Michaels — Tis The Season For Politics, Kash & Oh Yeah, Christmas..
Superstar Style — JD Michaels
JD Michaels returns with his first column of 2007!
November went down as the worst month of the year show wise. I only had 4 bookings going into it, but all 4 managed to cancel. TNT had a double shot scheduled for the 10th and 11th, but 3 days before we were informed they were cancelled. MXW had a shot on the 18th, but on the 17th posted on a message board that the show was cancelled. This only added to my other frustrations that I had with immigration. From day one, I have done everything by the book with them, sent whatever they asked for, the legal way… filled out a shit-load of forms, paid lots of expensive fees, waited and waited and waited some more. I was told it would take up to 6 months to process my green card. In order to travel before that, I would need a ‘parole pass’ (love the name). I applied for that with hopes of April and I going up to Edmonton to spend Christmas and New Years with my family as well as have our belated wedding reception. Long story short, due to several errors on the government’s part, I was told I wouldn’t have my pass in time for the holidays. LAME.
I tried to put the negative to the side and focus on the busy first 2 weeks of December. After stopping in Philly Dec 1st for WEW, we continued the long trek to Penn Laird, VA for TNT. Turnout wasn’t too bad. The meet and greet ahead of time was good, sold lots of merch and was steadily entertained by Ricky Morton, who is never short of either something funny to say or a good story.
“Can y’all believe that all my ex-wives had the same name? Talk about a coincidence.”
“What were their names Rick?”
“Plaintiff.”
Morton came back from his match, very pleased with his performance and said: “Boy was I hot out there! Ya like that?! I know you do… and if I was a chick, you’d be all up in my *****!”
I was in a 3 way, which turned into a tag match which ended up being a 6 man tag by the time the show started. The match seemed slapped together and overall was pretty pointless as we were told ahead of time not to go longer than 6-7 min. With that many guys all wanting ring time and no real direction for the match, I made sure I shined by grabbing the mic before the faces came out and cutting a promo that scored a big round of booo’s and a “JD Sucks” chant. Everyone basically tagged in once and that was the match.
On the 8th, it was back at Victory Pro Wrestling and a rematch against Danny Demanto and Alica, almost. Alicia was out with an “injury” so Demanto picked newbie Tina Marina to fill in. Overall the match was fun and we had some great heat with the crowd.
In the beginning, Danny tried or rather forced April to dance with him which some thought was funny. I tried to return the favor once April got a hold of Tina. I tagged in and pulled out a few moves from Dirty Dancing, which prompted a slap from Tina. Being the gentleman I am, I took her by the hand… military pressed her, and ever so gently slammed her into the mat. With my face still tingling from the slap, I snuck back in to bend her in half with a camel clutch.
After a nice beatdown from April, I came back in and flung Tina into the corner. When I charged, she had the audacity to kick me in the face, then hop up to the top and give me a 360 degree DDT. She tagged in Demanto who proceeded to illegally punch me many times, backdrop me so high I literally damn near hit the ceiling, then to add insult to injury, military pressed me and threw me onto April. LAME!
Danny then slammed/sat on April and went for the pin (but as he slammed her, her feet hit the ref). I pulled him out of the ring and sent every last pound of him into the ring post, then stomped on his head a few times. Meanwhile, apparently little Tina was going to come to the rescue and dive onto me, but April caught her and powerbombed her off the top rope. As the legal man, I hopped up to the top and crashed onto Tina with the big elbow SuperStarStyle for the 1-2-3. The real irony is the last time we wrestled, Demanto pinned April (who wasn’t legal) so it was nice to turn the tables around and pin the non-legal Tina.
After the show it was back on the road for another long ass drive back to VA and a town called Massaponax for our final TNT show. I have no idea if TNT will run any more shows, but April and I will not be a part of them regardless if we are asked to be. I will not go into details and air a bunch of dirty laundry, but in a nutshell, as a talent you come to an agreement with a promoter/booker on specs such as show price, trans, hotel etc. Once an agreement is made, on my end as talent, my job is to plug the show wherever I can, and most importantly, show up and wrestle my ass off and earn every penny I asked for. However, when said promoter starts trying to cut corners (ie less trans, no hotel, cancels shows you made a priority and cancelled other shows so you could do his) and you question it and say “hey, I thought we’ve had an agreement since May, this is what you promised” and then you’re made to feel like an asshole and they try to job you out, well that is a place I sure as hell don’t want to be a part of anymore. But we committed to Dec and it was our last shot.
My opponent was Evan Karagias, who, I was told, no showed. Kid Kash (who I had a really good match with back in Oct) heard I didn’t have an opponent and asked for us to work each other again. TNT had turned into a stressful place, but at least I was going to have a good, fun match for my last shot. Kash and I have really good in ring chemistry. I play up the asshole heel who is *****y, showboats and tries to be flashy. Kash is the serious, won’t die, I’ll kick your teeth in, ‘pitbull’ style… We size each other up in the ring, Kash dives at my legs, trying to take me down. I hop over him 2 or 3 times to try to create some distance. He gets up and charges right at me to where I respond by diving through the ropes, taking a breather and stopping any momentum he tried to start. I ask for a time out.
He comes out after me, chases me around, I get back in, run across and dive out the other side. Once back in, we locked up and went into some wrestling and grappling, going move for move and hold for hold.
After trading 4 or 5 quick pins, we separated. When we locked up, I booted him and started peppering him with punches. His monkey flip backfired as I landed on my feet… only to walk into a few deeeep armdrags which was the beginning of him pounding my arm.
I ended up dumping him onto the apron and April swept his legs out from under him, thus giving me the advantage I’d needed. I worked over the former “WWE Pitbull” on the outside before I sent him back into the ring where I proceeded to put the boots to him. A missile back elbow got me a 2 count. I went to work on his head and neck area — I wrenched on it, stomped on it and even stood on it. I followed that up with a few springboard knees and my rolling guillotine fist drop for 2 and a half.
Kash fired up with some kicks to various areas and tried to whip me across the ring which I reversed sending him into a trip by April. Kash landed hard face first and I saw my oppertunity. I scaled up to the top and attempted to finish him off with the big elbow… ..but he moved and got an opening. He ran over me with elbows, forearms, clotheslines and kicks.
A vicious side suplex put me down for 2. A few traded attempts at a suplex saw him come out ontop with his suplex-slam. Kash got ahead of himself when he went for a big splash and landed right on my knees. A slugfest ensued into a backslide on behalf of Kash to which I rolled out of into my own backslide. He rolled out of my backslide and locked me right into his double underhook piledriver for the 3 count.
It’s no skin off my back to lose to a veteran of 17 years with his abilities. It was a blast to throw down for 25 minutes and escape the stress and b.s. of this business.
It was a real disappointment to not spend Christmas with my family, especially considering the circumstances. April, Cosmo and I did go down to Charlotte, NC and spent it with some of her family which was pretty fun. I took some quality, strong Canadian beer — Molson XXX (7.5% yeah!), chilled, laughed, watched Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story & Nacho Libre again (Nachooooooooooooooooooooooo!!) and even ran into Double A, Arn Anderson at Dave & Busters game room. All in all it was a good time and a nice break from the real world. With the TNT deal going sour, I was looking to find other bookings down south as there are less smarks, higher paydays and way better merch sales. April and I both get a lot of feedback from the southern fans too.
The day after X-mas I received an email from Nascar driver and UWF owner Hermie Sadler about UWF no longer being exclusive with TNA and that he can book some outside talent. After trading a few, I came to an agreement with Hermie for April and I to start with UWF as of the first weekend in Feb (2nd-Wilson, NC; 3rd- Wilmington, NC), so to all the southern fans, we’ll be back! Hope everyone had a great holiday and best of luck in ‘07.
-JD-
(1/9/07)
Controversy never looked THIS good!!
Posted with the permission of JD Michaels. Not to be re-posted without the permission of JD Michaels!
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