Every Wednesday is a new episode of “Wrestling Reality with Justin LaBar” audio podcast. Last week’s featured a range of topics including why Samoa Joe made the most sense to be a challenger to Brock Lesnar.
The show ended with a story time per fan request. This episode featured me remembering my first big independent wrestling event angle where I got to manage Kevin Nash. The event occupied a weekend for promotion and more which got me in over my head in having to help facilitate Nash’s appearances. Here’s a sample of what was said:
Transcription courtesy of @PeterBahi
I was in my first year working with an independent wrestling company—P.W.O, Pro Wrestling Ohio. They ended up turning into Prime Wrestling. They are no longer around, but at the time, they were a thriving independent company. Everything was produced in Ohio, specifically Cleveland mainly. They were on Sportstime Ohio, and were put on DirecTV. People were watching them all around the country on DirecTV.
I was part of an angle; this is my first year ever working independent wrestling, and was part of an angle where I was brought in, doing Chair Shot Reality, getting my name out there on the internet. I was one of those ‘internet guys’ and brought in as kind of a—not really sure how to frame it because during that time WWE Raw was doing a lot of those Guest Hosting gigs for Raw, so I was brought in as a ‘Celebrity,’ just as an outside person. Coming to PWO, it was perceived that I was just coming in as a guest, just helping to plug them, and obviously the entire angle was a work. I was sitting in the crowd at the time for a few months, and started having problems with a wrestler named Marion Fontaine, a very talented guy. It got to the point where we were in Western Ohio and we did a show, which was what we were building up to: Fontaine lost his title and actually hit me. I was sitting in the front row and we got into a verbal argument and he actually hit me, decked me and knocked me into the ground. The place went crazy because to everybody there I was just a fan, a guest so to speak. The cops were involved, it was done perfectly. The cops escorted me out; as they would with a fan getting involved.
I remember Raven, ECW’s Raven was backstage at the show and he even said the other night that it was very well done, so that was a nice compliment coming from a guy who has been a part of lot of the craze in ECW. Here’s the point of the story—we had to build now for this big payoff. I’m not a wrestler so I’m not going to have a match with Marion Fontaine, but I needed to be involved somehow for the big payoff, right? So, it gets to the point where the idea for the payoff would be me ‘hiring’ a hired gun. We’re building to do this payoff at Wrestlelution, which is the company’s WrestleMania. It’s at Wrestlelution 4, on iPPV, and they do it at the Jacobs Pavilion right around the water. They get usually around 3,000 people to this thing, so it’s really a big deal, a nice place for a big payoff. So, there was different names that were being tossed around, of who I can hire from the indy world, that could be my hired gun.
There were some funny names being thrown around out there, not by me, and this is no disrespect, but one of the names that was mentioned was Kaval, or Lo Ki, he was kind of fresh in the news after he was recently released that year from NXT. Only problem with that, I’m between 6, and 6’1 pending on what shoe I am wearing that day, I’m several inches taller than Kaval, or Lo Ki. The problem with that was, as talented as the man is, and he can easily kick my a** in a real fight, it wouldn’t make much sense that if I’m going to hire a hired gun that I’m going to hire someone that is smaller than me, so we still searched.
During this year, I was working a lot of with Kevin Nash with the ‘Mania party, Royal Rumble, and Nash wasn’t doing anything at the time. He hadn’t returned to WWE full time, or as full time as he was going to be, so I was like, you know, Kevin Nash really came onto the map as the bodyguard of Shawn Michaels as Diesel, why can’t he be the bodyguard of Justin LaBar? So, we do it, and Kevin decides that he is going to be my hired gun, but they don’t want to put him up against Marion Fontaine, because they believe that it is too big of a size discrepancy against Marion Fontaine and Kevin Nash so they need to find a big man for Marion Fontaine. They end up finding a guy named Brodie Lee, who you fans now know as Luke Harper. Fantastic gentleman, very talented. So, now there is Fontaine and Harper, there’s Nash, I’m not wrestling, I’m the Manager, so now we have to find somebody for Nash. They ended up using a guy named ‘Omega’ Aaron Draven out of Erie, Pennsylvania. Aaron worked for the company but was off for some time, I don’t remember the story behind it, but they picked the guy that seemed to fit, so that was the deal.
We get to the weekend. The show was on a Sunday, but we have morning show radios involved. We’re taking Nash to TV spots, it was done to the tee. The night before we have a party at this bar and restaurant, it’s been filmed, and kind of all done as a pre-party to come out and meet Kevin Nash, get everybody hyped up. Nash is doing pictures and autographs. We even have Harper and Fontaine crash the party, nobody knew it was going to happen. We had a stare down, it was our version of having the UFC weigh-in and having chaos. No punches were thrown but the energy was there.
We’re partying on Saturday night, and Kevin extends the party into his hotel. He had some friends that came to the area and were visiting him. It was a long night; let’s just sum it up for him there. By the time 4am rolled around, and were stumbling in our rooms, Kevin asked what time is the deal tomorrow? I said, well the event starts at 2pm, and gates open up at 1pm. He said, okay, wake me up at 12 noon, and I said okay. I didn’t sleep much the night before because I am nervous as hell as you can imagine. This is the first time—I mean, I don’t have to do anything, but I’m nervous. The Promoter, a guy named Wally calls at like 9:45am, and asked when are we going to come to the venue? I responded that I wasn’t sure, perhaps a little bit later, and he said that he needed us around 10, 10:30 to record pre-tape promos, pictures, and I said that Kevin Nash was still sleeping, and he said, well, he is your boy, bring him here because we have work to do. So, I call Kevin’s phone, no answer, now what do I do? So, I walk to the door and knock on his hotel door and after a while, the door opens, and there stands a naked 7 foot Kevin Nash, hair everywhere; he has that long black hair still, he goes, what time did I tell you to wake me up? I said, I believe you said noon, and he asked me what time it was now? I said, well, it’s close to 10am, then he said, okay, see you in two hours, and then slammed the door shut.
I’m nervous. I call the Promoter; remember, I’ve never been into this situation before, this is my first big gig here. I call the Promoter back and say, yeah, I don’t think Kevin is going to make it right now. He is going through his morning routine; I tried to make it seem like he was at the gym or some s*it. Now, the Promoter is yelling at me, well, you better get here and do promos, you are in the last match, we need the match sold. Aaron, the other partner, nothing against Aaron, he wasn’t a real good talker. Anyway, I’m the Manager, I had to do the talking, it was my role. I’m like, well, if I go, I’m driving Kevin Nash, how the hell is Kevin Nash supposed to get to the event? Wally said that we have a million people here, I’ll send a car for him. I said, okay, so I get my stuff together and I drive 20 minutes. I’m not sure why the hotel was 20 minutes from the venue—actually, I do, the bar was right next to the hotel. I get there, but Nash isn’t there because he is still sleeping, so I do the promo and afterwards just stand around.
It’s now 12:30pm, and I go to Wally and say to him, hey, you sent a car to go pick up Kevin Nash, right? He goes, what do you mean? I don’t have time, everybody is busy. I said, well, don’t you think we need to go pick up the biggest star here? It’s like a half hour until the doors are going to open. He said to me, well, he is your boy, go get him. Now, I have to turn around and go back, Kevin is still sleeping and go back to the door. He is currently still sleeping, and go back to the door, scared, since the last time he saw me he wasn’t too happy with me.
To hear the conclusion of the story, listen below at the 43:00 mark. You can subscribe to the show on almost any audio platform to listen every Wednesday.
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