VCW 2003 Year in Review
by Scott Henson
written February 2004

*Warning: Shoot names/angles/comments lie ahead. Strict fans of kayfabe should turn back.

Man, VCW busted out some really good stuff in 2003. My only hope is that this same statement can still be made in 5 or 10 years. Wrestleplex moving, pro training, pro debuts, VBW, all kinds a' crap.

So 2003 started with us still without a ring, so we were restricted to using the ASW Wrestleplex, which was once every few weeks at best because people weren't exactly up for paying to wrestle each week. This was too bad, as Justin was back from school for three weeks, and we would have liked to have packed in as many shows as possible, but c'est la vie. Our first show of 2003 was on January 8. We were going to call it "Zero-Three Fighting Athlete", a take-off on the Zero-One promotion, but Merc was quite intent on it being called "Jap Slap." So we brought the two schools of thought together and called it "Zero-Three Fighting Athlete presents: Jap Slap." Everyone's a winner. Justin was the Triple Crown Champion going into the show, and was leaving for New York a couple days later, so I think you have an idea what's happening title-wise on this show. ASW's Troll made his singles debut and beat Wade. Troll was in his "I'm a pro wrestler, so I don't job" phase (actually, he's still in this phase, but we've found ways around it). It was really awkward to book Troll every time he showed up, for numerous reasons. No one liked him; no one knew he was coming until he just showed up the day of the show; and there's the aforementioned fact that he wouldn't job. Dan & Justin were big into the "Nishimura/Bas Rutten catch wrestling with rounds" gimmick, so they decided to have a go at it. The first round was excellent and well planned, and then it slowed down a bit, but was still fine. The main event was a concept we were planning ever since seeing the CZW 5/11/02 show. Why, you ask? High stakes, motherfucker. It's a pretty neat idea. Everyone puts something at stake, and whoever wins gets the thing that the loser put up. The CZW match was a 4 Way, while ours was a 6-Man Tag. Actually, it was really a 5-Man Tag, because Merc didn't wrestle, due the fact that he was mildly injured and wasn't a big fan of multi-person matches. Anyway, this was our vehicle for getting the title off of Justin. So I won the title for the fifth time, after losing it to him three weeks earlier. I'm not a big fan of the quickie title reigns (or me having it that many times), but we wanted Justin to have it while he was here.

I guess the next major event in VCW was Brodie and Dos officially quitting VCW on the message board. Brodie ended up coming back for one show (and hopefully some more in the future), and Dos has yet to have another match in VCW. No explicit reasons were stated as to why they were leaving, other than they weren't having much fun. Which is perfectly valid: if you're not having fun at a hobby/activity which has no merit other than fun, there's really no reason to do it. Also, it was never said outright, but seemed to implied at times, that they were pissed at Justin and that he was partly the reason they weren't having fun. This of course only pissed off Justin further, and he blamed their new interest in Jackass/CKY and rising ADD on their loss of interest in backyarding (which is also probably valid to some extent).

No shows from January 8 to February 23. Bad times. Well, there was one (untaped) match. On January 31, Kevin, Kyle, and Wade had a Three Way Dance (not sure where, presumably on Kyle's front lawn). Apparently it was good, but no one was there besides the three people in it, so no unbiased sources can confirm or deny it. Wade was going to stay with some family in Alberta for a few months, so we needed to get the Canadian Title off him. Because god forbid we have ANOTHER tournament for the vacant Canadian Title. We've had enough. Man, that title is fucking cursed. Anyway, Kevin won the 3 Way and began his third Canadian Title reign.

Feb. 23 is, and most likely always will be, one of my favourite titles for a show ever: Ass Slapping Contest. I took it from a hilarious skit on Crank Yankers. My only regret is that there wasn't actually any ass slapping on the show. I don't remember what the original booking was, but someone's opponent didn't show up, and I ended up facing Kevin with absolutely no time to plan. This match was the first of three "You Sunk My Battleships" in 2003, and fourth overall. Pest and his brother Kenny Perfect came to this show, and the best part was that they brought 10 or 12 friends along, making it our first official "crowd" at a Wrestleplex show. It was cool to have a little more heat in the matches. Pest and Kenny's match was pretty good, too, and they planned on doing more stuff with us, but this match marks the only time Pest or Kenny has wrestled in a VCW ring to date. The main on this show had been building for quite some time: Lenny D vs. Shane Mondo. These guys had done a bunch of stuff together in the last year, and, between them, were responsible for just about every VCW garbage bump since 2001. It's hard to say as to whether this match even qualifies as a garbage match, as there was only one spot involving a weapon; the rest was pure wrestling. BUT WHAT A SPOT! Kyle, playing the heel, had the ref distracted and got out a thumbtack-covered plastic baseball bat and absolutely smoked Shane in the head with it. Shane, quite understandably, said it was the most painful thing he's ever felt. Post match, Shane got to smoke Kyle on the exposed back with the bat, with quite a few tacks sticking in, making for a nice visual on the music video.

Again, still no ring, and thus no wrestling for exactly one month. March 23, we were back at the Wrestleplex with Curb Your Enthusiasm. We had great fun with the Troll in the opening match, pulling the Montreal Screwjob on him, with Kyle as Shawn Michaels, me as Vince McMahon, and Troll as Bret Hart. Troll had no idea, and it was so hilarious when we screwed him over and gave him his first loss. Later, Kyle and Kevin had a nice match, with Kevin hitting his first top-rope Shooting Star Press. It wasn't great, but he hit it, and they would only get better.

Man, three VCW shows in the first three months of 2003. Not too good a rate. But never fear! There is hope on the horizon. In early/mid-April, myself and The Merc(~!) went a-searching around Burnaby for a decent spot to build a ring, the closer to Kyle's house the better, as we still wanted that to be the post-show "home base." We found a pretty good spot at the end of a road (Aubrey, thus the name Aubrey Gardens for the ring), but the one problem was that there was a pole in the middle of the road about 100 meters from the end, so we'd have to park and walk up each time, which would especially suck when carrying tires and plywood. However, we soon found out that the pole was removable, so all was well. Tires, carpet padding, and a tarp were easy, and I believe most of the plywood came from "round back" of Daric's house downtown, which made for quite the shitty drive from Downtown to North Burnaby due to it being freezing cold, it raining heavily, and the fact that we had to have my car windows open hold the 5+ pieces of 4'x8' plywood in place on my roof rack. Bad times. But then it was over. And it was good times. Our first show there was on April 19, and we didn't really have any particularly good matches until May 17, but no matter, because all the shows were fun. By the way, Merc gets all the credit in the world for building this ring. Myself and others helped out with some building and buying of materials, but for all intents and purposes, it was all Merc. He spearheaded the search for a ring location in the first place, he brought shovels so we could level the area for the ring, he (and Shane) duct-taped each of the 49 pairs of tires together, and he even put his two years of university-level engineering to good use when he drew out how the plywood should most efficiently be placed on the ring.

When we heard that Wrestlemania XIX was going to be in Seattle, it was really hard not to go, so we went. Me, Dan, Kyle, and Andrea (who seemed to be going solely for Shawn Michaels) headed off to Washington on March 30. Along the way, we discovered the sweet ecstasy that is Krispy Kreme. Anyway, it was a pretty good show. HBK vs. Jericho was a million times better than expected. And Angle/Lesnar ruled pretty hard. We knew that if Brock was ever going to do the Shooting Star Press in the WWE, this was it. Late in the match, he hit an F-5, didn't pin Angle, and looked to the top rope. We fucking lost it. Probably the hardest I've ever marked out. Loud "Shoo-ting Star" chants could be heard from our section. Anyway, he did the SSP, somewhat disappointingly didn't quite land it right (needed about another 10 degress of rotation), and had to pin him with another F-5. A perfect SSP (which he's done a bunch of times before in OVW) would have been the sweetest finish, but we didn't mind too much, as the bulk of the match was excellent (and just seeing him try the SSP was amazing). So there. We've been to a Wrestlemania. Scratch that off the "to do" list.

April 25 was a pretty awesome show at Aubrey. It was just me, Dan, Kevin, and Brodie. So we did me vs. Brodie in a "Respect" match (with all the handshakes and bullshit), with a finish building off our Best of the Rest (11/17/01) match, with Chokeslam silliness. Then we did Dan vs. Kevin in a "Respect" match (sense a pattern?). Then, to top it off, we did me & Brodie vs. Dan & Kevin in a "Which Team Respects Each Other More" match, with some awesomely hilarious spots.

April 29 was a big day for VCW. It was our 1 Year Anniversary at the Wrestleplex, and also our 10th show there. We were pretty worried as it started off, as there were a bunch of no-shows (Kyle, Brodie, Dos), and it just didn't have that "Anniversary Show" vibe. But ASW's Kamikaze Kid showed up, along with The Troll, and some other spectators, and actually created a pretty fun atmosphere. Besides me vs. Dan (which wrote itself, as we did the same match at the first Wrestleplex show), I don't think we had anything else booked in advance. Matt FINALLY made his comeback to VCW after more than 9 months. His broken collarbone had actually been healed and he had been able to wrestle since about December, but for one reason or another he wasn't able to make it to any shows before this one. So we put him, Kevin, and Daric in a mini Round Robin for Kevin's Canadian Title. Had Matt not gotten injured in July '02, he probably would have won it by August, so we figured he was long overdue for it. It turned out to be a great decision, as Matt finally brought some prestige back to the title (can backyard titles have prestige?), and racked up a ton of defenses. We had Troll vs. VBW's Raptus. A Troll line which I will probably never forget: "You guys aren't gonna screw me again, are you?" I of course answered no, even though Fabio and Kamikaze had just come up to me and said they were gonna attack Troll. Anyway, it turned out to be the funniest run-in ever. Just about everyone not in the match ran in and beat the shit out of Troll. His pregnant fiancee Anna ran in and got piledriven by Fabio. Then, the icing on the cake, Troll's mother (not sure why she was there in the first place) ran in and slapped Troll as Fabio & Kamikaze held him, calling him a "disgrace to the family." BEST~! Luke and his perennial opponent Chris (Dr. Unk) had a match. The less said about it, the better. Dan's friend Simon Speichert from Edmonton comes to Vancouver for a week or so every April, and just as he was at our first ASW show, he was at our 1st Anniversary show. This time, instead of just reffing, he wrestled too. He wore a sweet red Masked Superstar mask, and acted as my hired assassin from Outer Mongolia, Red Wolf (an obvious play on one of his favourite wrestlers, NJPW's Blue Wolf). Simon boogeying to the ring with Prince's "Raspberry Beret" playing over the sound system will forever be one of VCW's greatest moments. The main was me vs. Dan, which had substantially more planning than most VCW matches. Dan had been writing stuff out for some time, but I couldn't really concentrate on it until my exams were over, which was 2 days before. Anyway, with all the planning, we wanted to make it the best match ever. And you know what? I think it was. Opinions will obviously vary on this, but it was undeniably one of VCW's best (although I feel the very best is yet to come). I won't say much about the match itself, as it will probably be discussed in detail in the to-be-done-sometime Best of VCW section. Suffice it to say there was some really awesome submission vs. submission psych.

May 17 was great, as it marked a million returns. Wade was back from Alberta, where he had been since early February. Kyle was back from a two month Osoyoos venture. And Justin was once again back from school in New York. Once again we had a full roster. Merc had a hilarious match with Daric. Merc is one of those guys who likes to plan out the bulk of the match, and he had written out a match, expecting to face Dan. Then he found out he was wrestling Daric, which led to the golden line:
Merc: "Daric, can you do a Revolution DDT?"
Daric: "Huh?"
This would actually turn out to be Daric's last VCW match, as he just sort of disappeared and did a lot of cocaine after this. Although, in November/December, he got back in contact with us and seemed enthusiastic about coming to shows again, but due to being utterly broke, he has yet to actually make it to a show. May 17 was also an important date, because Matt debuted just about the coolest finisher ever, something we later named (appropriately) "Whattamaneuver." It's basically a Katahajime (Tazmission) into a DDT, but the DDT is always sold on one's head (especially Wade's). It's also quite hilarious how Matt came up with it: he invented it while messing around with action figures, which in itself is fine, but the fact they were BATMAN action figures and not wrestling action figures makes it a pretty good story. May 17 would also begin VCW's major feud of 2003: me vs. Kevin. We had a pretty good non-title match, which Kevin won clean, thereby elevating him and setting him up for a title shot. The main event was the battle of the two big returnees, Kyle and Justin, as they battled it out for the rich prize of two (that's right, two) Caramilk Bars. That was a shoot, too. They were my bars.

May 28, we didn't know what to do for a card, so we figured we'd have a Round Robin, featuring me, Kyle, Kevin, Justin, Matt, and Wade. We decided the rankings of the Round Robin would determine the teams for the V-1 Climax we were going to do in August, which... we didn't. Instead, it just became the V-1 Climax Round Robin. Fuck that tag shit. Kevin & I locked up again, and went to a 10 Minute Time Limit Draw, showing that we needed more time than that to solve anything. Matt vs. Justin was great. Matt avoids a Yakuza kick and pins him with a fluke Pedigree. That's how you book! Yes.

Two days later was fun, fun, fun. With the pressure ROH was putting on us, we could wait no longer. VCW had to do a Scramble. We had "Scramble Madness" at ASW on May 30. Also on the show was an excellent Kyle vs. Kevin match. Top notch. And Justin and Shane had the first UWFv Match (although not with the point system, so I guess it wasn't the first "official" UWFv Rules Match). Then it was Scramble time. I can safely say that as of the time I am writing this, my all-time favourite VCW moment was backstage before my entrance for the match, with everyone singing my theme ("You're The Best") at the top of their lungs. Seriously. It was the best. Most VCWers would agree that the Scramble itself was one of the most fun matches ever. It was really easy to wrestle, as there was really no psychology, and you just had to remember your part in the multi-person spots. It was fun as hell, and we need to do more.

June 8 was a silly day, as we had entrance music playing the entire time, and there was much dancing.

We finished up the Round Robin on June 14, as well as having our first OCW Exhibition match. OCW is the mini-fed that Andrea's brother, John, and their cousin, Mark, have. Considering they were 12 and 14, repsectively, they had a pretty decent match. You can tell that Mark is gonna be pretty damn great in about 5 years if he continues wrestling. John is really young so it's hard to tell, but I see no reason why he shouldn't become great either.

If Merc vs. Justin from June 21 is what happens when Merc doesn't plan out a match, then Merc: PLAN EVERYTHING TO THE LETTER. Seriously, what were you guys thinking? A strong candidate for VCW Worst Match of the Year (a.k.a. The "Make Scott Kill Himself" Memorial Award).

As y'all know, we gotta have a big shindig every Canada Day (or close to it). The closest we could get with a Wrestleplex show was June 28th, so we went with that. And the first person that points out that our July 2 show was closer to Canada Day than this one will be SHOT. Anyway, June 28 was our 4th Annual (few days before) Canada Day Massacre. And we had a special guest in attendance. Hook Bomberry of PWI/So-Cal wrestling fame (or Insane Pane of PAW fame, for you backyard types), was in town for an ECCW show the night before, so we convinced him to come to our show the next day. I'm not sure he liked it. He looked pretty nonplussed the whole time. But maybe he's just like that. Who knows. Couple of VBW match on the show... neither was too good. Although we did have a hilarious name for the dude accompanying Mercury: El Negro (I believe Hook gets credit with that one). We did Justin vs. Luke, which was quite the kill-fest. Justin no-selling a Tornado DDT and following it with a swift boot to the face was priceless. In the 3 Way for Canadian Title (Kevin vs. Matt vs. Wade), Wade was going for a Phoenix Splash on Matt. However, he was stupidly trying to do it from the corner of the ring that offers absolutely no room for any kind of top rope move, due to the runners for the bay door being there. Nevertheless, he went for it, and smacked his legs on the runners. In an incredibly fortunate event (for him), he landed on his back, was fine, and then went and did the move from the opposite corner. But he could have just a easily landed on his head and died. The moral: think before you jump. The main was the one incarnation of the "IV Horseman Tag" that we hadn't done yet: me & Dan again Kyle & Justin. I fucked up my wrist in this match taking a top-rope Diamond (Makura) Cutter from Kyle. A big lump formed on it immediately, and I thought it was broken, but luckily it just turned out to be a sprain. Post-match, Hook did a run-in and took out the heels (Kyle & Justin), which was cool. Going into the match, we wanted it to be the best match ever. Afterward, we didn't know what to think. There were a whole lot of negative factors that made the match less fun and made us look upon it megatively: the show was much earlier that we usually run shows (11:00 a.m.), we were rushed for time, as the Wrestleplex was going to be in use immediately after our show, our guest (Hook) was generally unimpressed with everything, I hurt my wrist, and the match went waaay longer than expected (32+ minutes). So it was pretty disappointing at the time. HOWEVER, rewatching the match a few months later, with all the negative stuff present at the time faded away for the most part, it was actually a very good wrestling match, maybe even one of VCW's best. Good moves, good psych, good tag formula. Much better than we thought at the time.

I'm going to confine the bulk of 2003's unpleasantness (minus VBW) to this paragraph, so skip this if you want. Number one, it really sucks that Kyle kept going to Osoyoos all the time. It screwed up booking a bunch of times. He was in town for a total of probably 4 weeks from spring 2003 to the end of the year. I can only imagine how many more good matches VCW could have cranked out had he been around the whole time. However, I do understand why he wasn't here. First, of course, was his girlfriend, Andrea, who he stayed with. But second, and maybe more importantly, was that he was not on particularly good terms with his mom, didn't like living for prolonged amounts of time with her, and furthermore, basically didn't have a cent to his name when he was in town. He literally can't survive in Vancouver/Burnaby for prolonged periods of time. It's too bad he can't be here all the time, but I guess that's how it is. The second point of unpleasantness was very isolated and minor, but perhaps is worth mentioning. In mid-June-ish, Justin had posted some really depressing stuff on his blog, which he didn't really intend for anyone in VCW to see, but somehow they did. No one's really sure why Justin was upset, whether it was due to him not liking school in New York, problems with parents, or problems with other non-VCW friends. Whatever the reason for it, mention was made of it on our message board. Despite that everyone posting about had the best intentions (i.e. Justin's well-being) in mind, Justin didn't always see it that way and got more upset. However, amends were made shortly after, and everything was better within a few days. Which is good.

Back to more positive things: July 2 was a pretty sweet show with a cool concept: both Matt & I were going for our fifth defenses of out respective titles (Canadian & Triple Crown). Our "V5"s, if you will (anyone know what the V stands for? Victory?). And if we both won, we were going to celebrate with a can of Five Alive. Also on the show, Wade had just returned from his uncle's wedding, which he had been ejected from for getting into a fistfight with the groom. He was drunk as fuck, and pretty high too. The only person left for Wade to face was Merc. This has trouble written all over it. That was going to be the opening match, but Merc wanted to Wade to sober up, so we did it last and then just advertised it as first. The "sobering up" didn't work too well, as Wade smoked more weed while he was there. So the match happened, and it was actually fairly decent. A couple things that are gonna come up later are Wade's Skytwister Press, which really crunched Merc, and a very stiff kick. But not too much was said of it, and we went back to Kyle's house. Merc was obviously a little annoyed, but didn't say anything about it, which was for the best. However, the next day, Wade, in his infinite wisdom, decides to make a post on our message board bragging about stiffing Merc. That's not smart in the least. Merc, of course, stops holding back, and verbally berates Wade for being stupid (and rightfully so). Then a bigass argument erupts, with Wade talking about how he's not afraid to kill someone or be killed, Merc telling Wade to committ suicide, etc., etc. Anyway, when you have the two most stubborn personalities in VCW going at it, odds are you aren't going to be seeng any apologies. So, it culminates with Merc quitting VCW for as long as Wade is around. But that's enough of that for now. (It just occurred to me that I wrote about a bunch of negative stuff after I said we were done with the negativity. FUCK!) Anyway, Matt went for his fifth successful defense of the Canadian Title against Dan. This would be the record for most Canadian Title defenses, and Dan was considered something of the favourite, so needless to say, the imaginary crowd was buzzing. So Matt won, drank some Five Alive, and the world rejoiced. The main event was me vs. Kevin, which was supposed to appear to be the match where Kevin finally beat me for the title, given our history. However, we were saving the big win for a Wrestleplex show, so we pulled something of a swerve here, with me going over. This is regarded as one of the best matches at our Aubrey ring.

After July 2, there was a WHOLE lotta not wrestling going on. Kevin had gone to Ontario to stay with his dad for a while, and Kyle was in Osoyoos most of the time, which basically left us with a pretty thin roster of me, Dan, Justin, Wade, and Matt. And there's just not much you can do with that. Kevin & Kyle are really integral to the roster. They're two of our best guys, and can work pretty easily with anyone. Anyway, so we weren't wrestling. I'm not sure how exactly it came up, but either Dan, Justin, or both brought up the idea of getting professionally trained at ASW. I had always been iffy on training, because I never knew if I'd go pro or not. But I had said earlier in the year that if Dan or Justin started training, that I'd do it too. And so we did. A lot. We timed it well, as Fabio had much of the summer off, so we ended up training up to 4 days a week for about 3 months (2 months for Justin, as he went back to New York). I can't praise Fabio's training enough. From his ASW performances, you'd think him to be a mediocre wrestler at best. But he is an awesome trainer. Really knows what he's doing. Thus, Dan, Justin, and I, who already had a pretty good knowledge/technique base to work off, got pretty good pretty fast. What was nice was that Fabio liked all of us, so no one felt left out. He liked Justin for being really big and really agile, he liked Dan for being a really good technician, and he liked me for being sort of big, sort of agile, and sort of a good technician. Fabio wanted to get us on shows pretty quick. Of course there wasn't time for Justin, but Dan & I would have most likely been on the October show had the ring not moved (we'll get to that). Nevertheless, we were on the November show (we'll get to that too). It would have been sweet to say, "I got booked after only three months of training." Although, there wasn't any training in October, so I'm still going to say it.

We heard there was going to be a Smackdown taping in Kelowna on August 5. So, not passing up a chance to see the recently-acquired Ultimo Dragon live, plans were quickly made to stay a couple nights at Dan's grandparents' house, and wrestle with OCW (the Osoyoos kids & Kyle) the day before the show. So we (me, Dan, Justin) headed on down to Osoyoos, and it was fucking hot. I believe that show set the record for hottest backyard event ever: 40ºC. Goddamn. People were getting blown up in three minutes. Not a good day for wrestling, but a GREAT day for FUN. There were no "great" matches, hell, there were no "good" matches, but the whole show was just fun as hell. Kyle was crazy as usual, and me Dan, & Justin brought the funny also. I could go into all the funny shit, but just watch the video on our site (which, incidentally, won the Backyard Wrestling Link "Music Video of the Year" 2003 - props to Dan, who made it). CHICKENS~!

The Smackdown show was pretty good too. There was a real fun match on Velocity: Spanky & Funaki vs. World's Greatest Tag Team (Hass & Benjamin). WGTT had tons of great double teams, and Spanky is an awesome face. We also got to see our Ultimo, in match #872 of 2043 matches with Shannon Moore. We marked pretty huge for the opening contest on Smackdown: Benoit vs. Eddy, pretty much the best possible matchup in the WWE. They wrestled for a while. Then it turned into Benoit & Tajiri vs. Eddy & Rhyno. Also very fun. Undertaker vs. John Cena was baaaaaaad and looooooong. They went through like two commercial breaks. And the commercial breaks were the fucking worst, too, as Taker would just walk aimlessly around the ring for two minutes. The most baffling thing about this was in Dean Rasmussen's "Smackdown Workrate Report" on the DVDVR, he loved it! He was calling Undertaker the MUGAtaker, and he was really high on Cena too. Were we watching the same match? Dean often tries to put positive spins on things that basically suck. Hey Dean, don't shit in my mouth and call it a sundae.

The next wrestling related thing was on August 14, when Merc & Shane had a match at the Aubrey ring. It wasn't a VCW match, though. Merc still wanted no part of a fed with Wade in it. So he started the GWF (Gimmick Wrestling Federation), which, in its full tenure, had one match: this one. So Merc & Shane had a 'rassle, I filmed, and Justin reffed. 'Twas the first and last we heard of the GWF, as Merc was back in VCW not too long after. Before he came back, I asked if he wanted to come to a show, and he said no, because Wade would be there. I said, "You know, you could come and just not talk to him." He replied with, "Hmm, I guess I can." And he was back.

August 17 was our next Wrestleplex show. This was the first show not supervised by Fabio, as he just gave me the key. Thus, we started late and ended REALLY LATE. The OCW kids were in town, so we had them in the opening bouts. The two main events were Dan vs. Justin, in Justin's last match before heading back to NY, and me defending the Triple Crown against Kyle. Dan/Justin was very good (though, as is the trend, I'm not going into detail about how the match went). They exchanged a ton of strikes, and finished with the Chono/Takayama Double KO finish. Kyle had just got back to Van-City that day. I headed out to Burnaby, and we went up to Aubrey to figure out a match. In about 30 minutes of planning we figured out a pretty good one. We went and did it, and it turned out great. We were shooting for late 90's All Japan, but apparently we WEREN'T spotty enough (what are the odds?). This marks the latest match to take place in VCW, as it started at close to 3:00 a.m. All the OCW kids were falling asleep. Alhtough, maybe we should do more shows at that time. It turned out pretty well.

Kevin got back from Ontario on August 23, so we did a show. It only had me, Kevin, Wade, Matt, and Luke. It wasn't very good. Although I did get to kill Luke.

On August 26, Dan & I were heading down the Lougheed Highway toward Vancouver, were approaching Kyle's house, had my video camera, and, thus, saw the oppotunity for hijinks. We stormed the house with Kevin & Wade inside, video camera on, not really knowing what we were going to do. We fake-attacked them, although Wade thought it was real and kicked Dan in the mouth. This may be surprising, but I find this to be one of the most baffling/dumbest things Wade has done. I mean, we're his FRIENDS, and we come into the house laughing, and he kicks Dan in the mouth. Anyway, the hilarity continued, as we grabbed a random CD, and ran out to my car. Wade gave chase and jumped onto my roof. We were frightened, so we gave him the CD and drove off, leaving us with quite the funny video.

Two days later, we had a show, and, ironically, the only four people there were me, Dan, Kevin, and Wade. So we figured it would make perfect sense to do a tag match based off the VCW HOME INVASION~! of two days prior. Some people think the Home Invasion was a worked, pre-planned angle to set this up. Nope. If it was, that would have been the stupidest work ever. Anyway, the tag match turned out great. One of our best.

September 5 would turn out to be our last Aubrey show. We stopped going for a while after that, due to having the Wrestleplex every week. When we eventually came back in late October, the wood and tarp were gone. All the tires and padding are still there, so I guess we could rebuild it if we really wanted to, but we don't really have a "home base" to go to after shows because Kevin & Kyle's mom moved to North Vancouver. Anyway, this show was the debut of Kyle & Kevin as the "Backyard Militia", decked out in wifebeaters, mesh hats, and cammo pants. They were planning on doing this a bunch more, but as yet, they've only done it once. This show was Luke getting murdered. Over and over. Luke vs. Wade is generally accepted as the most uncooperative match ever, as neither would let the other get anything, and it ended up as a bunch of bad submissions. However, the ending more than made up for the rest. Wade managed to totally spike Luke with a Thunder Fire Powerbomb, then he picked him up and hit a REALLY sick Supernatural Driver. But Luke's night wasn't over. It was me & him against the Backyard Militia. I didn't tag in much, as I wanted to see what would happen. And I'll tell you what happened: Luke got FUCKED UP. Kyle & Kevin, at one point, hit like eight straight highflying moves on him, the two nastiest being a Moonsault Senton by Kevin, and Kevin Chokeslamming Kyle onto Luke, full force. This show also marked the return of "Good Enough 2" Peter Piscopo. He was, of course, last seen getting punched in the face by Kyle in June '02 in The Desert. He had contacted me a little while earlier and said he wanted to wrestle again. So, he did. He even hyped up his return on the board, posting pictures of his new, bigger self with captions like "Is he on the juice?!" and other quite humourous things. His match was, of course, with Kyle, who punched him in the face... twice (psychology)! Overall, not a great show to go out on at Aubrey, but any time you end with a bunch of death like there was in the tag match, I ain't gonna complain.

For three Sundays from September 14 to September 28, we had a really sweet deal worked out. VBW ha the ring until 4:00 or 5:00, and then we stuck around a did a VCW show free of charge, because I had the key to the place. The 14th wasn't very good. The 21st wasn't very good, except for Dan vs. Wade, which was REALLY good. Another nice thing was that Shane seemed to be back full time at these shows, after only wrestling 4 times previously in 2003. He did some fun stuff with the returning and JUICED-UP~! Peter Piscopo. Somewhere along here, Fabio told us that the ring was going to be moving, because the guy who owns the place was leaving. So on September 28, we did the "LAST SHOW EVAR~! (until next week)." Or so we thought. It was certainly the last show ever at that Wrestleplex, but we just as certainly did not have a show the next week, or the week after. In fact, our next show was December 7, more than 9 weeks later. That'll teach us to give shows names like that. Bad hoodoo. Nevertheless, September 28 was cool. We had me debuting my new patent leather boots that I got from Highspots, as well as my gold Ribera's jacket, that I got from Tom Howard (how he got it, I'll never know). To open things up, I drove right into the Wrestleplex, which was neat, and made for a good opening on the music video. We had the surprise return of Juggalo, entering to "Take on Me" by A-Ha, which was priceless (as was his Mark Henry-esque offense). Dan & Wade had a rematch from the previous week, and it was even better than that one. One of VCW's best ever. They finished with a Jericho Spike (later renamed the Psych Spike), which looked tremendous. The main was me vs. Kevin, with Kevin finally getting the win and the Triple Crown. This made Kevin the first non-Four-Horsemen member to win the Triple Crown (besides Andrew Poole in 2000). We were long overdue for a fresh champion, and Kevin was it. The match was good, better live than on tape, as it was all about the emotion, which doesn't always translate well on tape. Regardless, we were both still happy with it. The finish was planned to be a Shooting Star Senton. When he did it, he got the rotation fine, but just grazed me with the impact, so we called an audible for a new finish. He ended up putting me away with three Running SSP's. Turns out we had a good camera angle on the Shooting Star Senton, and could have used it as the finish, but we wanted to be safe. A couple days later, Kevin was back to Ontario for 9 months. We didn't know it was 9 months at the time, or else we might not have given him the title. But no matter, it'll all work out.

The reason we didn't wrestle in October was because the ring was "between Wrestleplexes" (i.e. in Troll's backyard). The reason we didn't wrestle in November was because VBW fucked it up, which we'll get into later.

Halloween was wacky. It started off by me going to Kyle's, and somehow I got roped into helping him move. By the time that was over, it REALLY didn't seem like Halloween, and we were both pretty pissed off. However, we met up with Dan, and the three of us decked in wrestling masks stormed Dos's house for some Halloween shenanigans. We had a bunch of fireworks, so we went to a nearby park and had us a Roman Candle War (and filmed it!). Fun times. What started off incredibly shittily (yeah, that's a word) turned out to be a pretty fun Halloween. Hooray!

As said before, Dan and I probably could have wrestled each other at the October ASW show (in fact, I think we were given the option), but we wanted to get some more training in beforehand. So, in some training sessions in November, we whipped up a 10-12 minute match, Fabio liked it, and away we went. November 29th was our official pro debut. Of course, Kyle and I had debuted over a year earlier, but neither of us were trained, so let's call that an "Exhibition Match" or something. It'll be our "lost episode." Anyway, I wish I had some interesting stories about the debut, but it was pretty normal. We went out, the crowd was GREAT, we did our match, it was pretty good, and we got some compliments in the back afterward. All in all a positive experience. There's sure to be more in '04.

On December 7, we finally got to run shows again, now at the new Wrestleplex. It occurred to us that we hadn't done our annual "November thing that involved the Canadian Title", that of course being the Best of the Rest. We decided to do an 8 man tournament for a Canadian Title shot against Matt. We were going to do it all in one night, but we ran out of time after the opening round. This may have been for the best, as Wade would have had to wrestle four matches in one night had we done it all on the 7th. On the 15th we concluded the tournament. Although, it didn't quite work out. Shane couldn't make it, so Dan got a bye to the finals, and Ruckus couldn't make it, so Dredd subbed for him against Wade. One nice thing was that the two-show tournament lent itself to the PRIDE-style title, BOTR2003 Opening Round and BOTR2003 Final Rounds. Speaking of Final Rounds, Dan and Wade cranked out another gem in the finals. Dan hit his first tope, which was really sweet.

December 21 was honestly good days, as Ruckus and Dredd brought their VBW Tag Titles and spraypainted them with "VCW." The final nail in the coffin for VBW. We also finally got Kyle back for a show. We were planning to do me & Dan vs. Kyle & Justin, where the winner would get a Triple Crown shot and a plane ticket to Ontario to wrestle Kevin for the title. We had some stuff planned out, but the night before at Dan's house, while thinking of spots, Dan cleverly decided to do a shoot Yoshi Tonic on Justin and wrenched his knee out of place, leaving him unable to wrestle the next day. So we replaced Dan with Wade, and now we had nothing planned. Despite that, it was pretty decent, and Kyle debuted his Top-rope Moonsault, with which he SMOKED Justin in the kidneys. Kyle was going to Ontario to visit his dad & Kevin, and probably to wrestle in WSW with Kevin, so we just worked it into a storyline.

December 30. Whew, last show to write about. We started off interestingly, as there was some construction going on at the Wrestleplex, so we had to film very close to the ring. In the opener, Wade vs. Luke, Wade decided for whatever reason to do a 619 thingy around the outside post. However, he neglected the fact that I was filming right there and absolutely smoked the camera (and my eye, which was on the camera). Fortunately, the only thing that broke was the battery release tab, so it could have been a lot worse. But still. Fuck. The worst part? The fact that Wade didn't even know what he was going to do with the move. He just did it. Fuck. We had our first of what was to be many shoot tags ("Contenders") on this show, as it seems to be over with the kids. Shane & I started a semi-full-time tag team by the name of Three Times One Minus One (yanked directly from Mr. Show). We tagged once in May, and ripped the "Top tag team in [insert fed here] and we will rock you... like a hurricane" gimmick from Dunn & Marcos, and we wanted to do it some more. We tagged against Justin and Dan, and it turned out pretty well. Good psych, and we got to do our favourite double teams, those being the High Times(~!) and the T-GIMMICK. And that was it. We closed '03 with a T-Gimmick. Hey, fine by me.

I didn't know where to fit in the whole VBW fiasco, so I figured I would save it for the end and do it in one big go.

I believe it was Dos who first got in contact with the VBW folks (don't quote me on that, though). They said they were starting up again and were going to be renting the ASW Wrestleplex, just like us. They also revealed to him, for whatever reason, that their website design was stolen from thefourthperiod.com, some hockey site. Anyway, they said we could wrestle with them and do some kind of mini-invasion angle, and I, always looking to get some more wrestling in, went for it. We (me, Kyle, Kevin, Dos) went to a "meeting" at Kehlin's (James Blade's) house. Immediately, we knew things were a little different in VBW than in VCW. First off, they had meetings. Secondly, I am the second oldest guy in VCW, and I was easily one of the youngest guys in VBW. Their ages ranged up to 26. Goddamn! Wrestling at 26? Fine. Backyarding at 26? I dunno... I'm not gonna say anything bad, on the offchance I go crazy and keep backyarding for another 6 years. Next, they had us sign fucking contracts. It was mostly about liability and shit, but still, something seemed incredibly fucked about signing contracts in a backyard fed. And herein lies the problem. I don't think they thought they were a backyard fed. They had a pro ring now, so they must be a pro fed, right? Yeeeah. Oh, I should mention at this point that Corey Callahan (Eric Cage) seemed to be the head honcho guy, and easily the weirdest/creepiest/craziest. We took it in stride, as he seemed to be basically harmless. He did most of the talking at the meeting, and while I can remember very little of what he said, it is his oratory that, above all else, convinced us that VBW was crazy. Anyway, after this, we all headed off to BCIT where we did a semi-professional photo shoot for bio pictures on the website. Again, weird shit. Another odd thing that struck us was that not everyone in VBW was friends. In fact, it seemed like a lot of them didn't much care for each other and had nothing in common other than wrestling.

The first show we did was "Clash of the Titans," the main event of which was a Royal Rumble-style battle royal called the "Titan Clash." Awesome name, huh? Who are the ad wizards that came up with that one? So the same four of us that went to the meeting were in this battle royal. There wasn't anything spectacular done: Kyle was pretty solid, Kevin did some flips, Dos made his one and only appearance in VBW (come to think of it, this was the last time Dos wrestled), and I lariated Big Mofo Rob really hard. At this show, they had like 4 professional cameras (presumably from BCIT), lighting, and an entrance way. Can you say overkill? This was, however, the first and last time they ever had all this stuff. I guess they gave up on it. It was taped on, I believe, March 15, and was scheduled to be posted online in full on April 1. That must have been an April Fool's joke, because it didn't get posted on the 1st. Or the 2nd. Or EVER. For such a professional fed, they really couldn't get it together.

After Clash of the Titans, we had seen enough of VBW to know that we wanted nothing to do with them, but at the same time wanted to stick around and witness more delusional hilarity. So we did. After COTT, Kevin & Kyle pretty much disappeared from VBW, and it was pretty much me, Dan, and Justin the whole time. The deal VBW had worked out was that they got the Wrestleplex every Sunday from about 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for $100. So everyone paid $10 per show, which was fine, I guess, except that there were usually 15 or so people there, meaning Corey was usually making a few bucks each week, which wasn't really fair to the rest of the guys. We VCW types stopped paying in early July when we started training. We figured we shouldn't pay for training AND the ring rental. We never really cleared this with anyone (though we told Corey we did). But whatever, he had enough people to cover the weekly rental price, and we didn't really like him. So there. Anyway, the idea was that they would tape a "Wednesday Warfare" (TV episode) over each two-week span, and put up the edited episode on their website every other Wednesday. That was the idea, anyway. In the 8 months that VBW ran, they managed to put out 5 Warfares, every one of which was late (obviously). Furthermore, I don't think they ever started taping before 2:00 p.m., despite the fact they had been there 4 hours already. This, of course, didn't stop Corey from berating me for coming in late (between noon & 1 p.m.) every week. There was an incredible amount of screwing around and uselessness, even by VCW standards.

So we continued with the every (well, most) Sunday thing, for a while, each week getting a little more fed up with how retarded the majority of the people were. There were often pre-taping speeches to the group by Corey, which produced some brilliant lines, which I quote in my second rant below. Speaking of the people, though, it became pretty apparent to us that Dallas Kline, Ruckus, and Drake Dredd all really hated Corey (and VBW in general), and were just there because it gave them a place to wrestle each week. Needless to say, we became friends with these guys. Another interesting thing was the numerous "aside talks" that Corey and Kehlin had with me. They'd take me aside from the group and tell me booking plans and what have you that, really, could have been said in front of everyone without anyone giving a shit. It was weird as hell. My favourite was the second (and last) meeting at Kehlin's house, where they took me out of the general population in the living room into the bedroom and told me that they were going to push me: "Dude, you took on Big Mofo Rob... and won!" Whoop-de-doo. I tried to feign enthusiasm, but I don't think it worked. Another great one was at one of the first Warfare tapings where they took me around the side of the building and told me how they had huge plans for VBW, and with the internet on their side, they were going to be bigger than ECW in a matter of months, and bigger than the WWE in 3 years. They asked me if I thought this was possible, and I think I managed to force a "yeah, for sure", whilst fucking exploding with laughter on the inside. I didn't feel it was the time or the place to shatter their little world that they had built up so nicely. 

Dan had less patience than I did with VBW, and was really wanting to quit VBW altogether, and thus didn't go for a while, leaving me & Justin for a few shows. I convinced Dan to stick around for the next "PPV", which was a three-way eliminiation trios match of VBW vs. OTB vs. VCW, and the one after, when Dan & I would have a match (apparently in front of a "big crowd", although that show never happened). Oh yeah, I should mention the Pest business. On March 30, Dan did an online interview with Pest (at Pest's request), and then we put it up on our site (at his request). We then took it down for a few days (at VBW's request). This was because it was Pest blasting Corey and other VBW members and basically saying how they screwed him over and how much he hated them. Two months later, he's in VBW. What the fuck? Can you get more carny? None of us ever really asked him why he was wrestling with his supposed mortal enemy (Corey), as it was too weird and confusing a subject to broach. It later came out that he "did it for him, not for Corey or anyone else", but that didn't really answer anything.

So "Bragging Rights", the aforementioned PPV with the trios match, came along. It was okay. They booked the fuck out of it, and in the end the final two people were me and James Blade. We wrassled a bit, and it was fine (although Kehlin will tell you it was awesome/legendary/the greatest of all time/etc.), and the finish was me taking a Van Terminator, which looked pretty good (although Kehlin will tell you it was sick/killed/looked like I was unconscious or dead/greatest of all time/etc.). Whenever Kehlin talks to me, he almost invariably brings this up, and while it was perfectly fine, it was, at best, a mediocre match by our standards, so I really don't get as jazzed up about it as he does. I usually try to fake it, though (although I guess I'm blowing that by writing this, but whatever). My feelings on it are the same as what Merc said to Kehlin on our message board: "Scott did a decent job of carrying you."

Not too long after Bragging Rights, the ring moved locations, and it was in limbo for most of October. In November, it was at the new location and so was VBW. The night before the first VBW show at the new Wrestleplex, I mentioned Kevin & Wade coming. Corey said they weren't allowed because they would "distract" the other guys, at which we had quite a good laugh (it should be noted that Corey was becoming an increasing dick every week). Nevertheless, Kehlin asked them to come afterward. So Kyle & I go and do some head drops on the new crash mat (fun!), which for some reason, really freaked out/pissed off Kehlin & Pest. I guess they had never seen a high impact move before. Ah well. Then we went and picked up Kevin & Wade, and brought them back. Corey wouldn't allow them in (again with the "distracting" business). We thought he was joking, but it turned out he was serious. Well, that was it. Kevin & Wade left, and Kyle & I were right behind them. It wasn't fun anymore. It had gone from observing the silliness from the outside, to putting up with a bunch of bullshit on the inside, and we didn't need that. So we left. For good. We decided to go to Aubrey Hall and do our own show, but when we got there, it had been dismantled Bainbridge-style (tarp missing, some wood missing, tires strewn about). It had been at least two months since we had last been there, so it wasn't all that surprising. Homemade wrestling rings left unattended on public property don't last that long. Suffice it to say, it was a shitty day: big falling out with VBW, and no Aubrey ring. That night, Corey removed our bios from the website, banned us from the message board, and told everyone that we had been fired. Nice. Anyway, that pretty much covers the unpleasantness. I go into more detail in my two rants below.

Things looked grim for our heroes, but just when things seemed their darkest, a ray of light was starting to shine through (damn, my writing gets really gay at 6 a.m.). The VERY NEXT WEEK after the incident, there was... another incident. Only this time we weren't there. Apparently, "someone" (Raptus) had been caught fucking some rat on video upstairs in the Wrestleplex, and also, they had left the back door open, which they had been specifically instructed numerous times not to do. Needless to say, this severely pissed off the Hell's Angels owner of the place, and VBW was kicked out FO' GOOD~! The downside, of course, was that Fabio and ASW were also kicked out, but that only lasted a few weeks until the owner dude "cooled down." So as of December 7, 2003, the Wrestleplex was ours and only ours, and VBW WAS FUCKING DEAD. SWEET JUSTICE. I had been lobbying Fabio to boot VBW since about September, but he kept them around because he's a nice guy and because they help a lot with the rent (which I understand). But it turns out they didn't need me. They completely fucked themselves. But wait, there's even more. Apparently Corey hadn't paid rent since like August, and owed Fabio $800. He totally had the money (at least at one point), because people definitely paid each week. He said he had left the binder containing all the money at the Wrestleplex one night, and when he came back it was gone. Why would there be more than one week's rent in the binder? Regardless, if he's lying, then he's a scumbag (copyright Fabio on that term), and if he's telling the truth, then he's stupid. The smart money says that it's a little bit of both. As of the time of this writing, Fabio is suing Corey for the $800 at Small Claims Court. Yes!

Oh, and you can only imagine how many calls I received from various VBW misfits wanting to wrestle with us now. The best ones were the people who talked mad shit about us when VBW was around, but were now begging to be on one of our shows. Good times. Speaking of good times, December 21 sealed the deal for VBW. Ruckus & Dredd, who had pretty much been with us since September, brought the VBW Tag Team Titles and spraypainted them with "VCW", making them the new VCW Tag Team Titles. Awesome.

FUCK! I just realised that I left out one of the primary reasons that we stuck around with VBW for so long. We were hoping upon hope that one of us (most likely me) would receive a VBW Title shot. Whether booked to win or lose, we were going to shoot on them and win the title. Then, we were going to take the belt to a VCW show and do some 24/7 Rule Battle Royal gimmick, where every single person on our roster would win the title, so we could always announce ourselves as "former VBW World Champion." Then, when we were done playing with the title, we would have Merc or someone as the last champion, and offer to defend it against anyone in VBW in a shoot. We thought that was pretty damn hilarious. But sadly, it never came to pass, as VBW did more selfish booking than WCW in 1999. It was the Corey and Kehlin show. Always. I'm amazed some of the undercard guys who were better than those two didn't get more pissed off than they were. I know I would have been. However, as a casual observer, I found it all quite amusing.

As if you're not tired enough already of reading my shit, here is the rant I posted on the VBW Board the day after our last ever VBW date (late October, I believe):

This is very seldom the case, but I agree with some of Psych's points (in both of his posts). "VBW", you sure seem to take things seriously, considering you're not a professional fed. You DON'T think it's "just backyard wrestling"? Uh, what do you think it is, exactly? It's for fun, nothing more. If you think it's something more than that, you're fucking delusional.

The first thing I should probably address is the "unsafe" move. I should preface this all by saying that EVERY move we did was onto a 1-foot-thick crash mat, where it is, for all intents and purposes, IMPOSSIBLE TO GET HURT. Yeah, everyone conveniently forgot to mention that little fact so far. I believe the first thing that happened was when Lenny D was doing Arabian Moonsaults onto the crash mat. He's not very good at them and basically landed on his head/neck every time, and we had a good laugh. There was never any danger, because, as stated earlier, it was onto a fucking foot-thick crash mat. Pest got angry at this, which was odd because Pest is usually pretty chill. The Goat also said something to the effect of "don't do dangerous/head-dropping moves", and then I jokingly said, "Like this?" and did a Burning Hammer (Inverted DVD) onto Lenny D (again, onto the big mat). I have done this move to Lenny upwards of 20-30 times, every time being on a much harder surface than this (usually an actual ring with about 1-2 inches of padding, and every time he has been fine. We do it once onto a FUCKING CRASH MAT (hate to keep repeating myself), and apparently that's cause for commotion. Whatever, I don't get it. Maybe it's because so many people in VBW are petrified of getting hurt and are scared by anything more high-impact than a bodyslam. Keep in mind, if the crash mat wasn't there, we wouldn't have done ANY of what we did yesterday (although it wouldn't have been much of a problem, as we've done it all before with no crash mat).

Now, this part is probably going to sound arrogant, and I apologize in advance for it:

Don't any of you ever fucking dare to tell me what is safe and what isn't. I've been training four days a week for months, so I think it's safe to say that I have a basic understanding of in-ring safety. I've seen Fully Automatic injure Dredd with a Belly-to-Belly. I've seen incredibly unsafe weapon shots. I've seen Raptus drop Red Money directly on his head with a DDT (I'm still amazed he wasn't hurt). Fuck, I've seen Raptus injure HIMSELF when he ran into the fucking corner. So don't EVER tell me what's safe. Ever.

"Everyone in the VBW is good friends, almost like family." Err, not from what I've heard and seen, buddy. There's a whole buncha hate. That's what perplexed us (VCW) about you guys when we first started doing stuff with you: we didn't understand how or why a bunch of guys, many of whom didn't seem to be friends at all, wrestled together. VCW is a group of friends who happen to wrestle together. I'm not going to point out who hates who in VBW, because that's not my place, but I will say there seems to be some hate for Cage, Raptus, and Wigga T, among others (not from anyone in VCW - we don't hate, we appreciate). So don't tell me you're one big happy family. That's ridiculous.

As for VCW being aloof or whatever, I don't think any of us have consciously done that. I've talked to a couple guys, and they said that we never seemed like we were above other people. And it appears that Chicho just pointed this out also. Maybe we kept to ourselves sometimes, but doesn't it make sense that if you're with a couple friends amongst a group a people you don't know very well, that you'll stick with the friends? Isn't that just logical? That said, I consider Ruckus, Dredd, Dallas Kline, Scott Idol, Goat, Dempsey, Jimmy Dean, and Pest to be friends, and at the very least I'm on good terms with everyone else. I'd say that list is about the same for Makabe too. So I don't know where you get this "antisocial" shit from. Maybe we didn't talk to YOU much, Corey, because you seemed kind of crazy/creepy/autistic. It's not all about you. For the most part, I think we were plenty social with most of VBW.

And it's an odd way to word it, but of course we were using VBW for the ring time. We like to wrestle, so wrestling with you guys let us do that more often. Isn't that why everyone is there?

Regarding the "showing up late" thing: I'm pretty sure I never asked for any sympathy. I usually go to bed around 4:00-5:00 a.m., and I would have to get up at around 8:30 to be at VBW at 10:00, and that's something I'm not too big a fan of. Thus, I usually get there around noon. Getting there at noon, I don't believe I have EVER missed any filming, as it appears that 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. is "screwing around time." Although, if I showed up at 10:00, I'm sure things would be ready to go at 10:30, so I apologize for single-handedly slowing everything down.

Speaking of apologies, Chris Mason and Psychotic Kid are both very sorry for walking in the door and distracting everyone yesterday. They had forgotten that they were basically magnets for everyone's eyes, and nothing could get done with them around. This was especially important, seeing as you didn't have a camera and DIDN'T FUCKING TAPE ANYTHING YESTERDAY.

Speaking of taping, I brought my camera yesterday. And there was no VCW show scheduled. So, by deduction, I'd say I brought it there to tape VBW. In fact, it was the only camera there (for such a "professional" organization, you sure don't have your shit together). But when Mason & Psych were told to leave, I left with them because I didn't want to stick around and put up with more of that shit.

Not too sure about everyone's idea of a "business", but VBW is not one. Providing a service alone is not enough to qualify something as a business. The crazy guy on the corner of Hastings and Main provided a service to me (amusement) by having an argument with a lamppost. But surely that is not a business. I'm pretty sure money/service has to change hands in both directions for something to be a business. As I see it, money is paid to rent the ring... and that's it. Although, it's not like no one is making money. For a while there, Corey was making about $20-$50 a week, seeing as he had to pay $100 a week for the rental and 12-15 people were paying him $10 a week for it (do the math). Didn't know that? Well, I'm here to educate as well as entertain.

Word of advice to all the younger guys (hell, just about everyone for that matter) who actually want to do something semi-long-term with wrestling: why not get trained and join a professional organization (I mean, besides VBW, LOL). You basically get unlimited use of the ring, and then you get PAID to wrestle in front of a CROWD. That seems to be what most people want to do anyway. Might beat sticking around with Corey the Cult Leader. But hey, you never know, I was told that VBW would be bigger than WWE in three years, so we'll have to wait and see.  :roll:

I hate to bring up any VCW/VBW competition stuff, but I'm just going to do it once, and then most likely never mention it again, because it's retarded. I challenge you to show a VCW match and a VBW match to any professional wrestler or any other wrestling insider. Firstly, they would say that both matches suck, because they're backyard. However, when asked to actually compare them, the answer would invariably come back that the VCW match SMOKED THE SHIT out of the VBW match. We have a little thing called psychology, and, y'know, it's kind of important in wrestling. Yes, there's actually more to performing a wrestling match than 20 off-the-ropes spots that lead nowhere, followed by a Rock Bottom. Amazing, but true. Anyway, that's enough on the subject, because I really don't give a shit about competition, because it's pointless.

It is my feeling that Corey felt he could not get anywhere in professional wrestling, and thus decided to become King of the Backyard. Well, the position's all yours, chief, 'cause no one else wants it.

Finally, I think it's most rewarding to know the things I've done have been so appreciated. Like the time I let you use my camera to tape a show and then lent you that rather-expensive camera so you could put it all on your computer. Like the time Yakuza & I imparted a bit of our professional training and showed everyone how to bump and run ropes (although that was basically a fruitless effort). Like when I taped some matches for people, and then uploaded all of them at people's request (Wigga T vs. Chicho, Dallas Kline vs. Zeus McFly, Pest vs. Kenny Perfect). I didn't have to do any of that, but I did because I thought it would be nice and/or helpful. Yup, goes to show how far being nice and helping out gets you.

Anyway, best of luck with your pretend indy fed with no trained wrestlers. You are most definitely going places.

P.S. I'm actually interested to see if anyone picks apart my arguments, because I don't think I've left any holes in them, but I've been wrong before.

P.P.S. It should probably be noted that The Goat ASKED Mason and Psychotic Kid to come yesterday, because he'd like to wrestle with them (which explains the confused look on Goat's face when Corey wouldn't let them in).

Also, here is my second rant, basically aimed at Corey Callahan/Eric Cage, after he posted on our board denying he owes Fabio any money and that he's "getting out of the wrestling business." I posted this on December 20th:

Well Corey, Fabio says you're a lying scumbag, and that's good enough for me.

But let's say you actually did honestly leave the binder there and it got stolen or whatever. Fine. The fact remains that you're a completely delusional weirdo. You thought you could turn a fed that was primarily composed of untalented backyarders into a successful indy? LOL, good luck with that, bub. And those pre-show speeches you did at the beginning of most VBW tapings? God, I wish I had taped some of those. Solid gold quotes like "I spend 80 hours a week on VBW" and "This isn't supposed to be for fun; it's more like a job" and "I think in three years, we can honestly be bigger than the WWE." You can't BUY comedy that good. That's pure Callahan. And furthermore, for all the time and effort you put into VBW, what do you have to show for it? You've been up and running shows since March 15 (not sure how I remember that), and all you've got is 5 Warfares, 1 "Pay-Per-View", and a website with a stolen design. Sweet deal. In that same time, VCW (who, basically, doesn't give a shit), has cranked out like 25 shows, and uploaded tons of full, commentated matches, as well as music videos. I'm not even gonna mention match quality, as I could devote a whole rant just to that. Okay, I'll say one thing: remember when I was trying to show you armdrags, and you insisted that they were done on the right and that left-side armdrags "were a whole other different move", despite that my professional training (and prior wrestling knowledge) said otherwise? How retarded are you?

And telling people that VCW was "fired"? That's a class act right there. As I recall, Kyle (Lenny D) and I walked out on your rinky dink organization, never to return, after you were an utter dick to Kevin (Chris Mason) and Wade (Psychotic Kid). For those who don't know the story, Kyle & I were at a VBW show, and all was well (well, except that people were pretty freaked out about head-drop maneuvers onto A FOOT-THICK FOAM PAD! THE HORROR!). Anyway, we went and picked up Kevin & Wade, and when we got back, Corey said Kevin & Wade were not allowed in the room, because they were "disracting the other guys." I'm not sure what was so distracting, seeing as they hadn't said a word yet, and their clothes weren't particularly flashy, but apparently they were distractions nonetheless. Oh, and here's the kicker: James Blade ASKED them to come. Beautiful, huh?

Scott's final thoughts: You thought this was a "business." It's not. It's backyard wrestling. It's supposed to be for fun, and you ruined that. Not just for yourself, but for a bunch of other people too, some of whom were your friends. Way to go. Hope you're real pleased with yourself.

And if you're still interested in wrestling, well, no one is stopping you from training at ASW. It's excellent training, reasonably priced (as far as training goes), and you get to "follow your dream" or some bullshit. I should let you know, though, that should you start training, I, Dan, and most likely whoever else is there, will not hesitate in beating the fucking shit out of you (in a training context, of course).  ;)

Merry Christmas, Corey Callahan. The wrestling business has lost a dear friend.


If anything, the whole VBW deal sorta got me believing in karma. This is, of course, assuming that we (VCW) are the good guys and they (VBW) are the bad guys. Judging by the fact that we were on the opposing side to Corey, I'd say that's pretty accurate. So, the good guys form some kind of alliance with the bad guys (who are more weird than bad at this point), then the bad guys become total dicks, and things look grim for the good guys. Then the bad guys screw themselves over the VERY NEXT WEEK! A few weeks later, the good guys are back on top. Karma, baby.

Aaaaaanyway, it's been about 12,000 words, so I'll wrap this up. VCW had a good 2003. There. I probably could have saved some words by saying that earlier, actually.

And that's about all you need to know about VCW in 2003. I should know, I'm Scott Henson.