Maritimes. With his friendly personality and award-winning smile, he’d made a lot of connections and it was through those contacts that I got booked for my first match outside Alberta.
When Mike told me that he could get me on a show in British Columbia, I asked him if he could get Lance booked too. Despite the rivalry between us, he was my partner and I didn’t want to leave him out. But Mike laughed and said, “You’re not going to be a tag team forever. You have to take the bookings when you can and there’s only one slot open on this show. Do you want it or not?”
I felt bad telling Lance but to my surprise he had no problem with it. He understood that you couldn’t be picky about bookings and gave me his blessing. So with an extra 100 bucks in my pocket that Jerry Palko insisted on giving me because I was broke, I packed my bag and left on my first wrestling road trip.
Como, Mike, and I began driving the fourteen hours to Vancouver. When I was a kid and we traveled long distances during family vacations, we’d stop for the night at eight and get a hotel room. Much to my chagrin, a wrestling road trip didn’t work that way. We left at 8 P.M . and drove all through the night, stopping at dawn when we arrived. I hated traveling at night because I couldn’t sleep sitting in the car. Now I can sleep underneath the hood but back then I needed my wittle beddie-weddie.
We drove through the mountains on winding roads with 300-foot drops on either side, watched diligently for deer, and arrived in the early morning. We stayed at the house of a seasoned vet named Tim Flowers, and over the next few days he taught me some very important lessons about the wrestling biz. More specifically, he taught me how to drink like a wrestler. He took us to a bar and bought rounds of drinks for everybody. When it came time for the second round, I still hadn’t finished my first one and that didn’t fly very well. In his world, you finished your drink as soon as you got it in preparation for the next one. It was also very important to have a drink in your hands at all times even if you weren’t drinking it, because if you did nobody bothered you. If you didn’t, you became a target.
I learned to keep my thumb on the top of the beer bottle at all times, because there were always guys around who thought it was funny to spike your drink with Halcion pills. After you fell asleep from them, you would be the recipient of a free eyebrow shaving and bonus Lloyd Christmas haircut. But I was a fast learner and I’m proud to say that after fifteen years of wrestling, I still have the same eyebrows I had when I was soiling my diapers.
Wrestling is a hierarchy and the guys on top dictate what to do to the guys on the bottom. There is no specific rulebook issued to rookies explaining wrestling etiquette, but you’d better figure out the rules quickly and pick them up fast or you’ll be weeded out. Rule number one is you have to drink with the boys. If you didn’t feel like drinking, you poured some water into a beer bottle and carried it around as if you were. As long as you were smart about it, nobody noticed or cared.
The match itself was in Agassiz, British Columbia, where the movie
First Blood
was filmed and “Sasquatch Crossing” signs were posted on the road. The promoter asked my opponent and me to do a ten-minute Broadway but my opponent was greener than I was and asked, “What do you mean, you want us to act it out?” The promoter sent the guy packing and I worked with Como instead for a cool twenty bucks.
Even though I was rolling in the dough from wrestling, I decided to supplement my income by becoming a stand-up comedian. I went to an open mike night at Yuk-Yuk’s comedy club and did a set based on what the golden topping on movie popcorn REALLY was. It turned out I was the only one in the club who thought that comparing golden topping with golden showers was hilarious.
After accepting that the world wasn’t ready for
When Mike told me that he could get me on a show in British Columbia, I asked him if he could get Lance booked too. Despite the rivalry between us, he was my partner and I didn’t want to leave him out. But Mike laughed and said, “You’re not going to be a tag team forever. You have to take the bookings when you can and there’s only one slot open on this show. Do you want it or not?”
I felt bad telling Lance but to my surprise he had no problem with it. He understood that you couldn’t be picky about bookings and gave me his blessing. So with an extra 100 bucks in my pocket that Jerry Palko insisted on giving me because I was broke, I packed my bag and left on my first wrestling road trip.
Como, Mike, and I began driving the fourteen hours to Vancouver. When I was a kid and we traveled long distances during family vacations, we’d stop for the night at eight and get a hotel room. Much to my chagrin, a wrestling road trip didn’t work that way. We left at 8 P.M . and drove all through the night, stopping at dawn when we arrived. I hated traveling at night because I couldn’t sleep sitting in the car. Now I can sleep underneath the hood but back then I needed my wittle beddie-weddie.
We drove through the mountains on winding roads with 300-foot drops on either side, watched diligently for deer, and arrived in the early morning. We stayed at the house of a seasoned vet named Tim Flowers, and over the next few days he taught me some very important lessons about the wrestling biz. More specifically, he taught me how to drink like a wrestler. He took us to a bar and bought rounds of drinks for everybody. When it came time for the second round, I still hadn’t finished my first one and that didn’t fly very well. In his world, you finished your drink as soon as you got it in preparation for the next one. It was also very important to have a drink in your hands at all times even if you weren’t drinking it, because if you did nobody bothered you. If you didn’t, you became a target.
I learned to keep my thumb on the top of the beer bottle at all times, because there were always guys around who thought it was funny to spike your drink with Halcion pills. After you fell asleep from them, you would be the recipient of a free eyebrow shaving and bonus Lloyd Christmas haircut. But I was a fast learner and I’m proud to say that after fifteen years of wrestling, I still have the same eyebrows I had when I was soiling my diapers.
Wrestling is a hierarchy and the guys on top dictate what to do to the guys on the bottom. There is no specific rulebook issued to rookies explaining wrestling etiquette, but you’d better figure out the rules quickly and pick them up fast or you’ll be weeded out. Rule number one is you have to drink with the boys. If you didn’t feel like drinking, you poured some water into a beer bottle and carried it around as if you were. As long as you were smart about it, nobody noticed or cared.
The match itself was in Agassiz, British Columbia, where the movie
First Blood
was filmed and “Sasquatch Crossing” signs were posted on the road. The promoter asked my opponent and me to do a ten-minute Broadway but my opponent was greener than I was and asked, “What do you mean, you want us to act it out?” The promoter sent the guy packing and I worked with Como instead for a cool twenty bucks.
Even though I was rolling in the dough from wrestling, I decided to supplement my income by becoming a stand-up comedian. I went to an open mike night at Yuk-Yuk’s comedy club and did a set based on what the golden topping on movie popcorn REALLY was. It turned out I was the only one in the club who thought that comparing golden topping with golden showers was hilarious.
After accepting that the world wasn’t ready for
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