‘What The Hell Was I Thinking?!!’ - Confessions of the World’s Most Controversial Sex Symbol (27 page)

By the end of the summer, we’d started running ads for our return to the ECW Arena, whose lease had now become available again with Rob Black’s having been run out of town by all the powers that be. We had had a wonderful run at the Electric Factory, but the history of the ECW Arena dictated that we return with a show that took the fall to plan. I told Todd I really wanted to blow the roof off of the arena, and we promoted the HELL out of our return — between radio, local television and Newspaper ads, as well as a street-team that flyered all over town throughout September and October. Unlike Rob, we had earned the right to host our shows out of the ECW Arena, and if I had it my way, we weren’t going to get kicked out of there again. Thankfully, the owner also wanted us back because he knew — again, unlike Rob — that we were reliable, and it made me feel good to know we’d earned our respect through sheer hard work, and our profile continued to rise as a result. Over in the U.K., we had our first year of shows in steady rotation on the Wrestling Channel. Residuals coming in from that allowed me to begin reimbursing myself for the TENS of thousands of dollars I’d laid out since the beginning to get my company to where it was at that point.

We titled the show ‘Raven’s Rules,’ and in designing the dialogue and match-ups for the show, were really focusing on the character-driven story lines that had made ECW Wrestling classic to begin with. I truly considered ourselves the next generation of that legacy, so we decided our title match with Raven would also serve as a great surprise ending to

fans when we unveiled his new title within our league as ‘3PW Commissioner.’ I also gave a new female talent named Talia her first break, where she then went onto work at NWA TNA which to me, underscores why I felt 3PW was a great place to grow new talent, in addition to our routine rosters of wrestling legends.

‘OPENING MATCH: C.J. O’Doyle defeats Ricky Vega; MATCH: Monsta Mack def Roadkill; MATCH: ‘Hot Stuff ’Matt Striker defeats Ruckus; IN THE RING: Bob Artese, Joey Matthews, Todd Gordon, Jack Victory + Raven…This was a drawn out segment leading to the announcement of Raven being named 3PW Commissioner…Raven’s first act of duty was to stripe Justin Credible of the 3PW title…Raven said that he, Sabu and ‘someone else’ would fight in a 3-way dance for the 3PW title…Raven said that Joey Matthews’ girlfriend (Alexis Laree) abandoned Raven’s flock so he wasn’t high on Joey…Raven set up a match between Joey Matthews & Low Ki…MATCH: Low Ki def Joey Matthews… MATCH: The Blue Meanie def Rob Eckos w/Matt Striker…Matt Striker came out dressed as Jimmy ‘Superly’ Snuka — his entire gimmick is of an 80s wrestler…Raven came out after the match, and said Matt Striker will face the real Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka next month! TODD GORDON SUGAR SHACK: Todd Gordon, Jasmin St. Claire and Gary Wolfe…Jasmin said Todd Gordon had bought her lots of presents lately so she had one for him…Jasmin went to the back and brought out a hot blonde named Talia…Jasmin’s said she is a piece of white trash and will be Todd Gordon’s sex slave…Todd Gordon toyed with Talia, asking her to touch her toes etc…Todd Gordon then introduced Gary Wolfe and his ‘ mystery woman’ to talk about his change of attitude…Todd Gordon said Damian Adams was trash talking Gary Wolfe, so he challenged him to a match…MATCH: Damian Adams def Gary Wolfe… SPECIAL ATTRACTION MATCH: Xavier def Homicide… 3PW TITLE MATCH: Raven defeats Sabu and The Sandman to win the 3PW title!’

After the success of the November show, we were doing extremely well, and had reached a high point where I’d achieved something no other wrestling promoter had since Paul Heyman: which was to sell-out the ECW Arena. Rob Black certainly couldn’t, and our profile continued to rise. I spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas in New York with my mother, while Brian stayed back in Philadelphia with his. We were on the outs a little personally from his pushing me earlier in the fall — but professionally we were known as a team and had an image to uphold. On top of that, we did work well together, he was a reliable employee of mine, and one of the only men in my life who I’d been close to that actually lifted a hand to really help me get one of my dreams off the ground. I can’t ever take that from him, even though I was the mastermind behind what we eventually built.

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record with that fact, but it became so misconstrued over the years in the media that this is my only opportunity to fully and completely correct that record — figuratively speaking.

At that point, we had a pretty harmonious thing going between everyone in the 3PW camp. We had no shortage of talent coming out of everywhere to work for us, and we wasted no time planning for our yearend show, which was one of my favorites because I booked a wrestling LEGEND, ‘Superfly’ Jimmy Snuka, as one of our headliners. We even named the show in his honor: ‘Su-Su-Superfly’ and it was a BLAST! Jimmy squared off in the ring against Matt Striker. We also had John Zandig and Wifebeater vs. ‘Commissioner’ Raven & Sandman, Sabu vs. Jerry Lynn, ‘Pitbull’ Gary Wolfe vs. Damien Adams, and of course, a Braw and Panties match between me and Gorgeous George who had changed her professional name to George Frankenstein for her appearances with 3PW. It was a lot of fun working with George. It was killer! I was in the company of greatness in the star roster and capacity-crowd we turned out for that show; it was a true triumph for us as a company, and for me as its owner/founder. We really were BOOMING as a business, and anything I’ve ever done in business I’ve done big, and with the goal in mind to be the best.

My resolution for 2004 was more of the same.To be bigger and better than we’d been, and part of my strategy for how to achieve that next level involved taking on investors, beginning with a wrestler of ours — ‘Pitbull’ Gary Wolf ’s — girlfriend, who had family money, and had expressed interest in investing in 3PW. At the time, we were looking for a domestic T.V. syndication deal for the 2 seasons of shows we’d taped and that had been such a hit over in England on the Wrestling Channel.Todd Gordon

had first suggested the idea of taking Gary’s girlfriend on as a partner, and I went along with it. I was inundated — between booking existing talent and the massive number of new demo tapes I was getting in from all around the country from up and coming wrestlers wanting to work for my league. On top of that, I had gotten involved in a new project with Cleopatra Records, which is owned by my longtime friend Brian Perera, one of the nicest and most loyal people in the business. He had a new DVD coming out called
Hollywood Rocks
and he offered me the job as host, which OF COURSE I jumped at. My very first interview was with Johnny tempesta from Helmet/Rob Zombie’s band, then my second was with Joey Belladonna from Anthrax, and Brian thought I did a great job, and I think he was impressed with the depth of my knowledge of the genre. Metal has always been my other love — the heavier the better and I had always had a blast as hosting metal fests over the years. Anyway, my success with that first series of interviews gave me my other resolution for 2004: to expand my professional reach into the world of Metal!