Commentary
March 20, 2002
I know it has been a while since my last commentary, so
please forgive me if I forget anything.
IWA Mid-South:
In January I had the pleasure of returning for the IWA. It was great to see Ian, Punk,
Prazak and the rest of the boys. My opponent for the night was Colt Cabana, now this was a
match to look forward to.
I felt like the match was a good "Old School" style match. The pace was not too
fast or too slow. Cabana would start to get the better of me then I would cut him back
off. Cabana finally wore me down and hit the Moonsault for the pin. When Cabana landed the
finish, he landed on my legs, causing a loud and painful "pop" from my knee. As
I lied on the canvas writhing in pain, all I could think of was getting out of the ring so
he could cut his promo. After what seemed like forever, I got out of the ring with some
help from Doc and "Mullet Security" to the sounds of applause from the fans in
attendance.
Not quite knowing the severity of the injury I managed to do a couple fair conventions
before heading back to AZ.
Knee injury:
When I arrived home to Arizona I made it in to see my doctor. His opinion was that I might
have torn my ACL, MCL, and possibly my meniscus. My doc sent me in for an MRI and
scheduled me to see an Orthopedic specialist.
When I received the results of the MRI, I was happy to find out that my ACL was not torn.
The bad news was that the MCL was torn, PCL was strained and I bruised my femur. Dr.
Carter (Ortho specialist) then told me I was not in need of surgery, and with physical
therapy I should be able to wrestle again in six weeks. Well, I know I should have been
happy with that, but I had a match scheduled against one of the top tag teams in three
weeks.
I immediately started my therapy with Bob Carl and his staff at C.O.A.S.T, and they were a
huge help.
I have rehabbing the knee regularly and have been seen by Dr. Carter a few more times, and
I also have to wear a brace when I wrestle, other than that the knee seems to be doing
well.
Live Web Chat:
We had our first live web chat in January, and I think it went well. Ghostwalker and I got
to meet a lot of great fans and chat with some funny people. I am not sure when we will do
the next one, but it should be soon.
FCW/NAWF:
In February we got to return to one of my favorite places Florida. We were there to
wrestle for the NAWF at the Seminole Tribal fair. The fair was great, and we got to meet a
lot of great people from the Seminole, Dine' and Iroquois Nations. Our opponents for the
night were Christian York and Joey Matthews, and they were tough. The match as exciting
from beginning to end, it reminded me of some of our battles with the Ballards. I am
looking forward to our return to Florida, Vinnie & Penny get the boat ready!
MSPW:
FX Tough man and Pro Wrestling ring announcer Justin Roberts (there I put you over)
started his own promotion in Tucson Arizona. We had the pleasure of working on the card
with the great talent he booked: Ballard Brothers (one of the best teams on the
independent circuit) Hardkore Kid (WWF developmental talent) Outlaw Nox (greatest drunken
bowler of all time) Hollywood (news anchor killer) Lexie Fyfe (one of the best womens
wrestlers alive) and Dude (DUDE!)
Our match was against The Ballards, but they said only one was there and wanted a
replacement for him. So we wrestled Shannon Ballard and Cousin Moose Ballard (who looked a
lot like Doink). Just when it looked like the MSPW Tag belts were ours Shane Ballard
popped out from under the ring and it became three against two. The Ballards beat us for
the Championship, but it took three of them to do it. I am really looking forward to the
re match, I have a few surprises in store for them.
WWA:
About two weeks before the World Wrestling All-stars were going to have their Pay Per
View, Rick Bassman invited us to meet Jeremy Borash and go through a little try out. It
seemed there were a few openings for the card and he was scouting talent.
While running through some drills I hit my injured knee pretty hard and could not stand on
it. Ghostwalker had to go at it alone, and it looked like our shot at the PPV was gone.
Needless to say, it was a long painful ride back home that night.
The weekend of the PPV we went to Las Vegas to check out the event, and basically hang out
in Vegas. Well, with a little luck and a lot of help from WebKat we ended up with a spot
on the card (that is why you should always bring your gear).
We were scheduled to wrestle Kronik (Brian Adams and Bryan Clarke), and it was pretty
intimidating. Everyone involved with the show was great from Mr. Mc Manus and Jeremy
Borash all the way down made us feel comfortable and welcome.
The match was not one of our best, but we showed the world that we can hang with the big
boys. The experience was great, and we met a lot of great people including Bill Apter, and
The Band Tantric.
Zero-One Japan:
The day finally arrived, we were headed to Japan. We departed LAX on Singapore Air to
Tokyo, this was going to be a long eleven hours. When we got on the plane I was pleasantly
surprised to see each seat had its own TV screen and Nintendo. I had made my plans to
watch a few movies get a little sleep and play some video games. Luckily the flight was
not full and I had a row to myself to stretch out in. After watching "The Last
Castle" and "Behind Enemy Lines" and a lot of sleep we arrived in Japan.
Mr. Nokumora was at the airport to greet us and escort us into Roppongi, as soon as we
arrived in Roppongi he told us "be careful a lot of crazy people here". We
checked into the hotel and met with Tom Howard, Sean McCully, Steve Corino and JD Dempsey
for Korean BBQ. The dinner was great, even though I was eating cow tongue. After dinner I
had to miss out on the club scene, I was just too tired and nervous about going to the
dojo the next day.
The next morning we checked out the area and it was amazing how different things are
there. I just have to say that the soda/coffee/beer vending machines on every corner rule!
That afternoon we met up with the guys and took the subway (which was very clean & had
no graffiti) to the dojo. It was great to see that people still have great respect for
this business and train for up to two years before having a match. After a light workout
we headed back to the hotel, and got dinner at the Hard Rock. After dinner it was off to
do Samurai TV (a channel that shows nothing but wrestling and shoot fighting). We had to
show up in our warpaint, and the funny thing is no one on the streets seemed to notice it.
After doing our interview and having no idea if the translator was saying what we wanted,
we went back to Roppongi. That evening Ghostwalker and I headed to the Grapple Bar (a bar
that shows nothing but wrestling) and asked Riki to show us some video of Otani &
Tanaka (our opponents). After seeing what we were getting ourselves into we headed back to
the hotel to turn in for the night.
The next day Ghostwalker and I did a little shopping and tried not to get lost on the
subway. After getting back to Roppongi we hit the video arcade and wasted some time. We
then had to get ready to go to the building for the show. The butterflies were going 100
miles an hour in my stomach from the time we got in the van. Once we arrived we had a few
hours before show time to get prepared and warmed up. The show was a sellout and was being
taped for TV, so that was more pressure to add on us. When it finally came down to our
match the promoters had us make our entrance through the audience, and that was pretty
cool. The crowd was cheering for us and making war cries while I danced around the ring.
When they made our formal introduction the fans threw streamers into the ring (a sign of
approval), and I could not help but smile and think "this is so F'n cool".
The match was very tough and grueling, and I think we were lucky to have survived it. We
ended up on the losing end of the match, but the crowd and promoters were very happy with
our performance.
After the show a group of us went to dinner, I was barely able to stay awake after my
adrenaline rush wore off.
The next morning Ghostwalker & I headed to the giant tower that overlooks all of
Tokyo, it was an awesome sight. We then walked back to town and packed up to head to the
airport. The flight back had to be the most miserable plane flight I have had in my life.
Not only were we crowded, but someone had terrible gas and was making us sick. I tried my
best to just go to sleep and hope to wake up in L.A., but I could not get past the odor.
When we finally landed we had a race to get off of that plane.
Before we left we were told that Zero-One wanted us to return in April, so we are very
excited and are looking forward to our return.
I believe that is most of what happened in the last few
months, and I promise to be quicker with the next commentary.
Take Care,
Nav
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