. When your knee snaps and you know something is terribly wrong, your body immediately goes ice cold and the sound — more like a short crumble when you smash a soda can — is forever a part of your life. It can make you sick to think about even long after your knee is healed. And let me tell you, you can never, ever, ever watch a knee injury on TV without feeling physically ill. I blew out my left knee in December 2002, a complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t hear the sound. Unfortunately, now Melina can hear that sound too.

You become members of a strange fraternity. As soon as you hear somebody is recovering from knee surgery you immediately ask: “So how did you do it?” Then you tell the person the details of your own experience. It is almost like comparing war stories. The conversation is always the same:

“Yeah, I tore my knee up pretty good last winter.”
“Complete ACL tear?”
“Yeah”
“How did they fix it?”
“Used a cadaver…”
“Huh…I blew mine out 2 summers ago…basketball injury…chose the hamstring.”
“How’s it feel now?”
“Pretty good…hurts when it rains.”

Both people chuckle.

The recent rash of injuries to female wrestlers has been jarring. Melina tore her ACL, Daffney suffered a bruised sternum, Mickie James had a serious staph infection, Angelina Love tore her ulnar collateral ligament, and SHIMMER star LuFisto suffered a stroke, all in the span of a few months. And these are just the injuries that got reported. Each and every wrestler is probably working with aches and pains that most of us would use as a reason to call in sick. There is extreme pressure to perform even when not 100%, and combined with the increased physicality of the sport (i.e. high spots, ladders, tables, etc), serious injuries are likely to occur. These are trained professionals but obviously accidents can happen. Remember, just months after her debut, Beth Phoenix broke her jaw and needed reconstructive surgery causing her to miss close to a year of action. (Hard to believe she has 12 screws in her jawbone. That surgeon deserves a medal.)

Live News & Notes from Extreme Rules

April 26, 2010 by David

In advance of tonight’s Post Raw & Impact Show, here are some news and notes from Extreme Rules last night: * The 1st Mariner Arena is tiny! Only about 12,000 people were there and the place was full. * The crowd was really, really fired up at the beginning of the night. The dark match … Read more

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes: Issue #3

June 9, 2017April 20, 2010 by David

WITH THE FIRST PICK IN THE 2010 DIVAS DRAFT, RAW SELECTS….

We all thought my friend Matt was the crazy one. Each April at Gettysburg College we would be out celebrating SpringFest – a college-wide party filled with live music, dancing, games, great food, and adult beverages. The party started early and lasted all day. It is one of the best memories from school each year. (Funniest SpringFest memory – my girlfriend (now wife) wanted to step into the inflatable boxing ring with me. I kept saying “no” but after I had had enough of her nagging, I climbed into the ring, put on the giant boxing gloves, and proceeded to punch her right through the ropes and out onto the grass. We laugh about it now, but I remember sleeping alone that night. Truthfully though I had little remorse, “hey babe, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”. I officially retired with a 2-1 record after some guy challenged me later that same day and turned me into Mankind.)

As fun at SpringFest was every year, my friend Matt always chose to skip it to “prepare” for the NFL draft. He was dead serious. The NFL draft was his favorite day of the year and it usually fell on the day of the party. I can’t tell you how much fun we made of him for this. Aside from being a Bengals fan (which is bad enough), he would compose multiple mock drafts and stress about which trades or picks each team should make, and then watch the draft for 10 straight hours. It was a little bizarre – he didn’t even take his actually classes that seriously. We graduated in 1995. Fast forward to today. He has now been working as a scout in the NFL for 14 years and wears a Super Bowl ring (1999-2000 St. Louis Rams). I’m not even sure how it happened…but he met the right person who introduced him to another person and so on. Next thing you know he is working for the Rams, scouting college football games, and hanging out with the players at summer BBQs. Pretty good for a kid who never really played football. Guess he wasn’t so crazy after all!

I was thinking about Matt the other day as I was piecing together my 2010 Divas Draft. Seemed pretty ironic to me that now I was the one looking at stats, making predictions, and stressing about match-ups and trades. Plus I felt like Stephen King with writer’s block. I kept putting thoughts down on paper, shaking my head, and then dramatically throwing the paper into the trash. This killed several hours at work, which is OK to admit because I’m 145% sure my boss doesn’t read this column (he barely reads the reports I turn). I felt a sense of purpose to get this right. After all, the WWE claims “For the eighth time in WWE history, the WWE Draft promises to realign the stars within the cosmos of the WWE Universe.” The cosmos of the WWE Universe?!? What the hell does that mean? Sounds important though huh?!

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes: Issue #2

June 9, 2017April 12, 2010 by David

Well I think our first date went well. I picked you up on time, bought you dinner, told some funny jokes, picked a decent movie, and then dropped you back home before curfew. All in all it was a good night, except for one thing. I did all the talking. It was all about me. So, enough about me…for our second date lets climb the ropes together and turn our attention to where it belongs, the wrestling ring.

I thought in general this was a shaky week for the WWE. I like Jack Swagger and think he has a great future, but to have him cash in his MITB briefcase on a taped program like Smackdown seemed to detract from the moment, from the important elevation of his career. Nothing is as exciting when you know it is taped. Whether the WWE wants to admit it or not, show spoilers are out there and people do find out results beforehand. Michael Cole called us “Internet geeks” this past week. Whatever. Maybe it’s not a huge percentage, and maybe it’s not their target audience (i.e. kids), but there are plenty of us that do read the results beforehand and I felt the intimacy of the moment was stolen from Swagger. Do it on RAW (they cross brands all the time) or at a PPV. Give him that special “live” moment. I kind of felt bad for him even though this win is great for his career. I don’t know. Am I wrong here? To what degree should the WWE care about how the Internet affects their business?

And just to remind you…there are only 4 weeks to go until the first “rookie” is eliminated from NXT. Settle down. I know the excitement is overwhelming. I can only imagine the “innovative” challenges NXT has in store for us over the next few weeks, maybe jumping rope, maybe karaoke. This past week was bizarre, although I haven’t had that much fun watching dudes carry a keg around since I was a junior in college. For me personally NXT has been a major let-down. I support the concept – trying to establish new stars – but I expected this show to be a “peek” into the training and conditioning of future superstars, not 8-on-1 matches vs. Kane. I think NXT is so contrived I find myself missing The Abraham Washington Show. And at least with ECW we would get the occasional Rosa Mendes “cha cha cha”. (Speaking of bad WWE TV, what happened to WWE Superstars? They should just change the tag line from “Expect Everything” to “Expect William Regal and a Colon Brother”.)

Mr. Glamazon’s Hitting the Ropes: Issue #1

June 9, 2017April 4, 2010 by David

Based on your response to his efforts as our correspondent on-scene at WrestleMania 26, we are very excited to welcome aboard David aka Mr. Glamazon as a regular featured columnist here at Diva Dirt. Check back every week for a new edition of ‘Hitting the Ropes’.

When Melanie asked if I wanted to write a weekly column for Diva Dirt, I jumped at the chance. Not because I thought I had so much to share with the readers or because I felt I could make an impact on the wrestling community. Nope, it was much more basic than that. Basically, writing a column for this site sounded a lot more fun than changing diapers, making bottles, mowing the lawn, working, and cleaning the house. (Seriously, kids are great, but for those of you who don’t have kids yet… get up, stretch, look around, and appreciate your freedom. Do it right now. Smile. Today is yours!) I need more fun in my life. This column could be therapeutic and give me something to think about while I am cleaning applesauce off the floor. So I said sure I’ll give this a try. I had a good time reporting from WrestleMania and you all seemed to like what I wrote, so let’s hit the ropes and get started!

Here’s my background so you know a little bit about me. Credibility is important. To this point, from the audio shows you know that I a) love Beth Phoenix, and b) don’t know anything about TNA. Pretty impressive credentials, huh? I fell in love with professional wrestling in October 1985 at the old Hershey Park Arena in Hershey, PA. My friend dragged me to a show that night and it happened to be a (then) WWF taping of Saturday Night’s Main Event. Since Hulk Hogan was on the card, the arena was full and all the people were going crazy. From the moment S.D. Jones came out to start the show (I didn’t know what a jobber was back then), I was hooked. I loved everything. The athleticism. The spectacle. The energy of the crowd. The pageantry. I soaked it all in and when Hulk came out for his tag match with Andre the Giant, I knew something inside of me had changed forever. (It wasn’t until Jim Duggan and the Iron Sheik got pulled over by a NJ state trooper that I realized something was “fishy” about this sport. That state trooper smartened up a generation of kids. In a way I hate him for it.)

For the next seven years the WWF was my main interest outside of school and sports. My friend Jamie (who went to WrestleMania 26 with me) and I actually thought we were the Mega-Powers. We begged our parents relentlessly until they agreed to take us to shows in Hershey. We broke more of our parents baking sheets and folding chairs than I care to remember. We watched the TV shows religiously (Brother Love really was my minister). We booked matches with our LJN action figures. And then we hit the jackpot when WrestleManias 4 and 5 came to Atlantic City, NJ. Those trips to AC remain some of my happiest childhood memories because we felt we were a part of something special: Donald Trump, the title tournament, Macho Man’s World Championship, and then the Mega-Powers exploding. (We were also in Hershey the night the “Madness Met the Mania” on SNME… or as I call it, “One of the Best Nights of My Life” somewhere next to my wedding day and the birth of my children, but don’t make me put them in order. I mean, Hogan, Savage, Liz, the Harts, Honky… good lord!)

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