- EugeneJ
- Feb 5, 2012
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by FactsAreUseless
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quote:Part Four: Rob Black & The Dudleyz vs. Adult Video News
As the relations between Extreme Championship Wrestling and Extreme Associates grew more and more serious, Rob Black was disappointed to find a surprising number of his porn colleagues criticizing his decisions behind his back. Porn was and still is a close-knit industry that doesn’t take kindly to outsiders stepping onto its turf, and that’s exactly how many insiders interpreted the business relationship that was developing between Black’s company and ECW.
Although he was closely involved in negotiations with ECW head Paul E. Heyman, much of Black’s time was spent hanging out with wrestlers Buh Buh Ray Dudley (Mark Lamonica) and Big Dick Dudley (Alex Rizzo). In early January 1999, Rizzo and Lamonica even accompanied Black – along with his new girlfriend, Janet Romano (better known as Lizzy Borden) – to the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The two were such good friends with Black that, at the event, they willingly interjected themselves on his part into a confrontation that the Extreme Associates CEO found himself in with the wife of rival director John T. Bone (real name: John T. Bowen).
A few weeks later in a LukeFord.com article, Black told his side of events:
“One day at the show, out of the blue, Mrs. John Bowen starts calling me names. ‘You cocksucker. You rear end in a top hat. You're a jerk. You motherfucker.’ And everyone wondered ‘who was that?’ And I said, ‘I think that was John Bowen's wife.’ And they said, ‘why did she come out of the blue and bust your balls like that?’ And I said, ‘I don't know.’”
Hours later, Mrs. Bowen supposedly came and spit on Black as he and his crew were waiting for a taxi. Then, at the special CES-sponsored dinner that same night, events almost spiraled out of control, as Mrs. Bowen confronted the Black, Borden, and the two wrestlers and began yelling at them (especially Black). Borden ended up losing her temper and called Mrs. Bowen a “loving pig,” which – according to Black – sparked Mrs. Bowen to threaten them with “a loving bottle. Big Dick Dudley twisted it out of her hand. Then Bubba Ray Dudley told Bowen, 'if your loving wife hits anybody with a bottle, you're going down.’”
After the incident, Black went up to John Bowen and conceded to him that they “verbally go at each other” in AVN and similar publications, but that “this kind of assault is BS.” Bowen – according to Black – apologized for his wife’s actions, saying that “he was sorry, that his wife was out of control.”
Although AVN writer Paul Fishbein was at the AVN awards and – even if he didn’t see the incident unfold firsthand, he was almost certainly informed of its gist from his fellow AVN writers who did see what happened – he still had doubts that Black’s discussions with ECW were completely legitimate. It was of Black’s opinion that Fishbein and his associates “thought that because [then-AVN writer] Gene Ross and I [were] friends that it was just BS publicity.” Not willing to accept any skepticism about his relationship with ECW, Black thought of an idea:
“Well, I did them one better. I brought one of the five-time tag team champions of the world into the AVN offices.”
That’s right. Black (along with Tom Byron) responded by bringing Mark Lamonica a.k.a. Buh Buh Ray Dudley to the AVN offices on Tuesday, December 29, 1998, completely unannounced. Fishbein told LukeFord.com that he and other AVN officials “were in an editorial meeting” when the Byron, Black, Lamonica, and a cameraman who Black and Byron had bought along walked in. The cameraman taped a staged confrontation (wrestling-style, anotherwards) where – Black says – Lamonica “got into a big pissing match with Fishbein,” telling him that Extreme Associates should’ve won some of the recent awards given out by AVN. Some photographers snapped pictures of Lamonica gripping Fishbein by the neck and pretending to choke him. Shortly after the incident, Fishbein told Lukeford.com that he “liked Buh Buh and the whole thing was fine,” but that – even so – it still felt a bit “weird and uncomfortable.” He went on to say that “the pissing match really was like wrestling actually because it didn't feel real at all.”
Around this same time, Extreme Associate was in the midst of filming and producing the fourth edition of its “Whack Attack” series. Lamonica, Rizzo, Tommy Dreamer, and Francine Fournier were already in town, staying at Black and Borden’s house to celebrate the New Year’s holiday. At one point during New Year’s Weekend, Black talked with ECW superstar Taz (current World Wrestling Entertainment commentator “Tazz”) on the phone for a few minutes.
Black ended up bringing Lamonica, Rizzo, and Dreamer to the Extreme Associates studios and filmed them at various times of the day. The final cut of the “Whack Attack 4” production features some of this footage, including Lamonica, Rizzo, and Dreamer watching as a sex scene is filmed and Lamonica and Rizzo hanging out with Black and Borden at the airport. Black also filmed Dreamer talking on the phone with Scott Levy (a.k.a. Raven), who was in World Championship Wrestling at the time. However, that footage didn’t make the final product, as Dreamer requested that Black not include it out of fear that ECW boss Paul Heyman would be upset about possible legalities with WCW.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: For those 18 years of age or older, the DVD – which also contains personal footage that Black filmed while with Lizzy Borden and Tom Byron at an ECW show in Queens, NY [covered in the next part of this retrospective] – can be purchased at ExtremeAssocaites.com.)
Despite all of this interaction between Extreme Associates personnel and ECW talent, AVN’s Paul Fishbein remained skeptical of Black’s claims of discussions between himself and ECW. However, even more notably, Fishbein stood by what he wrote weeks earlier – while he admitted that AVN “wrote a ton about the wrestling stuff before it happened and it has been slow developing,” he insisted, nonetheless, that he “never thought [black] was full of poo poo.” He defended what he previously wrote:
“For marketing, talking about it will not get you a nomination for Best Campaign. But if it materializes (as it looks like it will) it will be a great coup for Extreme and [black] can market to the mainstream. Our [AVN’s] cut-off date for awards is 10/31/98 and the wrestling thing wasn't happening yet.”
Shortly thereafter, in January 1999, Lukeford.com received an anonymous e-mail from a user called “imlikgod,” claiming to be a wrestler who was at one of the shows at which Black and his crew were assigned formal roles.
This (supposed) wrestler even claimed to have competed on one of the two Monday night shows (anotherwards, WCW Nitro or WWF RAW). They wrote that “people recognized Tom [byron] but had no idea who Rob or Lizzy were” and that while some of the ECW wrestlers welcomed Black with open arms, some looked at his involvement in ECW in an entirely different manner:
“I have friends in ECW who have told me they look forward to smashing a chair over Rob's head. Not everyone likes it when some ‘mark’ off the street comes in and gets TV time.”
Black shrugged off those claims, telling Lukeford.com:
“He says he's with an A company. I don't know who he is...He must be unimportant…who cares what this guy says. He must be a jobber – someone who gets his rear end kicked by the big guys."
By this point in time, Rob Black was determined to go through with serious negotiations between his own company, Extreme Associates, and Heyman’s ECW brand, regardless of what the critics were saying. Criticism, after all, seemed to be what Black lived for, judging by his past promotional tactics and those that would follow in the coming years. An Extreme Associates/ECW business accord was coming closer and closer to fruition…
quote:Part Five: Rob Black and Paul Heyman talk interpromotional business
A few weeks before the skits involving Rob Black, Buh Buh Ray Dudley, and Adult Video News executive Paul Fishbein were filmed in December 1998, Black, Byron, and Black’s new girlfriend Janet Romano (a.k.a. Lizzy Borden) appeared on an episode of ECW Hardcore TV that was taped in Queens, NY. They accompanied Little Guido (current-WWE superstar Nunzio) to the ring, while the colossal 400-lb. Sal E. Graziano followed behind in a bodyguard role.
At the very next ECW show (this time in New Orleans), Black and his colleagues continued to engage in scripted confrontations with ECW superstars, which now included Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman. The ECW duo forcibly poured a Budweiser down Byron's throat shortly before Buh Buh Ray responded to Black’s calling him a "motherfucker" by attacking the crude Extreme Associates master with some shots to the crotch. Buh Buh Ray then proceeded to ridicule Byron, only to receive several whacks with a beer bottle and a steel chair by the porn legend.
The heat that Black, Byron, and Nikki's drew from ECW fans via their participation on the shows that weekend impressed ECW management to the point that the company's officials (most notably Heyman) kept in contact with Black. The E.A. owner continued to attend various ECW shows – mainly those in the New York area – for the rest of 1998 and regularly met with Heyman and other ECW representatives over the next few months to discuss possible forms of interpromotional dealings. There was even a point where several of the ECW wrestlers could be found in the lockerroom speculating amongst themselves that Black and Byron were in the process of buying ECW from Heyman.
Black could not have been more thrilled to be discussing such marketing strategies with Heyman. For one thing, he had been a fan of pro wrestling ever since he was a child, and was also an ECW enthusiast. He can, in fact, be seen wearing an ECW t-shirt and cap in some of his older productions (such as Jane Waters' The Pornographer), while he takes an opportunity to praise ECW in the sixth scene of E.A.’ “Free At Last” production.
However, even more important to Black's willingness to interact with ECW than this long-time passion for sports entertainment was that such discussions made one of his dreams that he had for several years come one step closer. He had been contemplating possible methods of blending his main priority, pornography, with his subsidiary hobby, pro wrestling, and the opportunity to work with Heyman and ECW offered a route to the possible realization of that fantasy.
Pro wrestling historian Sheldon Goldberg - who was one of the few people in the wrestling media to actually cover the development of the relationship between ECW and E.A. and even came up with the “XPW” name - wrote on 1Wrestling.com in July 1999 his opinion as to why Black wanted to enter the wrestling market:
“Black's view is that the prime young male audience for pro wrestling is the same demographic which are prime consumers of his adult film product. With Black's 'adult stars' lending celebrity luster to the wrestling product, perhaps a base of fans can be built that will benefit both the wrestling product and add marketing dimension to his current adult film business.”
Despite that article being written in July, which was after the deal with ECW had gone sour, but before XPW held its inaugural show on July 31, Goldberg’s take on the situation appears to be very close to the mindset that officials from ECW and Extreme Associates had in their prospective “cross promotion” with one another. Articles from the period - both from porn and wrestling-related publications - indicate that both companies intended to use the audience of the other’s organization (ECW’s hardcore wrestling fans and E.A.’s eager porno addicts, respectively) as a means of “cross-promotion," as Black later worded it.
After Black arrived back in the U.S. from a meeting in Brazil with representatives from that country’s premier porn company, Video Lips, he and Heyman really got down to business. February 1999 was the period during which most of the discussions between the two companies transpired. During that month, Black and Heyman negotiated together for what added up to between 15 and 20 hours, eventually reaching an agreement. The details of their accord surfaced to the porno media a month later in a March 3, 1999 posting on Adult Video News’ website.
According to the article (entitled Rob Black Finalizes Wrestling Deal), both parties (ECW and E.A.) agreed to advertise the other’s merchandise on their respective video tapes. A similar article (which appears to be based upon the original AVN article) from April 17, 1999 on RAME.net (the porn equivalent of pro wrestling’s RSPW) indicates that Heyman intended to air on his ECW home videos (which were distributed by RF Video at the time, as Pioneer Entertainment was still a year away from entering the picture) and its TV show 60-second advertisements for “Black’s new ‘Tits and rear end’ line of porno action figures as well as other Extreme Associates projects.”
Black’s right-hand man, Tom Byron, also figured into the picture, although his proposed role in the relationship between the two companies was one of the several facets of the plan that never panned out. The aforementioned RAME.net post indicates that the parties from ECW and E.A. discussed with one another the idea of airing skits on ECW TV that featured Byron in a role that resembled that of Val Venis’ WWF character around the same time. A different RSPW post than the April 17 one concurred with that claim, stating that “these ‘skits’ will be Tom Byron ‘casting calls,’ for porno movies,” and the same wording was used in AVN’s March 3 article.
ECW and E.A. were also planning to release action figures of Byron and Jasmin St. Claire. The April 17 RAME.net posting and the March 3 AVN article indicate that the Byron figure would be based on his porn character, while the Jasmin one would depict her as an ECW valet. Black also intended to air commercials for ECW on his porno videos, and he would try to use his relationship with the porno company, "Extreme Brazil," to help expand ECW's product into South America, a possibility that fascinated Heyman.
Black’s power in the porn industry and relationship with porn companies in the Brazil seemed to be the perfect route to achieving the distribution of ECW videos in Brazil and in establishing Internet promotion for ECW in that region. It is, however, unknown whether live events ran in Brazil by ECW were discussed, since the April 17 RAME.net post specifically says there were not, but a press release on RSPW did mention that possibility and, similarly, Black claimed in the March 3, 1999 AVN article that “We'll also be doing live wrestling shows in Brazil. I'll be the Brazilian ECW representative.”
Nonetheless, what is known for sure - as several AVN articles, along with various RAME.net and RSPW posts, confirmed it - is that Black was going to market ECW videos throughout Brazil. According to Black in his 2000 ScoopsWrestling.com interview, Heyman was going to let E.A. “buy his masters and distribute his product in Brazil.” Black elucidated about these plans in a March 12, 1999 article by AVN:
“I'm trying to work this Brazilian deal to distribute the tapes. Trying to hammer out the final things. The Brazilians like real stuff. They want it to be real. We're trying to put the matches together that look the most realistic - the barbed wire, the scaffolds - it's a f*cking nightmare. I'm looking at a bunch of tapes of a scaffold match where the guy falls like 20 feet to the ground. It's back and forth with ECW, trying to watch these tapes, trying to decide if we're going to make a compilation of the best five Extreme matches. We're going to release it, we just don't know what or when.”
Heyman had also been interested in holding some ECW cards on the West Coast of the U.S. for the first time ever. That wish eventually came to fruition (although through no help of Black’s) with the mid-2000 HeatWave Pay-Per-View, at which there was an altercation between ECW’s wrestlers and those of XPW. Since Extreme Associates was headquartered in California, Black believed that he had the necessary resources to assist ECW in funding shows in that area.
Sheldon Goldberg wrote on 1Wrestling.com in the above-mentioned article that if that were to happen, “Black would have assumed some sort of local promoter role, but ECW was reluctant to commit, since their TV in the market was felt to be inadequate. ECW tried to get Black into the fold, using some of Extreme's girls in valet-type roles and creating a cross-promotional relationship between the companies.” Goldberg claimed that the deal fell through the cracks because Black thought that “ECW was presenting a relationship that was too one-sided for his taste.”
The deal between ECW and E.A. also entailed Heyman giving Black permission to have his E.A. cameramen film his appearances on ECW shows and air them on his porn releases. In fact, cameramen for E.A. did just that for awhile, as they filmed Black, Borden, and Byron’s exploits at many of the ECW shows that they attended. Some of this footage was released on E.A.’s “Whack Attack 5” production, which also features Black and Borden goofing around with Tommy Dreamer, Buh Buh Ray Dudley, and Big Dick Dudley. Black also hoped to use this type of E.A.-filmed footage and footage that ECW provided him to “run trailers for the ECW product” on his Extreme Associates home videos (80,000 of which were selling per month, according to Black in his ScooopsWrestling.com interview).
E.A. was so serious about the impending relationship with ECW that it went so far as to hire John Blatt, a veteran of the porn industry, specifically to head up E.A.’s new sales division, which included the task of managing the launch of Byron’s “Tits and rear end” line. Blatt was hired by E.A. in March, several weeks after he had been let go by Plum Productions, for which he was a major executive.
Black’s plans for ECW also included supplying the services of another female valet to further ECW's claim to the hottest women sports entertainment had to offer. That woman was none other than Jasmin St. Claire, who – up until that point – had strictly been involved in pornography (dating back to 1994). Up until this point in time, Jasmin had never been involved in pro wrestling, other than being a fan of the sport from a young age. Although Jasmine tends to shy away from discussing her porn endeavors in recent wrestling-related interviews, she was - according to AVN archives - extremely intrigued by the prospect of being a driving force in the proposed Extreme Associates/ECW partnership.
Black explained in a mid-2000 interview with ScoopsWrestling.com how Jasmin would actually fit into the picture, saying that the previous year (1999), Heyman and him “were going to come up with an Internet company,” featuring Jasmin as one of the centerpieces. Heyman had proposed the idea of airing commercials on local TV or on ECW home videos that would advertise a web site:
“[The ads would] show Jasmin St. Claire in the commercial and say, ‘Do you want to see Jasmin St. Claire vacuuming the carpet?' and it would show her vacuuming.’ Dial up https://www. Whatever it was going to be’. You'd click into it and you'd see Jasmine vacuuming. But as you go a couple of more clicks it says, 'To see explicit action and you're 18, click here'.”
Black said that it would’ve cost him and Heyman a combined $20,000 per month to advertise through such means. However, he was apparently willing to take the chance, even saying that he had intended to promote this product “under the censors, under [Heyman’s] local people so they would never give a poo poo. They wouldn't know.” Even if there was a risk to these plans, Black was mesmerized by the thought of helping to manage the affairs of a pro wrestling company such as ECW.
Furthermore, from Heyman and ECW’s perspective, the deal probably seemed almost too good to pass up. E.A. owned special cameras, lighting equipment, and editing suites and was more financially stable than RF Video, which ECW was using as a dubbing house for its tapes, at the time. These luxuries allowed E.A. to put forth a pornography product which bragged unusually high quality production. In the same respect, this also offered ECW the opportunity to touch up it video merchandise and present it in a professional manner for the potential fans it sought to draw in from E.A.’s demographics.
Some things, however, aren’t meant to be, and as it would turn out, the cross-promotion between ECW and Extreme Associates was one of those things…
quote:Part Five: The ECW/Extreme Associates cross-promotion sours
However much Rob Black hoped for them to succeed, the negotiations between himself and ECW were arguably doomed from the very start. Although the falling-out between the two parties happened quite suddenly – one day, Paul Heyman stopped taking Black’s calls – the situation was actually quite a long time in the making. The relationship between the two companies was still healthy in late March 1999. Then-Extreme Associates porn star Jasmin St. Claire made her ECW debut on Sunday, March 21, 1999 at the “Living Dangerously” Pay-Per-View from Asbury Park, NJ, and was accompanied on the trip by Rob Black, Tom Byron, and Lizzy Borden accompanied her on the trip. The four left California on Thursday night to fly to Asbury Park, attended some pre-Pay-Per-View parties on Friday night, and then Black and Byron sat in on Jasmine’s Saturday morning training session with Francine, who she was going to be working with the following night. Black, Byron, and Lizzy sat in the crowd for the event itself on Sunday night, although they didn’t appear on camera.
Shortly after that Pay-Per-View, however, the relationship between Black and ECW gradually began to deteriorate. Paul Heyman worked extremely closely with Steve Karel, who was ECW’s business manager. Unbeknownst to many wrestling fans and journalists alike, Karel was thoroughly involved in the porn business for several years. Before joining ECW, Karel had helped fund porn films while working for CDI Home Video and had also been employed by Penthouse. At one point, Karel tried to sell the rights of a movie (which had featured St. Claire) that he had filmed to Extreme Associates, but when Black told him straight up that “this movie is a hunk of sh*t,” Karel took offense and their relationship soured. In an interview with ScoopsWrestling.com, Black had strong words for Karel:
“He so desperately wanted to be in the porno business, but everything he did was just garbage. I was essentially everything Steve Karel wanted to be. I was the big pornographer, I was the one who owned the biggest company in the business, I was the one who was the player in the porno business and he wanted to be the player. And I shunned his stupid f*cking movie.”
According to the Pro Wrestling Torch, PWInsider.com, and several other sources, Karel is still highly involved in the porn business. He is presently helping to fund the Women’s Extreme Wrestling federation, which frequently incorporates softcore porn into its product. He was even quoted in a January 7, 2005 Washington Post article about the resurgence of “peep shows” and the “skin business.” The article called Karel “an energetic PR representative for several adult bars” in New York, including - but not limited to - the Hustler Club at 51st Street and 12th Avenue in New York City. Despite his background and his continued involvement in the porn industry, Karel remained a close personal confidant of Paul Heyman long after the negotiations between Extreme Associates and ECW ended. Heyman was in daily contact with Karel right up until the day that he signed with WWE.
The potential working relationship between Extreme Associates and ECW met its nail in the coffin when ECW began discussing the possibility of penning a television deal for ECW with The National Network (TNN). Realizing that the odds of an agreement being secured with TNN would reduce substantially if the network discovered that ECW was doing business with a porn company, Heyman cut all ties with Black and Extreme Associates. According to those people who were close to the situation, Black was furious upon learning of the sudden decision and realizing that ECW executives (including Heyman) would no longer take his calls.
However, Mark Lamonica (a.k.a. Buh Buh Ray Dudley) was perhaps the most affected by ECW’s change of marketing policy because he – as opposed to Heyman, Karel, or somebody else from ECW’s “public relations” or legal department – was left to contact Black when he and his storyline brother, D-Von Dudley, began negotiating with the WWF in mid-1999 and he became concerned that if the WWF learned of his depiction in Extreme Associate’s “Whack Attack 5” production, the contract that was in the works between the Dudley Boyz and the WWF may be reneged upon. In his ScoopsWrestling.com interview, Black described Lamonica as being “a pawn in the game” at that point in time because one day, he had to be the one to telephone Black and plead with him to cancel the publication of the film, only to be told that the film had already been released.
Luckily for Lamonica, the cameo never turned into a problem, nor did it for Tommy Dreamer, who is also currently employed by the former-WWF, now WWE. Although it’s not known whether or not WWE management ever learned of the footage, its release certainly didn’t derail Lamonica’s success in WWF. However, unlike that of Lamonica (who Black maintains occasional contact with to this day), Rob Black’s future in pro wrestling wasn’t as clear-cut. His deal with ECW had gone down the drain and now he was left to decide whether he truly wanted to embark on a wrestling-related endeavor, and if so, how he would go about doing so.
quote:Part Six: Introducing…Verne Langdon & the Slammers Wrestling Federation
XPW (Xtreme Pro Wrestling) might never have existed - at least in the form that it did - without the influence of a man named Verne Langdon. Despite his admission to having "never seen any of XPW's product," Langdon played a significant - albeit unintentional - role on kick-starting the careers of several wrestlers who would come to comprise the XPW league.
In fact, Langdon isn't exaggerating when he says, “[slammers] didn't turn out a great quantity of students, but those who went on to other federations knew their stuff." It could not be truer, given that one-third of the fifteen wrestlers who competed on XPW's debut live event on July 31, 1999 in Reseda, CA credit their initial training to Langdon's "SLAM U" University of Professional Wrestling and its Slammers Wrestling Gym, both of which were launched in 1989 at 12165 Branford Street in Sun Valley, CA.
Six other people who started their careers at the Slammers facility would go on to wrestle for XPW sometime after the 1999 show, while three people who were taught the ins and outs of refereeing eventually donned the zebra stripes in XPW. Ed Ferrera, another student of "SLAM U,” competed for the Slammers Wrestling Federation as "Beautiful Bruce" Beaudine. He later became one of the instructors at the school, along with Carlos Torres (“Carlito Montana”) and El Toro Bravo (REAL NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST), before hanging up his boots and entering the field of booking for both the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling.
Pro wrestling certainly wasn't Langdon's only love, though, nor was it even his first. He has made a living in over eight different occupation fields. As one of the pioneers in the entertainment industry designing monster masks that were featured in horror movies (most notably “Outer Limits,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and several AIP-Vincent Price films), Langdon is still regarded as one of the most celebrated "monster-makers" (as the occupation is termed) to this day. As it turned out, Monster-making opened up some doors for Langdon into the field of makeup artistry and magic. He worked as a makeup artist on the "Planet of the Apes" films and the subsequent television series.
Langdon has also worked with many legendary actors and directors on assorted projects. In 1970, he wrote, created, and produced Hollywood Universal Studios Tour Productions of "Land of a Thousand Faces" and in 1980, "Castle Dracula.” Also as a writer-producer, he worked with Stan Freberg, and - as a radio personality from 1959 to 1963 - he hosted both the Coca Cola Hifi Club and his own nightly “Langdon After Dark” show, both of which were on KLOK-AM Radio. [EDITOR’S NOTE: For more information on Langdon’s exploits outside of pro wrestling, please visit BoxOfMonsters.com or TraderVerne.com.]
Just as he did with any other occupation he has pursued, Langdon extended himself to the utmost degree during his involvement in pro wrestling. Over the course of his life, Langdon has had the pleasure of knowing wrestling icons including (but by no means limited to) The Fabulous Moolah, Mae Young, Lou Thesz, Terry Funk, Vic and Ted Christy, "Iron" Mike Mazurki, Leo Nomellini, Karl Von Hess, and Dick “The Sensational Destroyer” Beyer. Many of these people Langdon came to meet through his long-time membership with the Cauliflower Alley Club. Langdon - who himself was "taught the ropes," as he says, by Moolah and wrestler-turned-actor, "The Super Swedish Angel" Tor Johnson (of Ed Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space" fame) - maintains contact with several of these people to this day.
During the years that he was a Cauliflower Alley Club member and followed the pro wrestling business, Langdon organized what he describes as his own "private collection of memorabilia and ephemera, a compilation of gifts and contributions." These items consist of photographs, programs, posters, videos, actual ring-worn attire, and other artifacts that were handed down to him from acquaintances and friends alike, such as Sam Houston & Baby Doll, George Drake, Charlie Moto, John Tolos, Billy Anderson, Bobby Heenan, Beverly Styles, Cheri Dupre, Lillian Ellison, Digby Sharpe, "Classy" Freddy Blassie, Vince McMahon Jr., wrestling photographer Shirlie Montgomery, and Art Abrams, along with many others.
Upon opening the original Slammers Wrestling Gym in 1989 in Sun Valley, CA, Langdon used this memorabilia to establish at the facility what came to be known as the "Slammers World Wrestling Museum & Hall of Fame Archives." The most impressive part of the Slammers World Wrestling Museum & Hall of Fame Archives is undoubtedly the "Gorgeous George Private Collection." Langdon says that the collection is his way of paying tribute to the unforgettable legacy in the pro wrestling sport of the original Gorgeous George, who Langdon knew personally until his death in late1963. The collection consists of not only rare photographs of “GG” (as Langdon would call him) throughout his career, but also locks of his hair from a "Hair vs. Hair" match against "Whipper" Billy Watson in Canada (more information at http://www.garywill.com/toronto/ggshaved.htm), several of his trademark robes, a pair of his wrestling boots, and other personal items.
Unfortunately for Langdon, the museum did not receive a whole lot of visitors during its run. “Despite very favorable press (L.A. Times, etc.), barely a dozen people - in seven years - came to Slammers for the sole purpose of viewing the museum,” Langdon says, before joking, So much for history…” However, Langdon’s goal was not so much to attract mass numbers of tourists as it was to pay tribute to “the golden days of truly professional wrestling, by truly professional men and women, when it was new and unique, and featured original athletes and true showmen.”
The Slammers World Wrestling Museum & Hall of Fame Archives remained at the Branford location until late 1995, when it (along with the Gorgeous George Private Collection) was transferred a few blocks away to an interim facility in Canoga Park, CA that was rented by Darren McMillan (“Dynamite D”). In 1997, all of the artifacts were moved to Slammers’ new facility, "The Pit", which was located on Sheldon Street in Pacoima, CA. The collection remained there until 2000, when Langdon sold the museum, ring, and other equipment to El Toro Bravo, a former-student of his and a wrestler and instructor for the SWF, as well. El Toro Bravo moved the business to Fullerton, CA, where it currently remains in storage.
Despite the several changes in location, the Slammers phone number remains the very same as when the facility first opened its doors in 1989 (818-897-6603), and one can visit the web site at https://www.slammers.com where - among other features - there is information about the museum and the promotion’s wrestlers, and also information for ordering some classic video tapes from the Slammers Wrestling Federation.
Back in 1991, the in-house Slammers Wrestling Federation was established with the purpose of providing a source of live shows on which to incorporate the wrestlers whom Langdon and his fellow trainers had taught. It should be noted that Langdon is hesitant to take full credit for the idea of the Slammers Wrestling Federation. “As the boys learned, they wanted to actually do,” he explains, “so they decided they wanted an in-house ‘federation.’ They thought up the ‘SWF,’ not me.”
Those students who were brought up under Langdon's "old school" mentality and later went on to wrestle for XPW had a very awkward adjustment to make, since Langdon is - both as a wrestling promoter and as a human being - so drastically different from Rob Black and the XPW attitude towards wrestling tradition. Kevin Kleinrock recalled in his SoCalUncensored.com interview with Steve Bryant that Langdon "liked protecting the business and wanted to kayfabe everyone from everything."
Future-XPW superstar and Slammers trainee "White Trash" Johnny Webb (REAL NAME WITHHELD UPON REQUEST) had similar things to say, reiterating Langdon's "old school" philosophy of wrestling by citing how he would run shows ever single Thursday, regardless of whether the date fell on a holiday or not. One long-time fan of the Slammers Wrestling Federation who hailed from Phoenix, AZ and called himself simply, "R.R.C.” echoed identical sentiments in an article on the Slammers.com web site. R.R.C. remarked that the promotion was "the closest thing to showing the sport as it really is" and that - by the same token - it aimed to bring "the sport back to its professional roots."
Spending mere minutes with Langdon reveals a mindset just as Kleinrock, Webb, R.R.C., and so many others have described. Langdon is more than happy to admit, "I've never been big on 'angles' or 'storylines,' 'entrance music or glitz." He describes his booking philosophy in a nutshell:
"Two guys get in the ring. One's a good guy. The other is a bad guy. They wrestle. They carry the show. No managers. No frills. No pyrotechnics. No rock bands. No elephants. No tigers. No cotton candy. No peanuts. No bullsh*t. Just raw talent."
On occasion, the SWF’s matches varied slightly from the traditional wrestling style, as the promotion did feature "Steel Chair," "I Quit," "Dog Collar Chain," "Falls Count Anywhere," and "Stretcher" matches from time to time during its run. Even in such gimmick matches, however, Langdon always aimed to keep the wrestling aspect (as opposed to such bloodletting and violence-oriented stipulations) as the focus of the matches. He explained that when Slammers wrestlers did "go hardcore," they were "choir boys" compared to what he has since been told the wrestlers of XPW, CZW, IWA Mid-South, IWA Japan, Big Japan, and other organizations have done in years since.
As an example of his booking policy as it relates to the "hardcore wrestling" style, Langdon told a story of how Tim Fisher ("The Real Deal" Damien Steele) asked him on a couple of occasions for permission to "juice" (bleed) in his matches. Langdon turned down the request each time. "It made no sense in the brief course of Tim's matches in question, and I felt that if blood became a common occurrence in SWF matches, then it would lose its meaning," he explains. "Tim gave up on the blood thing pretty quickly, because he got my drift."
Langdon always tried to ensure that when blood did happen to show itself in an SWF ring, "it meant something, and was very disturbing - or rewarding, depending on who got busted open - to the fans. [slammers product] was mostly 'passion play' wrestling, with plenty of 'cruci-fiction!' Our good guys usually won over our bad guys," he explains. "I rarely honored injustice, but when I did, it was for great dramatic effect, with eventual retribution not far behind."
Langdon emphasizes that all of the students at "SLAM U" were required to "achieve a certain point in their training" (which was determined by Langdon along with his fellow trainers) before they were allowed to move on to what Langdon termed their "graduate work" - that is, to wrestle on SWF shows in front of live fans. On some of these events, even Langdon himself would get in the ring. He says that his favorite matches were with El Toro Bravo, Mike Smith (“Movie Star Mike”), and “Beautiful” Bruce Beaudine. He recalls one particular match with El Toro Bravo: “I knocked his front tooth out on one show; he rolled out of the ring, retrieved his tooth, got back in the ring, and proceeded to very nearly stomp me to death.” This was Langdon’s outlook - if one wants to enter pro wrestling, they need to be able to endure the pain, the injuries, and whatever else naturally comes with the sport.
In this way, Langdon was a traditionalist, in that he saw pro wrestling as an artform more than he saw it as a spectacle. Years before they became characters (and in many cases - depending on the degree of high-risk maneuvers that they relied on - daredevil stuntmen) showcased under Rob Black's label, a considerable amount of XPW's eventual roster spent much of their spare time at the Slammers Wrestling Gym, honing their scientific craft under the watchful eyes of Slammers' trainers (all of whom started as Slammers students), and in most cases also under the supervision of Langdon himself. These students would often leave the gym with the upper part of their chests bruised red and purple with fingerprints from the chops that they had acquired during their training that day.
Some of those students - such as Darren McMillan and Carlos Torres - endured the strenuous workouts demanded by Slammers' curriculum and graduated from "SLAM U" with a well-developed base of knowledge for being a professional wrestler. That education included one piece of advice that Langdon ensured had been firmly implanted in the students’ heads before they graduated: that just because they had spent their money to attend “SLAM U” and graduated from its training curriculum, they were in no way guaranteed to “make it” in the business of pro wrestling.
“We never promised any student he would ‘see the world’ and ‘earn millions of dollars in wrestling’ as some schools and teachers do,” Langdon says. Granted, some students of Slammers did find success in the business - such as Ashley Hudson (who competed for Memphis Power Pro Wrestling and WCW, among other notable independents) and Ed Ferrera (“Beautiful” Bruce Beaudine). Some other fortunate graduates did get to tour other countries, such as James Jaafil (“Homeless Jimmy”) - who wrestled for FMW in Japan and also had a short stay in Mexico - and Billy Welch (“The Messiah”) - who has wrestled in Italy two times for CZW.
However, while “SLAM U” offered an avenue for young men to pursue their dreams of becoming professional wrestlers, Langdon did not want to set any false expectations for his students; he was aware that the reality of the matter was that very few aspiring wrestlers become major stars in the business, and that no matter how much training Slammers students received, success sometimes came down simply to being in the right place at the right time.
Langdon’s training philosophy was based not only around learning maneuvers and holds, but also around instilling in his trainees certain life-long values. “It's in my blood to be professional and do things to the best of your ability, so that's what I tried to ingrain in them,” he says. “A few actually got it,” he says, specifically naming off El Toro Bravo, Carlos Torres, John Chavez (“The Hardcore Homo” Angel), El Mongol (REAL NAME WITHHELD UPON REQUEST), Jeff Lindberg, and Zu the Gargoyle (REAL NAME WITHHELD UPON REQUEST). On the other hand, “Unfortunately, others just didn’t.”
Regardless of how they reflect on their days training at Slammers, all of those students who were a part of the elite class that graduated from “SLAM U” were given the choice to either continue wrestling for the SWF or to go onto other indy federations. Those trainees who did not graduate quit because they couldn't handle the arduous style of instruction, became disillusioned with the sport, or were asked to leave due to not progressing as was necessary.
Those students who did make it through the Slammers training program had a long road ahead of them. Their number one task at hand was to season themselves in front of crowds at live events promoted by the SWF, and for those who went on to XPW, that period lasted for anywhere from one to five years (depending on when they completed their training) until Rob Black's new enterprise came calling.
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Jun 29, 2019 13:53
