Wrestler Commentaries

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I'd like to see this become a fixure to TSMMB. I can only follow so many wrestlers' websites and I know I am missing out on a lot of them. I also know that some people here don't regularly follow the ones that I read, so maybe we could help each other out and post the commentaries here (or the link, whatever you prefer.)

 

My personal favourite commentaries come from Steve Corino. Here is his latest...

 

http://www.stevecorino.com/commAug17.htm

Dream The Impossible for July 26, 2003

 

(July 26) I am, as always, on an airplane headed to another show. This is a little different because this weekend is more of a working vacation for my son and I. We will get to spend a few extra days in Florida after the Major League Wrestling show tonight in Orlando. For me it is always special to spend extra time with The Prince and Florida is one of our favorite places to go. We will be hitting Walt Disney World tomorrow and then Universal on Monday before going home Monday night.

 

This is the first time that I (actually we) have flown from the Allentown International Airport and I was very impressed with it. I enjoy smaller airports and you don’t get much smaller then this! The smallest airport I ever flew from was Fayetteville Regional Airport in North Carolina. We are flying into the Sanford, FL Airport and are told that this is just as small at Allentown. After dealing with Philadelphia, crappy Detroit Metro, and Tokyo all time it is nice to get a break and go into something smaller.

 

Last night I realized one of my life’s dreams by attending The Eagles Farewell I tour in Atlantic City, NJ. Since the “Hell Freezes Over” tour in 1994 and early 1995 I have tried to see them in concert to no avail. If you are a religious reader of this commentary you know that I have seen Don Henley four times, but this was pure heaven. Don Henley, Glen Frey, Timothy B. Schmidt, and Joe Walsh all together on one stage and one King of Old School in Section 209 marking out HUGE like a school girl! If I was closer I might have tried to throw my boxers on stage! I even coughed up $35 for a Eagles concert shirt (Ouch! I feel bad charging $20 sometimes for my shirts but heck I am not The Eagles!) and $15 for an awesome concert program. They played for over three hours and sang just about every song that they released. As much as I am a huge fan of Don Henley, Joe Walsh stole the show last night. I think they said that he is originally from New Jersey so, of course, he is the big babyface of the night. He came alive “In The City” and “Life’s Be Good So Far” and had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

 

(July 28) Its time to go home. Sometimes you have to wonder how two days can move so fast. We arrived in Orlando on Saturday afternoon and went right to the building for the MLW show at Club Tabu and it was non-stop after that.

 

The MLW show was once again fun yet VERY PAINFUL. Fun in the fact that I love the state of Florida, plus how the fans react to pro wrestling in their state (some fans, and they know who they, should take notice), and how MLW is creating a cult following in The Sunshine State. Once again The Extreme Horsemen have cut some promos that you will see in the next following weeks on MLW Underground TV that are not only intense but very controversial. Simon, CW, and myself are really starting to push the envelope in what we say and how we wrestle in Major League Wrestling. Sometimes I even wonder if we are going above and beyond and then I read about what they are doing on Monday nights and am thankful that we are least keeping it in the realm of pro wrestling. The feud between The Extreme Horsemen and Terry Funk, Steve Williams, and The Sandman keeps progressing and reminds me of a 1980’s style feud. There isn’t going to be a conclusion in a 2 hour show, this feud is going to last until MLW fans get totally sick of it and to be honest it looks like they are still into it more and more. Not to toot my own horn but I am very impressed and honored that the fans are so passionate about the Steve Corino-Terry Funk feud and the fact that it has lasted eight months with no end in site.

 

Ok, now onto the MLW World title match in Orlando. This was my first title defense since winning the World championship on June 20 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and it was against the guy I defeated for the World title: Mike Awesome.

 

Awesome beat me from corner to corner but once again I survived and retained the World title. And in all honesty I enjoyed (in a sick way I guess) fighting Mike. He is so big and so strong, in fact he has no clue how strong he is, that I wonder why the WWE would release someone like that. I know he is not an Internet favorite but I think with the right guys he could draw money. But who am I?

 

After the show me, CM Punk, Josh Daniels, and a dead asleep Colby Corino (who somehow gains 100 pounds when he falls asleep!) went back to the hotel. I was so impressed that the hotel had a diner and lounge that was open all night with good food. Good food, pro wrestling, and late nights just don’t go hand in hand 99% of the time so this was a very welcome surprise.

 

On Sunday Colby and I got up early and met a friend of ours that works at Disney World and she took us on the VIP tour of the park. I know Colby enjoyed himself a ton but I loved it just as much! I am a huge Disney mark. We were lucky enough to get the Express Lane passes so that you don’t have to wait in long lines and Colby met all the characters (Ariel from The Little Mermaid was very eazy on the eyes!) and he even went on his first roller coaster. For the week of our trip all he kept saying was that he was not going on any roller coasters, but that lasted about 10 minutes once he entered the park! First it was a smaller coaster for kids his age and then it was off to Space Mountain (twice)! Now he is hooked. Once he becomes a little bigger I am sure me and him will be traveling the country finding bigger and faster roller coasters.

 

We finished off the day with a great dinner at the Rainforest Café in Downtown Disney. If you haven’t been there, you must check it out. On a side note: Camping with no equipment in the dead of summer near the stream in Fort Wilderness is not a good idea.

 

As you can tell I am huge fan of Disney so every time I get to the parks I am happy but being there with my son made it something that I will always remember.

 

The next morning we once again got up early and after a quick bite to eat at Mickey D’s we headed to Universal. Colby was thrilled that he would be meeting up with his uncle that he hasn’t seen in almost a year. We spent most of the day at Islands of Adventure, which gets cooler as Colby gets older and then the last part of the day at the Universal Studios lot. It was kind of hard to throw everything in at Universal in one day when you don’t have the Express Passes. We spent about one hour and fifteen minutes in line for the Spider-man ride, which Colby loved so it was well worth the wait, and there was no way that we were waiting 90 minutes for the Shrek 4-D attraction!

 

(August 3) It’s almost noon here at gate A50 at the Detroit Metro Airport in “beautiful” Michigan. I am almost an hour in on a three hour layover on my way back to the Land of The Rising Sun. My usual flying partner, CW Anderson, has been in Japan for the last week so I get to ride it alone. After 22 trips to Japan this is like old habit for me. The airport seems to be very quiet today, almost dreary. For a second I was excited that I didn’t see many passengers lining up at the gate but then realized that I still have over two hours to wait until we board. God, I hate this airport. There is not a decent resturant to be found. Every person at the McDonalds is rude and could care less about their job. The only good please to eat is Little Cesears.

 

(August 7) It’s our only day off of the tour and we are a short five hour ride to the next town. I say short, because I have spent the last few hours watching the 2003 Fire Festival tournament on tape and this years tournament was better then the last two combined in my opinion. If you don’t know what the Fire Festival tournament is, every year ZERO-ONE has a ten-man tournament that is broken into two blocks with five wrestlers in each block. In your block you wrestle everyone once and are awarded points. Two points for a win, one point for a time limit draw, one point for a double countout, and no points for a loss. The winners of the A & B blocks face each other in the finals. This years A block had Ohtani, Yokoi, Kanemura, Arashi (All Japan), and Fujiwara. The B block featured Tanaka, Kojima (All Japan), Sato, Kuroda, and Alexander Otsuka. Just by looking at the wrestlers involved you know that there were some great matches but you can’t even imagine it until you see the tape. The final between Kojima and Ohtani was one of the better matches I have ever seen. I would put it on an even playing field as last years Ohtani vs. Tanaka match. But in my opinion the MVP of the tournament was Kohei Sato. Sato pulled two awesome matches out with Kuroda and Kojima. A must see tape.

 

This tour we have some new Gaijin making their debut: Josh Daniels and CM Skunk, formerly known as CM Punk. This kid is killing us with his gas. I used to think he was a rising star but now I know he is just full of s#!t (Get it? LOL, ok maybe not). Both of these guys are doing great and are going to be asked back on future tours. We actually toilet papered Punk’s door last night out of sheer boredom. He wasn’t too happy, which made us very happy. He didn’t stop talking to us like London did last tour but you could tell he didn’t like cleaning it up.

 

(August 9) We are on our way to our yearly outdoor in Shinzoka. Last year was very memorable because we did the whole show in the rain. Not drizzling rain mind you, total down pour. This year I was hoping for a nice day and we were given: even harder rain! Last year I was match number three and this year I am the main event which is going to be like bumping in a pool.

 

I am really looking forward to tomorrows match in Nagoya with CW Anderson against Shinjiro Ohtani and Masato Tanaka for the NWA I-C tag team titles. I have wrestled Ohtani and Tanaka with about seven different partners but the only time CW and I wrestled them was in Pottstown, PA for the PWF Universal tag team titles. We need this win to really become the legit tag team champions that we are striving to be. Ohtani and Tanaka held the titles last year for about eight months and are looked upon as one of the greatest tag teams in the world.

 

(August 11) I am on my way home on NWA flight #86 from Tokyo after a quick five match tour. Last night I realized one of my dreams in pro wrestling as I got to pin Shinjiro Ohtani in the middle of the ring in Nagoya. I have been on teams that have defeated members of Team Emblem but have never pinned him. To say I was surprised was to say the least. Last night’s show was pretty cool. It was the second 01 World show, which is a showcase of ZERO-ONE, 01 USA, and also where some ZERO-ONE wrestlers dress up in their “alter ego”. One of the funniest things I ever saw was when Nayoa Ogawa debuted as Hulk Ogan! Yes, you are reading that correctly, Ogawa, the former NWA World champion and Olympic Judo champion was dressed up as his hero Hulk Hogan and did great! He even came out to Hulk’s current music and after he defeated The Predator for the ZERO-ONE United States championship, they played “Real American”. Quite a sight!

 

I was also very happy to see that Low Ki lived out one of his all time dreams when he teamed with his hero Keiji Mutoh against Josh Daniels and Tom Howard. Josh was a ton nervous to wrestle Mutoh on not only his first tour but his first big show in Japan, but he did very well for himself. We had a hard time getting the smile off Ki’s face, which if you are a fan of his work know that its not very often you see Ki smile, and everyone on the ZERO-ONE roster was ecstatic that Ki was in there with his hero.

 

This week will be a great week of relaxing and spending time with my son, enjoying the final weeks of his summer holiday before he returns to school in September.

 

Until next time, Dream The Impossible.