With my first match now in the bank, I turned my sights on my second match coming up as my “official debut” in Monster Prowrestling, as MPW ran a show on the first Saturday of every month at the time.
However, my second match came much faster than I had planned.
While I trained for 3 months for my first match, it was only about 3 weeks before my next one, this time with only a few hours’ notice.
I received a message from the owner of CWC (Canadian Wrestling Coalition), Dylon Stone, who I had met at Knoxville’s Tavern during my first show. Apparently one of the other wrestlers slated to be on the show almost cut their thumb off in a bad accident at work, and they needed someone to fill in last second.
I was super excited to get the call, as I had heard nothing but great things about CWC already in my short career. I jumped at the opportunity and officially had my second match book-marked for the next day in Red Deer.
My first ever out of town wrestling show was here!
I had lived in Red Deer for years prior to this, but had never even heard of this company until I got into the business. It’s a real shame, as I might have gotten my start much sooner had I known about them. With the history I had in the city, I was excited to see if I knew anyone in the crowd, and got excited about the prospect of eventually inviting out friends and former co-workers.
CWC was a company with an amazing reputation for their ability to draw in a big crowd, put on great shows, stories, and had production value to go along with it. A few of the wrestlers around MPW had done shows for them and spoke highly of everyone there.
In a way, CWC was a supershow. There were wrestlers coming from all over the province, representing different promotions that you would rarely see together.
At the time (and in some cases still to this day) – many wrestling promotions required you to work for them exclusively in your “home city”. That means with three different companies in Edmonton – you wouldn’t see them mix or mingle unless someone made the jump. It was almost like the Monday Night Wars, but with far less money involved.
But because CWC was in Red Deer, this gave wrestlers the opportunity to wrestle people they wouldn’t normally get to interact with – including wrestlers from Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge and, of course, the Red Deer guys.
So, with all that being said, I felt very nervously excited for my chance to make a good impression with the company.
While I had heard all the stories of wrestling road trips, my first one was… less than exciting as I drove down by myself.
When I arrived at festival hall, which was a beautiful venue for wrestling, I was amazed to see how great everything looked. I found Dylon and caught up with him briefly before getting my assignment for the night. I was to go one on one against Jack Pride, the Alberta Champion.
I had met Pride very quickly at the Knoxvilles event as well, but not quite as in depth. From the match I had watched, and the fact he was Alberta champion, I knew I would have to bring my A game… despite my A game looking more like a D at the time.
While initially intimidating, I found Pride to be very friendly and open to guiding me along what was going to be a fairly quick “squash” match. For those who don’t know – this is usually a match where one wrestler will be heavily featured, and kind of “run through” their opponent to make themselves look really good. Given where I was in my career, I was just happy to be there.
The match itself was nothing special, I was a scrappy new comer stepping up against the champion. One of the story beats included the feud between Pride and another guy I had met at Knoxvilles – Lumberjack Larry, who was coming back form a knee injury. Somethings never change.
I was still trying to figure out the move set that would work best for me, and before the show started, a few of the guys taught me a fancy move called a head scissors which I did for the first time. Watching the match back – I cringe (as I do at most of the matches I watch back), but I still don’t think it’s all that bad.
I appreciated Pride for getting me through both the match, and guiding me through a small promo which I was crapping myself about. Pride and I have had a wide-ranging relationship over the years after this match, and despite being in a fairly “high profile” (for Edmonton) feud over recent years as the future RADz took on Se7en – this still remains the one and only time we’ve had a one-on-one match (as of this writing of course).
Once the show was done and over, they had a sponsored afterparty at a local bar where guys could eat, drink, hang out, and most importantly, get paid. I believe I got a whole $40 for coming down to Red Deer and wrestling, but I was hyped.
The afterparty was more at my speed when it came to interacting with the other wrestlers and trying to get to know guys better. I’ve always felt a bit socially awkward and I felt like alcohol loosened me up a bit to be more fun. By no means was that a healthy way to approach things, but it was how I operated at the time.
After everything I had been going through in my personal life, it was good to get out of my regular routines, laugh, and just be “one of the boys”. Having been a manager for a few years at this point, it was rare I could just let loose in a team environment without feeling like I was being judged.
When it was all said and done, I drove home that night (don’t be like me, don’t drink and drive like an idiot) and got home around 2 or 3am in the morning. I was still buzzing about the experience when I climbed into bed. In just one week I’d be in the ring again, but this time the learning experience would be much rougher…
To end this, I wanted to say – I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the one and only match I would be in for CWC. I didn’t get the call back, and about a year and a bit later CWC would cease to exist. It was disappointing to not get to perform there again, especially as I started to get more comfortable and skilled in the ring. I feel like I missed out on a great time in Alberta prowrestling, but I’m grateful I got to be a small part of it for at least one match.
While wrestling would return to Red Deer – I don’t think it’s ever reached the heights that it would with CWC.
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Rich,
Owner, RK Athletics
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