The debut column of Matt Essary
I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Matthew. I’ve been invited to write columns and news pieces for this site by Gene Jackson. Some of you may know Gene from “Cheap Heat Radio”, some from his stint on the Southeastern indy wrestling scene. Gene and I have known each other for over a decade now. I met him through the wrestling scene in the place where I grew up. Gene was a wrestler and I was a wrestling fan (to put it mildly). So, over the years we would bump into each other in different locals and reconnect over our mutual love of this great sport (yes, to paraphrase former ECW star “The Franchise” Shane Douglas it is a sport!).
So, when Gene decided to launch this new site he knew he wanted to get the “super fan” perspective for it and not just the viewpoint of “insiders”. He came to me for that. When he asked me, I was flattered but I had originally planned to decline.
“Why?” you ask.
Because I haven’t been a wrestling fan of any kind for nearly four years.
Then why did I say yes to Gene’s offer? Well, that ties directly into my introduction and explanation of what this column you are so kindly reading right now is all about.
I was a massive wrestling fan growing up and like a lot of you I’m sure, I first discovered wrestling through the early 1980’s run of WWF personified by Hulk Hogan. I eventually grew tired of that though and soon discovered the NWA (later to be known as WCW) and Memphis Wrestling (at the time known as CWA/USWA). Wrestlers like Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Terry Funk, Sting, and the Great Muta blew me away. Those two groups completely changed how I viewed wrestling. These were not cartoony, flag-waving supermen. They were badasses and legit tough guys. Those two promotions were filled with athletes who brought athleticism, passion, and sometimes even hate to their matches. It was gritty. It felt real and dangerous and I loved it. I followed NWA through its transition to WCW and Memphis wrestling through to its eventual fall from glory. I stuck with it all through the famed “Monday Night Wars” but as that drew to a close and WWF was declared the victor, I slowly began to lose interest again. Then something amazing happened.
I discovered the Independent wrestling scene of the early 2000’s. I started devouring ‘five star’ matches by wrestlers like Samoa Joe and CM Punk in Ring of Honor, hard-hitting hybrid matches and death match wars starring guys like Ian Rotten, Necro Butcher, Drake Younger, and Danny Havoc from CZW and the IWA collective, as well as sublime comedy and gravity-defying lucha-libre style matches from the ‘wacky’ Chikara Pro fronted by the amazing “Master of 1000 Holds” “Lightening” Mike Quackenbush. I fell in love with the sport of wrestling all over again.
I was completely taken with the low-rent “doing it because you truly loved it” attitude of the indies. It also brought back that grit and sense of danger that I loved so much about Memphis and the old NWA. I discovered after about 6 months of total fandom that a local Alabama promotion had bought into the IWA franchise and were planning on running a show featuring wrestlers from IWA, CZW, and Chikara Pro! Needless to say, I made the long car trip to see all these personalities that were normally limited to the northern states. That showed ended up being a lot of fun and a turning point for me. It was released by “SMART MARK VIDEO” ( http://www.smartmarkvideo.com ) as IWA Deep South – Southern Discomfort. If you pick up that DVD you can clearly see me, front row, snagging photo opportunities with guys like Ian Rotten, Eddie Kingston, and Insane Lane. If you think about it objectively it’s a little silly to get so excited (or ‘mark out’ if you like being cynical) over getting to meet several Indy wrestlers who I had admired from buying and trading tapes and DVDs on the internet but I did not care. I still don’t. It was unbelievably fun. I got to spend a lot of time during and after the show talking to the wrestlers and other people who help put the show together.
I ended up become friends with a lot of those guys and it wasn’t long before I got involved with helping them promote their shows. I worked to create buzz on internet message boards and even helped design the promotion’s MySpace page. This plus my friendship with several of the personalities involved with IWA Deep South led to me being treated more like an insider than what I was, a really big fan. Why was this a bad thing? I’m sure there are thousands of wrestling fans who would love to be involved in even a minor way with the promotions they loved.
The problem is: wrestling is a kind of a sleazy business. I had become privy to too much: management decisions, insider gossip, who hated who, and all the other political-type nonsense that makes most people hate their every day jobs, let alone the things they did to relax.
Don’t get me wrong I had a lot of fun and I have some great stories that I will hopefully share with you as this column (and website) progress. I had just become cynical and incredibly burnt out. So, I stepped away from my wrestling fandom for the first time in my whole life really. I stayed away for years but then “Sweet and Sour” Larry Sweeney passed away.
For those of you that don’t know much about Larry, he was one of those wrestlers from the Northeast that IWA Deep South brought into anchor their shows. He had a flamboyant Ric Flair-esque persona that would have fit in perfectly at the Mid-South Coliseum in 1982. He was a charismatic talker with great in-ring skills. Larry was the number one heel of IWA Deep South without a doubt . He was also a guy that I liked a great deal who was always very kind and friendly towards me. We lost touch a little before my break from wrestling fandom. I had always meant to catch back up with him…
He’s gone now though. I don’t want to discuss the details of his passing. There are other places that can fill those details in for you, but his loss hurt me as someone who knew and like him as a person and a performer. This tragedy led to Gene and I talking again and then to his offer to write for this site. The reason I said yes to his offer is that in my sadness over Larry’s loss I started thinking about the old days, about old friends, and I realized how much I truly missed it all. I use to love Independent Pro Wrestling and I want to love it again. That is what this column will be about, rekindling that love. I’ll shine a spotlight on wrestlers, DVDs, promotions, and internet content that help me rediscover the joy that is Independent Pro Wrestling.
It’s going to be an interesting trip. I hope you’ll join me.
-Matt
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