| THE RETURN OF GEORGIA CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING
July 2004 – Rich Tate Note: This article first appeared in a print edition of Peach State Pandemonium. Longtime Georgia favorite Jerry Oates has gotten back into the business of promoting wrestling out of Columbus. After an absence of nearly three years, he has opened a group with a familiar name – Georgia Championship Wrestling. I attended the June 29 card at the new GCW Arena, which is setup in an old warehouse, and the only thing I didn’t like about the card is the fact I missed the three shows that led up to it. The most interesting aspects for me was the little things that show great respect for the business and those who broke them in. Little nuances such as the Wrestler wearing his mask while arriving and departing the parking lot, and wrestlers scraping the bottom of their boots before entering the ring. This is old school wrestling at it’s finest, and I consider GWH very lucky to be associated with the new Georgia Championship Wrestling. I had the chance to speak with Jerry for a few moments during the show, and asked him why he had decided to get back into promoting. “Wrestling is in my blood. I wanted to start back again because Columbus has always been a good wrestling town. We’ve always had great fans here with a great knowledge and following of wrestling. It took us about a year to find this building we’re in, but we renovated it and turned it into a sports arena, and it has worked out great for us.” When I asked him what led to the end of his previous venture, Columbus Championship Wrestling, which ceased operations in 2001, he replied, “It was a combination of things. I had been in an accident. We also were in a building here then that wasn’t conducive to what we were trying to do.” Being from Atlanta, I had never been to see matches in Columbus, but have always heard the fans there were passionate about their wrestling. Every word is true. Within an hour prior to the opening bell, the facility quickly filled up, and attendance had to be around four hundred people – not bad by today’s standards. As I looked around during the matches, I saw no one who didn’t appear to be fully enjoying the event they were witnessing. The most promising part of the whole thing was the fact that families were abundant, which signifies the older fans want to be sure their kids have the same opportunity they once had to see a solid wrestling promotion in their town on a consistent basis. As sure as they remember Mr. Wrestling #1 and #2, Buddy Colt, Bill Dromo, Tommy Rich, Ole and Gene Anderson, Dusty Rhodes, and Bob Armstrong, they wish for their children to also have memories of folks such as Darren Kelly, Glacier, Brad Armstrong, the Bugaloo Posse, Erik Watts, and the man who rejuvenated it all – Jerry Oates. The first few shows had featured Brad Armstrong and the Masked Superstar. Jerry promises to have them back again soon. “We want to rotate talent and keep new faces in here to keep the fans entertained.” I spent some of my time in the dressing room talking to the wrestlers, but also watched some matches from ringside. It was the first time in nearly twenty years I had actually seen a live card that looked like what I grew up with. I asked Jerry what his long term goals were as far as how the shows would be balanced between styles of old school wrestling and the more mainstream sports entertainment type product that is more popular with fans who mostly see World Wrestling Entertainment. “My thinking on that is that all sports is entertainment, whether it’s football or baseball, people buy a ticket to be entertained. Wrestling has always been entertainment, but our goal is to give the fans what they enjoy. I feel like there’s a good balance on our cards.” Jerry says he would ultimately like to take GCW elsewhere around the state, but the hub will always be Columbus. They are taping each show currently, and although they currently have no deal for television, footage may be available soon so that people outside the area can have access to the promotion. Erik Watts has been one of the guys who have been at the forefront of every card so far. When I asked Jerry what it was like to have someone with his name recognition on his cards regularly, he said, “We’re very fortunate to have Erik. He comes from a strong wrestling background. Erik’s a talented wrestler who’s also big and impressive.” Darren “the Guard” Kelly has also been on every card, and looked great in his match with John Bogey in the opener. He grew up in the Columbus area, and explained to me how he fell in love with wrestling. “My grandfather used to bring me to the Municipal Auditorium every Wednesday night. That was my incentive to do good in school. I fell in love with what your website is all about. I fell in love with Harley Race, Dory Funk, Jr., Dusty Rhodes, and Mr. Wrestling #2,” said Kelly. He says that watching Fred Ward Promtions’ cards are what led him to want to be a pro wrestler when he grew up. “From the time I was probably three years old, this is all I ever wanted to do. It captivated me as a child. When I got out of the Marine Corps I came back home. When my grandfather passed I thought about my own mortality. I didn’t want to be on my deathbed wondering, ‘what if?’. I called Jerry the next day and within a week I was training at his gym. That was about six years ago.” Kelly has wrestled for various independent promotions since that time, throughout Georgia, Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, and even New York, where he met another GCW star, A. J. Steele. The New York show was run by Dominic DeNucci, and he was traveling with his wife, who is from Brooklyn. One of the people working for DeNucci recalled seeing Kelly working a match where he teamed with Greg Brown in a match against the original Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher. He invited Kelly to work the card based on having only seen that one match. Darren feels lucky to have gotten the opportunity to have worked with many of the guys he watched in his youth, such as Tommy Rich, Greg Valentine, the Masked Superstar. “Bill Eadie has been one of the most helpful people to me. He’s at the top as far as class goes.” Abdullah the Butcher has also been good to Kelly, and is currently trying to help Kelly get some matches in Japan. “It may not happen, but just the gesture says a lot to me about Abdullah.” When I asked Kelly what it is like to be a student of Jerry Oates, he replied, “you can’t ask for anyone better to train you to be a professional wrestler. He’s so thorough.” He also says the fans here are incredible because “they feel like they are a part of something special, as opposed to the WWE who may come here periodically. That’s what they’ve wanted for a long time and now they have it. They’re just as much a part of this as the wrestlers, and they can be a catalyst to it’s success. If we keep giving them a good show, they’ll keep coming, and it will continue to get stronger and stronger.” The Bugaloo Posse is comprised of Greg Brown and A. J. Steele, and they sat down with me following their match with Lee Thomas and Super X. “Jerry and Greg trained me,” Steele said. “I got started about eight years ago, and the first person I got in the ring with was actually Greg. Putting us together as a team was a smart thing to do.” Brown got his start working for Fred Ward, debuting in Macon back in 1980. “I met Jerry and Ted Oates and they helped me out. Jerry and I became real good friends and he’s like a big brother to me.” He considers himself lucky to have broken in with Ward’s territory. “He was a good hearted man and he made Columbus what it is today. Jerry’s just trying to carry it on and bring it back to what it used to be.” I asked Greg if he thinks the potential television deal will be successful, and he replied, “it’ll definitely work, and it would be fantastic, to give some of the guys more exposure. There’s still a lot of people here who don’t know this is going on, but once it gets out, I think it’ll get bigger and better.” Steele loves the Columbus fans and feels they are some of the best he has seen. “There’s nothing like it. I’ve been around to some of the other small companies, but they just don’t have it like they do here. It was pouring down here today and they still came, and they get rowdy. I love it. It’s getting bigger each week.” I had a long conversation with Erik Watts and we not only talked about GCW, but also dug a bit more into his background. Erik, of course, is the son of former wrestling superstar “Cowboy” Bill Watts, who not only made his mark as a wrestler, but also as a promoter and booker in the successful Mid-South territory, and later with World Championship Wrestling. “I had made a promise to my parents that I wouldn’t get into wrestling until I got a college degree, which I did. That was very important to them that I have something to fall back on. I went to school on a football scholarship, but I was just biding my time because I really wanted to be a wrestler.” Despite having interest from some NFL teams, he didn’t enter the draft. Instead, he wound up at the original Power Plant in Jonesboro, run by Jody Hamilton. “I was down there for about three weeks before I went to finish my Master’s. I was asked if I could do a few matches in some Tennessee towns and I went ahead and did it. Later I got called up by WCW to wrestle for them, but not by my father. A few people don’t want to believe it, but he didn’t want to show favoritism, so he had nothing to do with me coming in. I did move up pretty quick onto TV so I got crucified because of who my father was.” Watts defends himself by describing his many roles in helping his dad during the Mid-South days. “I have done more around pro wrestling than most kids. I have set up the rings, done the lights, music, security, even airport runs. I’ve done everything before I even got in the ring. It’s always been my life. Wrestling put food in my mouth since I was born, and it’s what has fed my kids. Would I be a wrestler if my dad wasn’t Bill Watts? Maybe not, but he was and it’s what I grew up around. I was talking to my mom one time and was telling her sometimes I think it’s a curse that my father is who he is, but it’s like an addiction with no rehab. Once you get in front of the people, you don’t want to do anything else.” He talks about his dislike for some of the background politics and how wrestlers often end up on the wrong side of the deal. “I walked out about two years ago to go on my own because this business is so hard on families. “It hurts when you get injured and you don’t have a contract, or sometimes this guy likes you one day then doesn’t like you the next. It got ridiculous. I got tired of it. Now I can call my own shots. If someone likes me fine, if they don’t, fine. It’s the nature of any business, and it’s sad. I don’t want to beat up on wrestling, but it’s a tough business because there’s so few places to go and learn and work.” Watts ended up in TNA when Dallas Page put in a good word for him to Vince Russo. “Vince said he heard I was still in pretty good shape and wanted to know if I’d want to work for TNA. I told him I’d love to try it out. This was the best thing that ever happened to me because they brought me in and tested me before we ever really got me on Pay Per Views. It was great because it usually takes awhile to prove yourself, but they liked what they saw in me right away. Before I knew it I was gaining a fan base and was getting pretty popular there. They have kept my father out of it and I feel like all the dues have finally paid off.” When I asked Erik how he wound up working for Oates new promotion, he replied, “Jerry actually called me and asked if I’d be interested in working on his first show. I think the interest came from TNA. He knew my father and knew I had a lot of the respect for the business that he wants. It means a lot to me to come to a place where people eat, drink and breathe wrestling. I still do TNA three days a week, but come Tuesday, I want to be here. The fans are great here and I think that’s what makes this mean something. I want to help some of the younger guys here out for a shot at TNA because there’s a lot of talent here. These guys crave wrestling. I brought four friends with me tonight because all they’ve ever seen is WCW and WWE. I wanted to show them grass roots wrestling. I guarantee you they’re having a phenomenal time out there tonight.” Glacier also has a background with WCW, and he discussed some of that, as well as hyping Georgia Championship Wrestling. “Bo Oates called me and said they’d love to have me down here, and I jumped at the chance to share a locker room with Jerry. Even though I’ve been in the business for seventeen years, Jerry’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know. It’s a good chance to get better and perfect my craft. I still feel like there’s more I can learn. I feel like a kid in a candy store because I get to be his partner tonight.” He talked about what it means to him to work in Columbus. “This is what it needs to get back to. This is old school. I want so much for the business to get back to the old presentation. That formula worked. These fans are passionate. It proves you can get out there and entertain families in a G-rated fashion. You can bring you kid and the grandpa, too. I had nieces who weren’t allowed to watch me at the height of my run in WCW because my brother didn’t want them seeing what was going on, with all the profanity and other stuff. It’s all about shock value now.” The discussion evolved toward the origin of the Glacier character. “I went to Japan in the early 1990’s and I met Danny Hodge, Lou Thesz, and Billy Robinson there. I developed a really close friendship with Lou that I had for the last ten years of his life. When I got the nod to do Glacier, I called Lou and told him I finally got the big break, but it was as a character and not really something I wanted to do. He wrote me a letter and told me it may not have been what I envisioned, but that I got into the business to make money, so go make money and move on. With Lou’s blessing I felt vindicated because that was a really hard thing to do. I didn’t want Lou and Danny to be watching and saying, “oh, no, he’s become one of them.’” He once went to a restaurant with Thesz in Japan. “We walked in at 11:00 at night. The first guy who recognized him gave him a standing ovation. By the time we get to this room where we were going to eat, the whole place was standing and clapping for him. When we were seated he leaned over to me and said, ‘not that I’d ever expect it, but it would be nice if just once in the States this happened, but in the States, it’s out of sight, out of mind.’ That’s the kind of respect for this business I’d like to see.” One of the things Glacier got from that trip was the opportunity to learn and soak up the knowledge that trio possessed. “I had the chance to be in the ring with Billy. He tied me in every kind of knot you can imagine. I was in pain, but I was loving it because I knew I’d be able to tell people I shared a ring with him. I spoke at a seminar at a wrestling school with about thirty kids. I asked them if they knew who Lou Thesz was. Sadly, and I kind of blame the school for it, but none of them knew who he was. I almost walked out. I figured I wasn’t going to get through to them.” I sat down with the Wrestler before I went back out to watch some matches. “Jerry and I go back many years. The first time I met Ted and Jerry Oates just after I had started working in the late 1970’s. I was one of the Nightmares for Jody Hamilton in Deep South Wrestling, and worked with them there, too. Anytime Jerry runs an event anywhere, he has been kind enough to book me on the card. Ted and Jerry are sort of offsprings of Dick Steinborn in a way. Dick was one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. When you break in with a guy like Steinborn, you can’t help but learn, and that’s why Jerry is as good as he is. Anybody who is trained by Jerry or works for him is going to be better for it.” I asked him how the other groups he has worked for around the state compare to GCW. “Jerry gives us guidelines. I’ve been places where half of the guys are drunk, promoters don’t have enough guts to tell the wrestlers what they can or cannot do. If you work for Jerry, you know when he tells you something that he means it. He doesn’t put up with a lot of foolishness. You’re told what you cannot do in a match. I think most of these guys are smart enough to know he’s the boss. It’s a whole different level of respect here, and it’s the most fun place I’ve worked in a long time. He’s got a lot of good talent, and he has either watched them live or seen them before he will invite them in. If they don’t perform to his standards, he won’t have them back in.” He talked about being in Columbus. “This is a tremendous facility in a town full of wrestling history. Jerry is a well-known man down here and I think helps draw people. Just having his name attached to it. He is highly regarded here, and he gives it credibility. He’s had Brad Armstrong, Ole Anderson, the Masked Superstar in here. These fans know when they see a name like that is scheduled to be here, they can trust Jerry. If you give the fans something special and show them you’re trying to entertain them, they’ll come and watch. That’s what Jerry’s doing here. It looks like it’s really starting to pick up.” I haven’t been to a wrestling card in years that had me walking away at the end with the thought of coming back again. This card changed all that. It was the first time in years I had seen wrestlers who cared enough about the business to do the little things that make pro wrestling special to its fans. Columbus fans – consider yourselves lucky. You truly have something special in GCW. It is my strongest recommendation that if you are within reasonable driving distance and love old school style wrestling, this promotion is for you. The cards are action packed with a mix of older, experienced names, while getting a good batch of young talent that will no doubt be highly recognized given time. Everyone working this promotion has a deep respect for the old school style, and they take their chosen profession seriously. You would not be disappointed by anything going on in Columbus under the new Georgia Championship Wrestling banner. |
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