Hey there. Robert O'Keefe here, former promoter of CCW, the Edmonton-based Canadian Championship Wrestling, which ran in the area from 2000-2002.
Doesn't seem like long, does it? Yet, it was such an adventure for me, that it feels like this huge, long period of my life.
This blog will serve as a sort-of history of CCW, with lots of opinion and reflection on what was, or wasn't accomplished. I'll also use it as kind of a where-are-they-now of former CCW associates, and it'll be my "I knew them when..." cliche.
Though CCW is finished, and has been finished for longer than it actually existed, it meant a great deal to me, and I'd like to document that here. I hope that somebody, somewhere has fond memories of CCW, either as fans, wrestlers, or any capacity in which they were involved.
I had some fun, met some great people, some real assholes too, and everything in between. I hope I have fun recalling as much of it as I can, and I hope you enjoy reading it.
The first show
The CCW dream began a long time before the first show, but I'll go more into that later. For now, let's describe this well-meaning but poorly executed disaster.
The no-shows killed us. Then again, if everybody that I had originally intended had shown up, I wouldn't have been able to pay them what I'd promised anyways, because there were only about 45 paying customers that night.
I was hoping the posters and word of mouth would get the word out, but it didn't work so well. My initial look into radio advertising would have cost around $2000 and I certainly didn't have that in the budget for our first show. CCW was nothing if not underfunded throughout its run.
The show was held at Grant MacEwan College, Millwoods campus gymnasium. I worked for Grant MacEwan at the time, and was able to get the venue for free, paying only for a security guard. The only catch was, something else was booked until 4PM, so that's the earliest we could get in to set up. I was hoping to get in at 9AM, but it wasn't to be, and this bit us in the ass later on.
Prior to the show, I was nervous, but incredibly excited. After years of wondering if it would ever happen, and months of planning, things fell together for a show on December 9, 2000. Chris Wayne and I had been running training camps with a modest amount of success. They didn't make money, of course, the bet we hoped for were to have a few green but willing workers to have a couple of matches, and fill out the card, and we thought we'd have that leading up to the show. Chris would be our mainstay, the boys he trained would fill out the lower card and gain experience. The only one we planned on using at the show was Anna Conda, our one and only female trainee, and while she wasn't ready for a full match, nor had we any other women for her to wrestle, we figured she could be a good valet, and she knew enough to perform an excellent, safe, leg drop if we needed her to interfere in match. She was also six feet tall, and had long hair, so at least it was an impressive visual, the kind of hot point that poeple tend to remember because of its uniqueness.
Alas, in the meantime, we lost some trainees to the PWA camp, and other trainees were not available that day, mostly because from the first of December on, people had work-related Christmas parties to go to. I remember that kept both Dylan Kelly, a trainee and future CCW Champion, away from the show, as well as Eric Freeze, whom I thought would have worked if he didn't have plans already.
So, to round out the card, I had been in touch with a few Stampede guys from Calgary, Dave Swift, Ty Cobb (now Chris Steele) and Rob Roy Scott (now the Highlander). I was thrilled to have these guys on the show. Stampede had recently lost its TV coverage on A-Channel, and truth be told, I had never seen any of these guys work, I was going on the word of people who had, and basicaly, I'd have booked almost anyone who agreed to show up for the offered price of $50, or the best I could do based on the gate. I had never seen Swift, had only seen Cobb (Steele) in a still photo on the Stampede website, and had seen Scott (Highlander) only in an Honour Roll run in on Stampede's TV show, which had recently lost its TV deal on A-Channel.
At the time, these were three inexperienced guys, who agreed to come out for not much money, just to get the work, which was par for the course at this level, and I basically booked them sight unseen. They could have been the most useless tools in the world for all I knew, but I had faith they'd work out, because at least they were young.
The last thing I wanted to do was present a show that seemed like my old memories of Stampede Wrestling, back when I was a kid and didn't even like wrestling. I never saw the days of the Harts, the Bulldogs or any of Stampede's world class, well remembered classic matches. All I remember is fat, old white guys in one-strap singlets, basically stepping on each others heads and taking turns on offense.
I wanted a young, energetic show, and I thought this would be they key to it all.
I had also booked a handful of guys from Regina, led by Charley Hayes, whom I had bought the ring from earlier that year. Hayes, Rex Roberts and Todd Myers brought the ring out to me from Regina in April, and I had told them then I wanted to use them on my shows. At least this time, I had faces to go with the names, still didn't know if they could work, but it seemed from their promotion's website that they would also fit the bill. They seemed to do some crazy hardcore stuff as well, and while that was not what I wanted to build CCW around, I figured if they were into it, it couldn't hurt the show.
Those three, plus a couple more guys to be determined, were supposed to come out for us that cold December night.
Now, it was around -28 as we loaded the ring in that afternoon at 4PM, and the roads from Regina to Edmonton were not good in the previous days. Hayes called me either the night before, or two nights before, to say they wouldn't be coming. I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I had remembered trading e-mails with Steve Wilde from Can-Am wrestling, another Alberta based touring show. I dropped him a frantic note, to see if any of his boys, preferably the cheapest ones, would come out on short notice.
He got back to me, and offered up himself, Tyrone Ironside, Winston Flynn, and possibly Vinnie Fever. This isn't too bad, I thought, as I knew Wilde, while not young and exciting, was a classic old school heel, and he'd worked Chris Wayne several times in Can-Am, and figured that was our main event. I'd take his word on Ironside, Fever and Flynn. The bad part was, they weren't coming for $50 each, they wanted considerably more, and I pretty much had to guarantee it, unfortunately at the expense of Swift, Cobb and Scott.
I figured we could put on a decent enough show with this crew. Not as many matches as I was hoping for, but I figured we would make do. We had Squiggy Magoo, who had reffed for Stampede in the past, as referee.
Then everything went to Hell. Not enough guys helping out on the ring crew, and at best, we only had a rudimentary understanding of how to set the ring up properly. We had issues with the ropes staying tight, with getting the metal supports and the lumber lined up properly, with the cold, with everything. The show was supposed to be starting at 7, and I believe it was almost 8:30 before we were able to go. The ring was still being setup while our few fans were still coming in.
At least the strpper showed up. I almost forgot about her. In an online search for models or wannabes to add a little T&A to the show, I came across a website for an Edmonton based exotic dancer called Misty Beethoven. I thought, what the hell, and roped her an e-mail letting her know what I was planning, and would she like to be a valet for one of the wrestlers. To my astonishment, she actually agreed to do it.
As we were setting up, Wilde arrived with Flynn and ironside. No Fever, he couldn't make it. Swift and Cobb arrived..no Rob Roy Scott. He got offered a spot on a show in Winnipeg that same night, and it was being taped for later broadcast on TV. In the indy wrestling world, TV is gold for guys who are looking for exposure. He chose the TV, and this I wouldn't have minded so much if he had just called even the day before and said, "I'm not coming." So, I was pretty annoyed, stressed to the nines, and we were two guys short on an already light card. Six wrestlers..in a perfect wordl, that's three singles matches, or one singles and a tag.
Discussing it with everyone, we decided to put another of our trainees in the ring. With a cheap homemade mask, The Assassin 2000 was born. We had planned this for a later show, and didn't have too much else for him character wise, we figured if we had to use him on the first show, he'd wear the mask, and it would be a disposable gimmick. He could go on to work under another identity later when he had more training.
In the crowd was Marky Mark, one of our initial trainees who had left us to train with PWA. We knew he could bump well for an undrsized guy, and he had the dedication. We just hadn't seen him train in two months, so we offered him a chance to work, again under a mask. For the night, he was Guy Levesque (or Lebec, depending on whose review you read), due to the Fleur D'elise-like designs on the mask I had lent him.
The plan was for them to go for about four-to-five minutes, then Wilde would run in and beat the living hell out of both of them, and steal the Assassin's valet, Anna Conda. It worked, and man, it looked like Wilde took the opportunity to bump the hell out of the rookies. I was thinking to myself "I hope he doesn't kill either or both of these guys" from my positon at the sound system, where I was (and poorly, I might add) running the entrance music. "Always have two CD players" is something that hadn't occured to me, sice I had so much on my plate prior to the show. Takes too long to switch CD's from one wrestler's entrance to the other.
Anyways, there ws the opening rookie schmozz, then the undercard..Flynn vs Ironside and Swift vs Cobb. Both of these matches were not too bad, unfortunately there was hardly anyone there to see them, and we let them go longer than we would have if we'd had ten guys on the show. Then, the main event of Can-Am champion Steve Wilde vs Chris Wayne, with Misty as his valet, and this was a good, methodical, old-school brawl. Wilde again took the opportunity to savage Chris with chops to the chest, making sure to spread his fingers and lick his palm before hand, making sure to cause maximum welts and even bleeding. They ended this one with a run-in by Flynn, I believe, to save Wilde from a Wayne victory..Ironside ran out, then Cobb, then Swift, causing the big schmozz and 6 man tag team challenge for our new main event, after intermission.
We tried to tighten up the ring ropes during intermission, because Ironside wanted to use them a little more aggresively, so we fine-tuned what we could, and then, one of our trainess asks to run the ropes to see how they feel. I told him sure, so he did, and they were suposed to have felt a bit better. Then he totally breaks kayfabe and shatters any illusion of dsbelief the audience might still have by climbing to the top rope, doing a swanton bomb (for those who don't know, basically a front somersault from the top rope to the mat, landing flat on his back with a big bump) and then smiling and leaving the ring. He wanted to show off in front of the crowd.
Now, in a match environment, a swanton would land on an opponent, hurting him, but alowing the one performing the move to be relatively unharmed. If the opponent rolls out of the way, the missed swanton and resulting bump should be devastating. His doing it, then jumping up, fresh as daisies, mocked everything the wrestlers were doing in there. Everybody knows its not a competition, but to do that was just stupid, and really pissed off most of the boys who had a match to work directly after that.
The six man was as good as it could be, not bad realy compared to the show as a whole. The babyfaces went over, and the crowd left. I was hoping to capitalize on the fact that these 45 people actually came out for this, and hastily asked the Boxing and Wrestling Commission rep for permission to announce a second show, at the same venue, in a month's time. He agreed, and I did, but I should have known it would never happen. We wouldn't run another show until February of 2001.
I lost a ton of money on this show, paying Wilde and his crew, paying a security guard at the venue, paying for the concessions, paying the fees to the Boxing amd Wresting Commission, paying for truck rentals, all of it. I feel bad to this day that I couldn't pay Swift and Cobb, some of the first guys to agree to come out, but there wasn't anything left. All I could do was promise that if they ever came out for me again (and I wouldn't blame them if they didn't) that I would treat them better. Chris was a trooper, I wanted to pay him too but he knew that CCW was our project, and he was wiling to sacrifice to get it going.
As soon as the Regina crew cancelled, I should have postponed the show. I didn't want to be percieved as quitting, because I knew the Internet crowd, the rival promotions, etc, would eat me alive, and it would prove everything they were already saying. That I didn't know what I was doing, that I didn't have any business running a show, that we had no workers worth watching.
I didn't want to give anyone that satisfaction, so I didn't, at great expense to myself, and probably greater expense to CCW's reputation than if I had cancelled after all. I had faith that if I just ran it as planned and did the best I could, that we all did the best we could, that it would work out and be decent enough.
After all was said and done, I had run a show. It didn't go like I had planned, but hey, what ever does? I learned a lot, and a few things I knew we would do again, a few things I knew we wouldn't. I had faith we could iron out the kinks. The planning began again.
