Michaels — Sometimes a Man Like to Wear Stretchy Pants
Superstar Style– J. D. Michaels
“Superstar” J. D. Michaels is back from the road with his column and some photos!
Sometimes a man like to wear stretchy pants… in order to get paid
June was an interesting month to say the least, and here’s how it went down. June 3rd was supposed to be PW Elite’s debut of the “Diamond Division” (a women’s show) at the AWA arena in NJ. However, a few last minute cancellations left Doug and Rob to rewrite the show. No more than 2 minutes after walking in with April, RF says “Hey JD, wanna work tonight?” Since you never really know what is going to happen in wrestling, I had my gear in the trunk just in case a mixed tag or something could happen. With Jay Lethal also in the house and a few other guys coming, Elite decided to run a mixed show. The show wasn’t advertised due to the fact that it was pre sold for its footage, so the show was basically taped for DVD sales.
I wrestled AWA regular Joe Hardway. It was a pretty decent match. I couldn’t stay in the ring in the first few minutes, as from my hammerlock he hit the deck, sending me to the outside. I stopped him on the apron and vaulted clear across the ring and hit the ropes only to be backdropped back out of the ring. Hardway then brought me back into the ring the hardway (pun intended??) and followed up by clotheslining me out the other side. At this point I got pretty ticked off and managed to drag him out of the ring and smash him against the ring post. I slammed his back against the commentators’ table for good measure too. Back in the ring (finally, eh) I visciously beat on his back. Everytime he fought back, he was stopped. After surfboarding him around the ringpost and punishing him with a Boston crab, I could smell victory.
Hardway snuck in a few shots and even got a few quick pins, but his fate was sealed as he tried to suplex me back into the ring and his back gave out, allowing me to fall on top for the 1-2-3. Of course a little assistance from April is always appreciated, as she pulled his foot out on the suplex to make sure his back gave out, but by hook or by crook it was my hand raised in victory.
I returned the favor later in the night as April defeated her former tag team partner Nikki Roxx in the main event. After the match, the commissioner for the night, Itsuki Yamazaki of the infamous “Jumping Bomb Angels,” ordered a tag match with April/Sumie Sakai vs Nikki/Alere Little Feather. I yelled at the referee asking who she was and why was she pulling this… how many tickets did she sell to get this job?? Anyway, it turned into a big schmoz with every dude and chick from the back coming out and getting into a big ass brawl…. it was fun.
On June 6th it was April and my 6 month anniversary. Ironically, we went and saw the movie The Breakup. Vince Vaughn is funny shit. The movie itself was pretty good and we thought it stayed true to real life the way it played out. Check it out.
We made our way to Hazleton, PA on June 10th for D2W (Dylan Dean Productions). Dylan is the former writer for Afa and WXW. One thing that was very unique about the show was where it was held. It was actually held in a firehall. The firefighters parked the fire trucks outside while the ring was set up on the inside. Former WWF talent Virgil and babyface Doink the clown (Ray Apollo) were in the house. Virgil was there to set up an angle for the next show. I had double duty. First I wrestled the Polynesian monster Mana.
The Jersey Devil came in and hit me with a death valley driver which allowed Mana to get the win. I promised Jersey Devil and Dylan Dean I’d get revenge on them sooner rather than later. In the main event it was Jersey Devil/Skinhead Ivan vs Doink and a mystery partner. Welp, this clown that had a pretty entertaining feud with Bam Bam Bigelow back in 1994 picked yours truly as his partner and we picked up the victory. Dylan Dean hit the ring and along with Ivan/Devil they got the upper hand on us until Virgil came in and cleaned house. Overall it was a pretty fun show.
It was cool to grab a beer with Doink afterwards and score some cool road stories from back in the day. True story: during Doink/Dink’s feud with Bigelow/Luna, Luna went to her car in the hotel parking lot only to be hit on by some guy. Once the guy was rejected, he apparently said a few offensive things which prompted Luna to bend this guy backwards on her trunk and start pounding his face in till she was pulled off. I love working shows with guys like that who have been there, done that. They never fail to have great stories, especially back in the day when they were on the road 300 days out the year.
The next day I spoke with TNT Pro Wrestling owner, Marvin Ward, and an agreement was made to appear on all future shows. TNT runs Virginia, Georgia and Texas and consistently draws 1,000-2,000 people per show and is lined up top to bottom with names like Jerry Lawler, Scott Steiner, Midnight Express w/Jim Cornette, The Heartthrobs and more. Check out www.wfpromotions.com for more info.
The next weekend it was off to Long Island, NY for the 2nd Victory Pro Wrestling show. Early in the show I managed April to an impressive win over Alicia. I took on former ROH champ Xavier in the main. I cut a promo before hand talking about how I wrestled all over Canada for the last 6 years and am now starting to blaze a trail down here. Throwing a few insults towards Xavier brought him out full speed and the match was on. After tagging me a few times, he sent me out of the ring where he proceeded to chase me. April got in his way allowing me to sneak up to the top rope behind him. CRACK! Oh yeah, and I hit Xavier too.
Barely 2 minutes into the match and I broke my heel. Usually no indy show has mats around the ring. VPW doesn’t either. But for some reason, there was ONE SINGLE blue mat and Xavier was standing on it. When I came down off the top, the front half of my foot landed on the pad and my heel smashed the hard floor. Back in the ring, Xavier lit me up with some chops, strikes, a backdrop and overhead belly to belly suplex. I reversed his whip and caught him in a stun gun across the top. When I tried to stand I realized I couldn’t put any weight on my foot. LAME. I beat him down, hit my suplex/nip-up, thew a few chops, fed him to April and dropped a leg across the bottom rope on the apron, but he wouldn’t stay down. A crossbody off the top only got me 2.
Xavier fought back but I stopped him with a bulldog. We spilled to the outside where he grabbed someone’s crutch and smoked me in the sternum. I cut him off as he came back in and scored 2 1/2 with a bridged northern lights suplex. As I made my way back to the top, he stopped me with some chops and hit a top rope superplex. Once back on my feet (or rather my foot) I was received with 2 different atomic drops, a big clothesline, flying forearm smash in the corner and a springboard knee to the face. I kicked out but was then hit with a kick to the stomach followed by a burrito to the back of the head. Xavier went for his finish, but I blocked, and hit a powerbomb. I hit my top rope elbow “SuperStarStyle” but somehow only got 2 &7/8. As he got up I swung, only he ducked and hit his pumphandle-facebuster for the 1-2-3. As soon as I took my boot off in the back, my foot was already black, blue and heavily swollen.
I have to give a shout out to the Edmonton Oilers who 2 days after the VPW show lost unfortunately in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Every year they have an exciting run, even if they are out in the first round. This year it just seemed like they were going to do the impossible. Regardless, they kicked ass and put on some of the most exciting hockey in recent memory.
April and I headed out to see Nacho Libre on 5 dollar Tuesday (after all, we are INDY wrestlers). The movie itself was PG but that didn’t stop it from being funny. We laughed our asses off a few times and highly recommend it. “Chancho, sometimes a man likes to wear stretchy pants… just for fun!” - Nacho Funny, cuz in real life we wrestlers like to wear stretchy pants…. to get paid.
Talia joined us for our last stop that was back in PA to Phoenixville for Blackball’d Wrestling Organization. There was some serious shitty rain as it was one of those deals where it’s raining so hard, you can’t see the car in front of you. We arrived basically to find out that it was more or less a “camp” show. The show was held at their training facility and had a hundred or so chairs set up. Not quite what we expected to say the least, but we were paid before the show so no complaints. I shouldn’t have wrestled with my foot, but between loving this business and needing to get paid, I decided to tape the ever living shit out of my foot, along with a silicone pad the foot specialist gave me, and put my gear on. I have never been one to take painkillers prior to wrestling and since I got into the business in 2000, there have been way too many tragedies for me to start now. However anti-inflamatories and Aleve can be the 3rd man in the match.
I don’t work face very often as I prefer heel, but on this day I didn’t mind at all that my opponent Eric Matlock was heel and took the heat on the leg of my injured foot. This way we could cover up the fact that I was limited. All I had to do was avoid limping ’till I was cut off. The match itself wasn’t too bad, I just hate being restricted. It’s LAME. There is always the option of completely forgetting about the injury, but with something like a foot, you kind of need it for everything else so I worked “smart.”
If you are looking to lose weight, I suggest working for BWO as their dressing room is literally as hot as a sauna. Just sitting there getting changed everyone had sweat beads running down their faces amongst other areas. My hair was actually soaked even before going through the curtain. Needless to say, no oil was needed on this day.
Lastly, April and I did a Canada Day cheesecake photo shoot. I shot a set for her website and she snapped a few of me for the Ladies Only section on my site. Couldn’t help when we were finishing up her pix and she was looking soo good all spread out on the Canadian Flag… OH CANADA!! Happy Canada Day and Happy 4th Of July!
-JD-
JDMichaels.net
(7/2/06)
Posted with the permission of JD Michaels. Not to be re-posted without the permission of JD Michaels!
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