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Submitted by Dumass on Sunday, January 23, 2005 at 5:02 PM EST
I had a match about 4-5 years ago in a broken down ballroom outside of Concord, California. It was a gathering of wrestlers from all over the state, and a few out-of-staters, and we held a little tournament to see who was (in our opinions) the best of the wrestlers that were there that night. It was a shack to say the least; nothing seemed to be younger than 80 years old and the seats and tables and such were still there from their last use probably in 1975. I was one of the first there, along with a friend of mine who went by the name of Alex Pain. "Man," I said, when I entered the place and became bombarded with cobwebs and such, "what a great place to wrestle in." It was a great site, no doubt about it. Alex and I started cleaning up the ballroom, talking about stuff like chicks, cars, and, of course, wrestling. I'd known this guy my whole life and to say that we were close would be demeaning it; we were as close as two friends could get. He and I started wrestling together, were trained by the same guy, went to the same schools...everything. He was a damn good friend and a damn good wrestler. We continued talking about the event we had set up. This was our first King Of The Indys tournament. Things like this have been done before and since, but we knew that we couldn't gather the cash to participate in the more well-known tournaments that all the insiders knew about; so we opted to go with our own since our opinion was the only thing that mattered to us. We finally cleaned up the ballroom and set up everything. It was perfect. You know when you buy a new house and you get everything unpacked and you set it up the way you want it and you just think "This is perfect"; yeah, it was like that. People started coming in about a hour later. We were having droves of fans coming in, which peaked at 400 or so. All the wrestlers were there, greeting the fans and having a good time. Finally, at 7:30pm, it was showtime. The first match we had tore the roof off. It was two guys that were just starting and it showed some beginner mess-ups, but the spots these kids were nailing were magificent. Definately set the mood for the night because after that, all the matches were high calibur matches. I had a second round match with a kid from Livermore who told me he wanted to wrestle his whole life. I gave him his first chance and he didn't disappoint. He decided to rip on me before the match and man oh man, the kid could work a mic. He went on about how I was a failure at making it to Japan (I had my chance in a match a few months earlier and blew it) and how my father, if he were alive, would be disgusted to call me son. For the record, I gave him the OK for that one. I headed to the ring and mixed it up with him. Everyone wanted a squash match, but I didn't. I wanted to put this kid over. He would come after me with everything. Moonsaults, SSPs, chairshots, tables....he wrapped a table in barbwire and put me through it, and I did the best I could to make it seem like he was legit. In the end, I nailed my Airplane Implant DDT (my finisher) on a chair to win the match and the crowd loved it. I soaked up the crowds' reaction. Damn it felt great. My friend Alex wrestled his match against a guy named "The Crusher From Down Under" Thomas Freed. This guy was huge; about 6'7" and 300lbs, compared to Alex and his 5'10" 145 pounds, it looked like we had a David vs Goliath match going perfectly. Alex used speed and jump moves to attack quickly while the Crusher would try to grab him and turn him into a pretzel. It was really exciting, like when you would watch those old matches were the little guy always seems to get away at a spilt second. The crowd was really into it, cheering and whatnot. It was good times all around. The finish was a botched interference when the Crusher got nailed with a chair accidentally by his valet, Kangaroo Kerri (yes, in the NorCal indys, we try really hard to keep kayfabe alive), and left himself wide open for Alex to nail his finisher, a top rope 360 headbutt, nicely titled the "PainSault". The tournament kept going and we saw lots of great wrestling. I'll admit it, there were some stinkers, but the good stuff overshadowed the bad completely. In the semi-finals, it was me and Alex going at it. You know those sucessions of moves and reversals that RVD and Jerry Lynn used to have whenever they got in the ring in ECW? That was us for the first five (5) minutes of the match. At the end of the five (5) minutes, we had countered everything but our finishers; the crowd couldn't stand up fast enough to applaud us. Me being me, I decided to take some time to showboat to the crowd and Alex being Alex, he just gave them a bow and started planning his next move. We hooked up again and started reversing armbars and flips, until Alex let his guard down and I got a suplex in. I worked the arm and the head and he struggled to get out. I would pick him up and slam him to the mat, and he would deliver the same exchange when he got the upper hand. We knew that there had to be one spot in the night that we had to pull off together. He set a table inbetween the railing keeping the fans protected and some chairs that he had lined up in the crowd. He put me on the table with my head and neck hanging off the railing side. I honestly had no idea what he was planning, so I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little scared. I saw him motion to the crowd and the crowd requesting, in their special way, to go to the top rope. I saw him climbing the turnbunkle and I was expecting a legdrop on my chest and going through the table that way. I was wrong. He signaled to the crowd and jumped; splashing my head and neck on the railing. I though my head taken off; it felt like it. I realized I wasn't decapitated when I heard the "Holy Shit" and "ECW" chants ringing in my ears; the only thing that went through my head during the 3 minutes I was on the floor until Alex threw me into the ring was "This isn't ECW, is it?" He went for the pin and got a two (2) count. I had no idea what I was thinking when I kicked out. He nailed me with a PainSault and still only got the two count; I think I kicked out of reflex. He started to argue with the referee and that gave me some time to shake the cobwebs and get to my feet. I turned him around and nailed him with my Airplane Implant DDT and got the pin. The crowd went nuts; scary enough, I thought I heard some "Match Of The Year" chants going, but I was more worried about my neck to congratulate myself. I stood up and gave the crowd one (1) motion of "#1" and started heading to the back to get some ice on my neck. I came out to wrestle my next match, but I lost due to just being too tired and the pain in my neck to continue. I knew that no one would really believe that I, with such an injury, would be able to go on and win the tournament, so I opted to bow out graciously and lose my match. I watched the rest of the show from the back and, in the end, a guy named Marcus Cambell from Minnesota won the tournament. We gave him a trophy and a check for three thousand dollars ($3,000) and, with that, people started to leave and we said bye to all the wrestlers who took part in this little tournament. It was 10:30pm when Alex and I closed the doors, after cleaning the place up and everything. We had already missed the BART train (NorCal's subway) to get back home to SF, so we chose to spend the night at a hotel. Before we closed the door, I looked inside and the chants and the callings still rang in my head. I looked at Alex and told him "What did you think of the show?" as I locked the doors. He just looked at me with a smile on his face and said, "Like you said earlier.......perfect." I tell this story as my tribute to my friend, Alexander "Pain" Rodriguez, who died this past week in a car accident. He was a special person to me and he truly believed in this "fake sport" that is wrestling. The sport never died for him and he never bitched about doing anything to make the "business" sucessful in his area. He was a good man and my favorite opponent and my best friend. There are people who get to the top different ways; some sleep for it, others beg for it, some even work their ass off for it. He was already at the top; I don't know how, but he was always at the top. He was just...perfect. Thanks for reading, I guess. The next column will be in two weeks, as next week, I'll be at the megashow in San Jose after the Rumble, for both Raw and Smackdown; so watch for those Dumass signs on Monday and Thursday!! The next column will be a special Dumass Thought, as I do something that no one in the IWC has ever done for a column (at least, not that I can remember); I'm going to speak directly to my fans. So, clear up those hard drives cause it's guaranteed that I've got a lot to say. Dumass <----Email me!! AIM: Dumass4k Lethal Wrestling - Read these guys because I get a cookie for every hit they get. This week it's Mint Choco-chip! Yum! Randy Orton Comics - Making wrestling sex funny again. MUST SEE! Hot Pix of WWE's Set of Twins, THE BELLA TWINS! WOW!
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