Broke Ass - Broken Bones
The phone call finally came. "Yeah Bill we'd love to book you for a three day run in Kansas, and bring one of your boys to work with. We will pop for your hotel and $300 each for the weekend."
As soon as I hung up with the promoter I gave my buddy Steve a call to tell them we were on for next weekend. Now, Steve was a decent worker and we did well in the ring together, but the reason I decided to take him was because he had a nice car and a cold-ass AC.
The day before the show Steve shows up in a piece of shit old Toyota, and states before a word can leave my mouth that the nice car is in the shop and that we are stuck with this POS. The six hour drive with no AC in the middle of a Missouri humid summer was pretty uneventful, except when I got pissed at a 7-11 clerk and threw a KFC bucket full of match books at him.
We arrived at the hotel and I went to check in. The promoter had not taken care of the room as promised, so I broke out the Visa and mumbled under my breath what a prick this guy was, before I even met him face to face.
At 9:00 the next morning Steve is up blasting Bad Company's "Holy Water", while showering and wanting to go see the sights.
Sights?
It's the middle of fucking nowhere, Kansas! Shut that fucking radio off and let me sleep this off! Needless to say I spent the next several hours visiting Indian gift shops.
Finally show time is rolling around and I'm pumped. We get to the arena and meet the rest of the boys. Great group of guys. Some of the best I've ever run into in the Indies, including a 7 foot monster of a human. I am glad I don’t have to work him. He is green as grass and as stiff as an oak tree in the ring.
So I get my gear on and give my manager the instructions on what Steve and I had planned. Damn! I forgot to bring my beer into the building with me, so I sneak out the back door and in full wrestling gear, make a mad dash to the car for my 6 pack... and step full-footed in the middle of a huge pile of dog shit.
At this point my manager is screaming out the door that my music is playing and I need to get to the ring ASAP. So I wipe the shit off as best as possible and run to the building. Now at this point in my career, my skills have turned to shit and I am just brawling and bleeding to get over. My gimmick is a blatant Sandman rip-off, but fuck it. It's BumFuck, Kansas, and no one outside of the East Coast has seen ECW at this point.
So I light my cigarette and grab a Budweiser and head for the ring. The Natural Guard Armory is packed; I am amazed at the number of people in there. So I'm strutting to the ring, smoking, talking shit to the fans and having a good time. Steve is already in the ring waiting,
Now, we had planned for him to get up and work the crowd, while standing in the corner on the second rope with his back to me. I am supposed to hit him from behind with a beer can to start the spot. He is in position and I crack the beer open. run up behind him. and nail him in the back with the open can.
Now we knew it would spew all over the place, and were ready for it. Unfortunately, the PA system is right under us at a table with the ring announcer and the promoter’s wife. I hear crackling and look down and there is the promoter’s wife with smoke coming from her. The PA is smoking, also.
Oh shit,
Well, the match must continue. While Steve is selling the sneak attack with the beer, I'm supposed to power bomb him. Now, he is a good 250 and I bend him over, grab on, he jumps, and I lift. I slip on the beer in the ring and end up dropping him and falling out of the ring through the ropes. I climb back in and we go back and forth for another 10 minutes until we get to the finish.
Now, the finish was supposed to be that he'd hit me with a moonsault (A back flip from the top rope) and just when he was going to pin me, my manager got on the ring apron and distracted the ref and Steve, allowing me to grab a pool cue I had placed under the ring earlier and clock Steve and get the pin.
Well once again Mr. Murphy, as in Murphy's Law, reared his ugly head. Steve climbs the ropes and gets set, while I make sure that I am ready for his fat ass to land on me.
He jumps, but doesn’t manage to get a full rotation, and next thing I know he has landed head first on my chest, breaking three of my ribs. He knocked the air totally out of me and bruised my heart, as I'd later find out.
Steve's okay and he is up arguing with my manager. I ain't moving a muscle, I'm hurt, and hurt bad. I can’t move. So Steve decides we need to keep going and comes over, starts bitching at me that I missed my cue, and starts trying to pull me up by my hair. I finally manage to grab his arm and pull him on top of me and hold him until the ref counts to 3.
At this point all the heels come out of the locker room to take me back to the dressing room. Since this is the National Guard Armory they have a medic on staff, and since he is finished with the promoter's wife (a little shocked but other wise okay) he is going to tend to me.
At some point during the match I had bladed (cut myself with a chunk of razor blade hidden in my wrist tape). They have me sitting in a chair, hardly able to move and this yahoo keeps trying to bandage my head. "You stupid fuck it ain't my head that needs help it's the chest!"
At this point I'm told the nearest hospital is 50 miles away and the town doctor is on his way. The Dr. Shows and he starts on the damn head so I have to yell at him also. He starts to feel around on my chest and says "Well some ribs might be broken but I can’t tell without an x-ray."
Fuck that. I am in no condition to ride 50 miles in a Toyota, with no AC, in the middle of summer. So we head back to the hotel. After a quick dab of Super Glue on the split in my forehead, I'm ready for bed. My wonderful traveling companion, and personal rib breaker - Steve, decides we need to hit the town.
"Dude do you remember what you did to me in the ring about an hour ago? Do I look like I want to hit a bar?"
He then starts to whine and complain about how he may never be able to go to this bar again, etc. Then he says the magic words "I'll buy all your drinks!" A quick change of clothes, and I'm in the car.
To be honest I don’t remember much about the rest of that night. Steve has pictures of me at some point standing on a table in the Dew Drop Inn leading the crowd of drunken Indians in the YMCA. (I'm Indian too so get your panties out of a wad.) We get in trouble with the hotel and cops because we invite half of the place back to our room.
So I awaken at about 3:00 PM the next day with a horrible hang over and the worst pain ever in my chest.
I tell Steve, "Dude I can’t work another night, much less 2 more. I'm in agony." We decide that we will drive to the next town, 30 miles away. He will work and I will tell the promoter that, due to the injury, I must wrap this up and go home.
We arrive. I tell the promoter the story, and he flips the fuck out on me and starts screaming about how if I don’t work the rest of the shows, I ain't getting paid, and neither is Steve, and he isn’t going to reimburse us for the hotel.
Fuck.
I get my gear on and head to the ring. I'm working Steve again, and he knows I'm fucked, so we are going to do a brawl around the building and neither of us has to fall down. Some how we end up on the bleachers when a fan hands Steve a garbage can. He proceeds to put it over my upper body and punches the shit outta' it.
I misjudge the distance to the step and now I'm rolling down some wooden bleachers with half of me in the garbage can.
I am not happy, to say the least.
Five minutes later, we wrap it up. I head back to the dressing room. The promoter is waiting for me. He tells me that the show for tomorrow is cancelled, hands me my pay in a sealed envelope and hits the door. Proper wrestling behavior states that I wait until I leave to open the envelope. We get in the car and start to head back to the hotel. I open mine and there is a $20 bill and a note stating that the rest of my pay was used to repair the PA and medical expenses and "Thanks for working for us."
We drive home that night, pissed and broke, with barely enough for gas and McDonalds. Life in the minor leagues sure sucks some times.
by
Barbed Wire Bill
