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Ok, so originally I was going to be content to stay at home yesterday afternoon. About 2.15 I was contacted by Nick Fury, “you going to the Shooter’s show?”
Part of the reason I had decided to stay at home, was because I was going to have to go by myself, so I told him that if he wanted to go, lets head up the mountain.
Got to the Civic Center in Asheville in record time! We got to the back, Nick got booked against Viper in the opening match. I talked to the Shooter, and he said yeah, get pictures of everything, from wherever. I even got a neck pass (choke on it, ER!).

Had about 250-275 people in the crowd. It was a great feeling being in the Civic Center for a wrestling show. This is the place where my Dad and I used to come every month to watch the NWA. The building even smelled the same. There were times I would just stare and look out in the crowd and think, years ago that was me sitting there on the edge of my seat, trying to get a good look at the matches.

Very nostalgic for me, even the sounds were the same. Hearing the slam on the ring and the way it echoed in the building. It may sound sugary to some, but it was a cool feeling being back.

Good to see a lot of familiar faces: Ralph Harkey, Dan Parris, George South, “Mr Terrific” Tim Lawler, and a good number of the guys in the back…I have to say thanks again to Sonny Landel – your name works wonders!

Viper and Nick were in the first match, it was quick but they both provided a good starting point for the show. Next was Sonny and KC Thunder with Dawn Marie – The New Hollywood Blondes. It was the first time I had seen them together as a tag team. It was during this match that we got to see how easy it was for the ring barriers to fall down, one little bump and they tip right over.
George South vs. Ricky Morton was next…so I took a 20 minute break while George got his jacket off, har!
The Boogaloo Crew: JC Dazz & Scottie Wrenn vs. Brandon P & Jeremy V were next in a tables, ladders and chairs match. Great match! The crowd was really into it. All 4 guys did a super job.
Three way: Jeff Lewis – Chris Hamrick – Morbid. Hamrick is awesome, and Lewis and Morbid were a good fit with him. I got a great pic of Hamrick chopping Morbid and you can see the sweat misting in the air off of it.
Barbarian vs. Shooter was next – bloody! They went into the crowd, up the into the seats. Shooter crawled back down with blood just streaming out of his head. Blood splatters everywhere! I got some great pics backstage of his face.
The last match was the Steiners vs. Disco Inferno & Jeff Lewis. Scott is still huge!
The show was over a little before 9pm. Very good show. I did have some people come up and ask about Luger, NWO Sting, and Buff Bagwell.
I took 255 pictures in all. Thanks again to all involved in getting me so close to the show, and to Nick and my “wife” for the evening, Tallie for going!

Wow, what a show….two title changes – Rowdy James is the new Carolina champion, and Boomer & Duke are the new tag champs. Congrats to them.
I think Rowdy will do well with it…I think Rowdy is funny to watch, he has a great ‘attitude’ with his character.

Only complaint: Long show! It was over at midnight…I don’t recall the last time a show went that long…My own match of the night was the Carolina title match between Zack – Buffett – Rowdy…..Spot of the night – Jimmy Kindrid doing his ‘luchador’ aerial assault from the apron onto everybody outside the ring in the last match.

The fans at ringside were yelling for me to grab Rupert and toss him off the top onto Viper, Jimmy et al….since everybody else had done something to the floor.

Missed seeing Shane, Sandy and Sharon….

I was planning on going to the UCW show this afternoon…now that it’s almost noon, I am not so sure anymore. I have plenty to do around the house, so I will probably stay here.

I got home about 2.30am…..186 pictures….

So, I am finally back from Baltimore! We got in about 6.30 this afternoon after leaving Hunt Valley at 8.15am. It was the Horrorfind Weekend V!
You can see my pictures from the event by clicking here!

This is probably not going to stay in order, as some of the happenings will just pop up in my head.

We drove about 1190 miles round trip, I spent $159.61 for petrol. Of course, that’s pocket change! Gas was about $2.45 – 2.49 in VA, a little higher in MD.

We left Polk County about 7am on Friday. Travel was Ok, until we got turned around in West Virginia – which added another 30-40 minutes onto our travel time. Got to Hunt Valley about 3.45.

Nice hotel – Hunt Valley Marriott. I don’t know what else is located in Hunt Valley other than a Wal-Mart, Wendy’s, McDonalds and gas stations. McDonalds was everywhere! I have come to hate them merely for the fact that those golden arches were at every exit!

Our first night at the hotel, I heard something I have never heard in a hotel before – the crickets outside! Every other hotel I have been was urban located, in a city. The sound of the crickets actually helped me get to sleep….the fire alarm going off at 2am both mornings!!!!! did not help……damn kids……

We got into the Bruce Campbell line at 10.30am Saturday morning. He was due to arrive at noon. We traded off holding the spot in the line as it didn’t move. I went ahead and got my Angus Scrimm autograph while Eric held the line. I had already met Don Coscarelli and Reggie Bannister on Friday.

We finally got to see Bruce at 2.20. The rules were for the Saturday signing: you must buy one photo of Bruce, and you are allowed one other item to be autographed. On Sunday, you had to purchase his new book and were allowed one other item. No posed pictures were allowed, only ones while you were getting the autograph. He asked where we were from, when he heard NC his reply was “Ok, I’ll talk slower for you”….funny….

I ran into the camera guy from the Spartanburg band – Relentless. Who we saw at “Blood, Guts & Hardcore” in Ground Zero a couple of months ago. I was surprised at the number of people that were there from NC.

My accent was much more noticeable…I had several people ask where I was from…

We got to meet and get some pics with Conrad Brooks…who played one of the cops in “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” He was a super nice guy, who let us take a couple of pictures. He was also selling a can of coffee called: “Blend 9 from Outer Space”

Listened to a seminar given by John Zaffis on Friday night about his work in paranormal/demonology research, very interesting stuff. I bought his book the next day.

Big Costume contest on Saturday night, hosted by Bruce Campbell and Count Gore. Some really nice work on some. A guy with a homemade Stormtrooper uniform got up and somebody shouted: “Wrong convention, asshole!”

So hot in the room for the costume contest. It was another line to get in, standing room in the back too. Danny Trejo showed off his tattoo….I was pissed over the heat and the people…..

Got to see a blooper reel from “The Devils Rejects” DVD which will be released in November.

We left about 8.30am today. Stopped off in Towson,MD just before Baltimore to try and find Divine’s grave. After about 45 minutes we did and got some pictures…the other “Divine” I know is going to be very jealous!…..don’t worry, dahlink! You will get a copy of the picture……

We ate at Shoney’s and had the breakfast bar, it has been years since I have had the Shoney’s breakfast bar. I don’t think there are any left near us.

We had to take the entire I695 loop around Baltimore, saw some nice stuff and I blew right through a toll booth! I had the $2 ready to drop off, and since I had never been through, I mistakenly went through the “ExpressPay” slot, which I guess is some kind of automatic pay thing, and just kept going. I am awaiting an envelope from the Baltimore Police informing me of my fine!

Was very glad to get home! My kitty was happy to see me…I’ll be able to sleep better tonight in my own bed…

I am glad that I went…I would have been happy after meeting the Phantasm guys, but the whole thing was an experience….

Lots of horror writers there too….there were some I was interested in but I didn’t buy anything…..lots of DVD’s…some out of print stuff….lots of bootlegs…..the whole show had a good feel to it….that sort of “horror-geek” thing……

I saw this license plate ahead of me yesterday as I was coming home:

Right in the middle of a “Little Britain” marathon on BBC America!

I suppose the decongestant I took yesterday afternoon was what frazzled me so bad that I forgot my memory card for the camera! At five minutes until 8pm, I discovered that I had left it at home. Of course, no memory card means no pictures.
I went to the back and told them that I was off, and would return as soon as I could. Melony rode with me to Best Buy on the other side of town. We got back about 15 until 9. I had only missed one match (sorry for that), and the ‘rumble’ hadn’t started yet.

I was surprised to find Tony singing to me the “Gamera” turtle song from Mystery Science Theater 3000. I’m not going to explain it here, if you want to know just do a search on it, but it is nice to find another “MSTie”

I got a great picture of Cronic’s chest post chop from Romeo. Many he brought a welt up on him. The ones that Ken gave Romeo absolutely rang my ears!

I was glad to see a little mixture in the ‘Rumble’ – Jeff Lewis and Brandon Phoenix.

Happy Bday to Sharon!

Missed seeing Nick Fury there last night, I don’t remember the last time he missed a show.

I think Granny Eagle is funny, but I think it’s time to get that US strap on somebody other than an old woman.

Well, I wouldn’t be on here right now if we were going would I? I went down to the Hot Spot in Landrum (cheap petrol at $2.17/gallon!) when I got a call from Ken. Some stuff has come up and we are not going to All Pro Wrestling in Kingsport tonight.

My heart is not totally broken. I am going through one of my monthly ear aches which of course I would get at the exact point when my congestion clears up!

So, I am looking forward to APW tomorrow night. True it will not be the same since Ostgard will not be there, but we must carry on.

They will be a new APW champion tomorrow, thankfully. It is not my place to say who should get the belt. All I’m going to say is, I agree with something that was said before, the champion should be a heel. Of course, the good guys make good champions, but isn’t it easier to create good guys than bad guys with the crowd? That said there are a couple of guys at APW the belt would do well on, so we will just see tomorrow….

I pre ordered a copy of Little Britain, Volume 1 today. The….best…..british comedy going today. The second season starts on BBC American next Wednesday.

Ethan talked me into watching some of Smackdown last night in the hopes of seeing a Hamrick appearance. What did I see? That bullshit about Rey’s kid and Eddie? Ughh……

Great time had at the show last night. First, it was great to see Ethan back in the American coliseum. It has been several months since he was there….it was a great moment. The crowd seemed to really be into his return. He and Ken have a obvious feud that will be great. I just hope that it is done the way they want it – because the two of them know each other best. I have said before that I just coasted in on Ken and Ethan’s coat tails into wrestling. We are literally family, so it was a great feeling to have the entire ‘family’ back together at the show.

During the tag match between Kaos/American Dragon against Bill White and Doug Hawkins, I paused for several minutes and just watched. It’s something I’ll do occasionally. What stopped me last night was that Dragon is a student of Doug’s and when Doug tagged in Bill I wanted to watch to see how this 40 year veteran handled Dragon’s second match. So it was just a moment for me, I suppose it’s hard to translate it to the typed word.

Granny Eagle returned last night and won the US title. Granny had a ‘purdy’ set of teeth. At the end of the show, Shane had sort of a recognition ceremony of our resident favorite wrestler: Ostgard. Shane told the fans of Ostgard’s lengthy weekly drives from Columbia to wrestle with APW. Ostgard praised the locker room, etc. By now it is no secret that Ostgard will be shipping out to Iraq at the end of this week. Even though the fans demonstrated their disdain for him during the show, at the end he received a standing ovation from them and his cohorts.

I thought about this journal entry on the way home last night, and tried to group together my words into something that would be profound, but my brain gave out. By the way, I got home about 1.30 I believe, and got up at 6! No worry, I got to work right on time.

Reading the paper this morning, I saw this: “Bombs, not bullets and mortars, biggest killer of troops in Iraq.” These headlines always grabbed my attention as I consider myself to be on an average level of current events. Now, that our ‘brother’ Ostgard is heading out, they are a little more solemn.

To my knowledge, I don’t know any of our troops that are currently stationed in Iraq. Of course, I want them all to be safe, but I really didn’t have a face with a name of anyone serving. Now that changes as our former US Champ travels to the sand filled hell.

I won’t say goodbye, I will just say; good luck; godspeed; fly casual; fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering; and come back safe. I regret that I didn’t start talking to you until just a couple of months ago.

Before I forget, thanks to Shane for my acknowledgement at the end of the show! I decided to go out and have a bite to eat after the show. We took over like four tables…you know the wait staff love to see us come in. I’m a little disappointed, as I thought that Mr Payne would be joining us?….also you have Aldo well trained, his neck pass didn’t come off one time in the restaurant!

Time for a nap.

Had HVW last night. ER stood in for the missing Bill Hazelwood and his pit stains were on high alert! Very good crowd last night at the show, I believe it peaked at a little over 50. I didn’t get to see any of the Mountain Heritage crew that was at the last show, so this was my first view of them. They were all introduced as being from “anywhere but Hendersonville.” Which is a funny line, but I think there is maybe only a couple of the people in the crowd who are actually from Hendo?

I don’t know if it was the heat or what last night, but there was like a constant stream of flatulence coming from somewhere! There were nine matches and the show ended in a battle royal. I got out at 11pm.

In the first, we had McGruff keeping his…(I dislike this name) redneck title against HVW’s own luchandor (from Edneyville, I suppose?) Tequila Cousin numero uno……

Two students were up next, Livewire vs. ST Ryker…ER noticed that ST must be bad now, as he had red hair dye instead of the usual blue….Livewire was announced as weighing 187 pounds…I asked him, how much do you really weigh?….The guy is little, but I think has potential….

We had the “Ch(K)aos C(K)onfrontation” with Ryan Chaos from Mtn. Heritage Championship Wrestling up against Kaos. Tony had a good idea, we should have a “Chaos/Kaos” tournament, invite everyone who uses that name and the winner gets to keep it.

Ethan had a match against Johnny Buffett, or Sir Buffett I should say as he is using that now in HVW too. They had a good match, I’m thinking the crowd may have just been tired, they were a little dead at the beginning but I think they warmed up to it.

At the end of the show we had the LONGEST BATTLE ROYAL…….EVER! That is no joke, I don’t think I have ever sat through one that long, but the guys in the ring were having fun, and the crowd stayed, so that’s all that matters.

ER bought me an Orange Nehi at the store, so once again I rely on the kindness of strangers for my sustenance. Got home about 11.30. So tired when I got up this morning.

Tonight is APW, and Ostgard’s last night. Sadly, I will not be able to stay afterwords for any celebrations. I’m not going to get too sentimental (I may do that in a later entry), I know that some people don’t like our US champion, but you have to give him credit he does stick in the mind after you see him- you’re probably cursing his name, but it worked.

Well, it’s about time for the Three Stooges!

Saturdays show was good. Good crowd, good matches. Took about 200+ pictures. Culled it down to 190! Got to the building a little after 7pm.
I heard a lot of stuff about the party I missed on Friday night. Do I believe any of it? Not much….although I will say I am glad that I don’t partake of alcohol.

Ethan Cage made his return to the American Coliseum Saturday night. Very glad to see him back, it was like old home week for him. He and Mrs Cage had to run to Gastonia to see the new addition to the family, born the day before. On their way back up, they ran into the show.

It was good to see AJ Frost back in a match, he has been absent from the ring for several weeks – and brother! You gotta eat!

“Red, White & Bruised” was not shown this Sunday morning, in it’s place was an episode of “APW Classics”. Still some good stuff on there to see, but I think it would have been better to advertise it as such. Of course it still had the bumper saying APW every Saturday night on Whitney Rd at 8pm. Also, it is very easy for me to say what was wrong with the show since I am not involved in the production of it. It’s always easy to criticize and offer nothing than to buckle down and offer positive actions.

Wow, the people really hate Ostgard, don’t they? I don’t get it.

Seeing James McHone do his “Hogan” impression was funny.

It has been what, three weeks since Shane vacated the APW title? I really think it is time to address the situation. I was hoping that something would have been announced that night regarding what to expect. A tournament? A battle royal? Anything. The most important title of the promotion has been sitting on the sidelines.

I read that Tatanka is supposed to return tonight on Raw……..ho hum….I await the return of Bam Bam Bigelow…..

“Slick Willy Jackson” had a great line Saturday night. When he and Cronic went up for their interview, Willy told Bill Hazelwood to get off the stage, “you got too much hair to be up here!”

I packed my cooler for Saturday night. I filled it up with ice, threw in a wash cloth and then bought some waters to put in it. When I was able to, the cold rag worked very well.

Off to the showers and bed!