Going To BRAWL
(Sidenote: Information about the wrestlers and promotions I name in this blog can be found hereWrestlers and Promotions)
In the beginning of 2006, after the WCWA had pretty much closed down, I was invited to be the sound guy for BRAWL, I accepted and I think in Feb. I did my first BRAWL show. I will admit, I was nervous, it was my first time working with another promotion and it was my first time working with a lot of new faces. I had met quite a few wrestlers through the WCWA but a lot of workers didn't work with the WCWA because of various reason, and I was going to meet quite a few of them at BRAWL. When I got there, I walked into the venue and walked straight to someone I recoinzed. I think it was either Rik Luxury or one of the Surburban Commados, but it was one of those guys who I went up to. I said my hello and asked them about the sound set up and what excatly was going on. We went through everything and afterwards I decided it would be best if I went around and introduced myself to everyone, so thats what I started to do.
A lot of the faces I knew from the WCWA was there, Helfyre, Jason Vega, Alexis Smirnoff Jr, Sir Samauri and a few others but like I said there were quite a few wrestlers who I hadn't met before. I had heard about them but I really didn't know them by face. I did recoinize one of them after a few seconds and that was Pogo the Clown. I must admit, it took me a few seconds for me to go up to Pogo and introduce myself. Pogo and Vic Grimes were the two biggest names (in my view at the time) working the show that night. Of course I knew about Vic from watching him in ECW as one of the baldies and I heard about Pogo from him being in XPW. Even though I never saw one of his matches, I knew that XPW really put Pogo over as one of their top talents, so I was a little nervous about introducing myself to the both of them and to be honset, I shouldn't have been nervous.
Pogo, even though he was busy, was very welcoming and thanked me for coming to the show to help out. He told me he was a bit busy and had to take care of a few things so I let him be. Later before the show started, Vic Grimes showed up and he as well was very nice to me as well. Both are very cool men. So as the show started getting closer and closer to starting, I had gotten all my cues and found out what was going on and pre-pared for the show.
As I was pre-paring, I found out that BRAWL was running a WCWA invasion gimmick as Helfyre, Jason Vega, and Alexis Smirnoff Jr was being the WCWA heel group. I actually got a bit jumpy and wanted to be apart of it somehow. I asked Jason if I could have and he told me no, I should just do the sound thing for now so I don't start stepping on anyone's toes and such and he had a point. So I finished pre-paring for the show.
Showtime came and if I remember correctly, I didn't screw up anything that night. Everything went great. By the end of the night, after I took down the sound equipment, I started saying my good-byes. I said my good byes to the guys I knew and to the guys who I had just met that night. When I said my good bye to Vic, he actually offered me to work with another promotion called "Oaktown Wrestling" thats pretty much based out of Oakland CA but they were running in a city thats a pretty good distance from where I live, so I declined but thanked him anyways. He understood and gave me a way to reach him if I had changed my mind. I said my good bye to Pogo, I think pretty much last as he just had a match and didn't want to bug him right afterwards. Pogo thanked me for coming out and asked me to come back to the next show to help out again and I agreed and I have been since Feb.. Doing a show once a month, doing various things, but doing sound and I've been enjoying it since I started.
Working with BRAWL has also connected me to a few other promotions as well. Working with BRAWL kept me in touch with Helfyre. Helfyre had his own ring locked in the building that Paul Brown had moved into after loosing the building that the WCWA was held in and when Helfyre had a chance to get his ring out of there, he let me know about it and I volunteered to help him move it out of the building. Helfyre was going to move his ring into a gym where he's a powerlifter. Helfyre was planning on training people to become a pro wrestler and open his own promotion called Devil Mountain Wrestling. I'll get into Devil Mountain in another blog down the road as this one might get quite long if I go into it now.
Working at BRAWL also gave me one more connection and that was the connection to their ring annoucer, J.J. See I didn't know it at the time but J.J. (who I didn't know before working with BRAWL) was going to open his own promotion called CCW. Which will be a whole nother story that will be told in my next blog.
So stay tuned because the CCW story WILL BE a intresting one, I promise you that.