The First Time I Met CM Punk

WrestleMania is a week away! I remember WrestleMania 3 in my home state of Michigan, when Hogan slammed Andre. That night was also when Macho Man went toe to toe with Ricky Steamboat in what some consider the greatest wrestling match in pro wrestling history. It is kind of similar to this year’s WrestleMania, as the biggest match on the card is the return of The Rock to face John Cena, but the best wrestling match will probably be Chris Jericho challenging WWE Champion CM Punk. Long before CM Punk was WWE champion, he was the best on the independent circuit. I met CM Punk before he was even that.

Every story begins somewhere, and this one isn’t CM Punk’s origin. This story is just another testament to why the man who proclaims himself, “The Best in The World”, has always been the best at what he does. I guess it all starts before I even knew who CM Punk was. Fasten your seat belts, and let’s hit 1.21 gigawatts on this way back machine.

My first job in professional wrestling was helping out a small independent wrestling promotion out of Lansing during the turn of the millennium called the, “Pro Wrestling Federation” (PWF). Yeah I know real original. The promotion was owned by a man named Ben Justice, who ran a collectibles store in the area. I would help book shows and work on storylines with Ben. A few months into the promotion Ben was confronted with a choice.

A guy, who was barely trained, would make sure his 50+ biker buddies would show up to shows if he was one of the PWF champions. Since the promotion was struggling to draw, this seemed like the best option to keep it afloat. I was then presented with solving the challenge of putting a belt on this guy to get his ticket sales, but also cover up the fact that he couldn’t wrestle. Luckily I had at least one guy on the roster I could trust, Colt Cabana.

Colt was a student at Western Michigan University at the time, and was a regular on the shows. We had become friends through the few months of working together. I had come up with a scenario that would work for all sides. I was going to “borrow” the free bird rule for tag belts. I was going to hide the fact that this one person couldn’t wrestle with talent I knew could; and that I trusted. That’s when I asked Colt if he knew anyone he trusted that could help pull this off. He assured me he had a friend who would be perfect. The next month I met CM Punk.

To most CM Punk’s first impression is douche bag. He has a chip on his shoulder, a bad attitude on a good day, and he’s honest to the point of insult. I couldn’t have been happier to meet him. He was exactly the guy I needed for the angle because he wouldn’t let himself be part of a crap storyline, even if it was in some night club on Sundays in front of 50 bikers and about twenty other fans. For a few months Cabana & Punk mixed up the tag work, protecting the biker, and protecting the other talents in the ring. The storyline got pretty hot & when the straps went on the three in a six man tag, it blew the roof off the joint. In fact we had the bikers (which had already dwindled to 30), plus now there was about 50-60 real fans in the crowd. CM Punk and Colt Cabana turned the albatross around my neck into the best drawing angle on the show. Those two turned a turd sandwich into prime rib.

After the PWF closed down, I tried to keep track of Punk’s career. I never got to write storylines for him again; which will always be an unmarked line on the career checklist. Believe me I tried every place I was, but either money or schedule got in the way.

We would run into each other sparingly over the next few years. We usually exchanged a few nice words when we saw each other, except for once backstage at a TNA show in Nashville but that’s a different story for a different time. I even appeared on his last IWA:MS show when Punk wrestled Delirious to a 60 minute draw in a comedy match. I’m the fat guy in a suit two sizes too small in the corner of Danny Daniels’ (BABY!) opponent, CK3. Something that, even if CM Punk had never made it out of OVW, would always be one of the crowning moments in my career.

In life you meet a lot of people. Most are unremarkable, and little more than filler. CM Punk was anything but. He was one of those guys when you met him you knew he was only going to be limited by himself. Which if you really knew him meant he had no limits. When I order up WrestleMania this weekend, it will be to see CM Punk, because he’ll always be the guy who showed me that success is about the man, not the situation.

Enjoy your weekend kids, and if you get a chance, plop down the fifty bucks to see the biggest show of the year. Hopefully we’ll all see the greatest wrestling match in pro wrestling history … and I’m not talking about The Rock vs. John Cena.

Bristol Palin wants an apology

Before I begin this post I want to make it very clear that I think any comment that is degrading to a woman is wrong. Be it Rush Limbaugh or Bill Maher, both men were in the wrong when it comes to their comments on women. I haven't supported Maher since his comments during the 2008 election about the female members of the Palin family. As most know I think the Palins are bat shit crazy, but that is based solely on their stated political & social beliefs. I have NEVER supported Rush Limbaugh because it is beacons of hate and ignorance like Mr. Limbaugh that make it harder for our society as a whole to evolve past the maturity level of a middle school dance. I guess what I am saying is as an American and a person with a blog I want to say how sorry I am to Ms. Bristol Palin and Ms. Sandra Fluke for having be the targets of such comments. On the other hand I don't believe Ms. Palin, a public figure whose fame comes from being paraded out by her family during an election cycle to create a public image for her mother before becoming the target of such comments, deserves the same treatment (or Presidential apologizes) as Ms. Fluke, a private citizen whose fame stems from being the target of hate.

Earlier this week, in an attempt to garner more headlines for herself & to toss mud at the sitting President, Bristol Palin claimed to all who would listen that she is waiting on her telephone call from the President as he did with Ms. Fluke. The problem with this is Ms. Palin forgot the reason this makes headlines is because she is a public figure who uses her fame to be on Dancing with the Stars, get endorsements, write books, film commercials with "actors" from the Jersey Shore, and charge speaking fees for appearances. She didn't become famous because Bill Maher made comments about her on his show when nobody had heard about Bristol Palin. She became famous when her family made her, her baby, and the father of her baby part of their national tour to become the Vice-Family of the country. She became famous by standing on stages in front of thousands preaching her families political and social beliefs. People learned her name when her mother made sure everyone knew her family from Todd to Bristol, even when they put their whole family on TV for a reality show. Her mother went rogue, but the entire family went Hollywood.

Ms. Sandra Fluke got an apology from the President because she became famous as a result of being the target of a tirade by Rush Limbaugh who decided people needed to know her name, and his fantasy version of her testimony. Ms. Fluke is a Georgetown University student, who traveled the few miles from campus to congress to testify on behalf of her beliefs on an issue, which should have never been public until she was denied the right to testify. This denial forced Ms. Fluke to testify in her own personal hearing instead of being lumped in with the rest of the testimonies. Some would say this was done in an attempt to isolate Ms. Fluke to play down her position on the issue. These types of testimonies happen daily in Washington D.C. with multitudes of congressional hearings. They don't make people famous. Nobody is asking those who testify in front of congress to be on this season of Dancing with the Stars.

This is the difference between Ms. Fluke & Ms. Palin. This is why Ms. Palin's phone isn't ringing with the President on the caller ID. Again no woman should ever have to suffer these comments, but to believe that Ms. Palin and Ms. Fluke are in the same situation is delusional. Then again how many people are picking up the phone to call the President for the tasteless things they have said about him … Palin family where is your apology to him about the things Ted Nugent, Hank Williams Jr., or other friends of the family have said?

A Whirlwind

I have been in a whirlwind lately. I have been putting the finishing touches on the March tour with a date added at Zanies in Chicago. I am hoping to add two more dates by Tuesday. I also am getting ready for my honeymoon. It's gonna be a great time, but wow does it take a lot to get ready for.

Very excited that my first book (Ok, short story) has been published on Amazon.com. You can pick it up for your Kindle, Ipod, Iphone, Ipad, or PC by going to http://tinyurl.com/6m8rpf5. As of this morning I was the #20 kindle sports fiction book and #29 overall sports fiction book in the United Kingdom. If you have friends in the UK please pass along the good word. I would love to be #1.

I know I say it everytime but I promise I will be better about posting. I just start to write a blog and then ...

Comment Cards

One of the things you have to deal with in comedy is comment cards. Most comics I think try to avoid reading them. Either they don’t care, or they just don’t want to read the views of people who have never been on stage ripping apart their life’s work.  It’s like having comment cards for a birth and people being able to anonymously heckle your baby. Most people who use comment cards are assholes, unless they wrote nice stuff.

Clubs usually just use them to get email addresses and to make sure nothing nuclear happened during the show. I happen to be part of those who are a glutton for punishment and read all the comment cards after shows. Mostly I do it to fuel my ego and read about the, “cute fat kid”. Then there are times when I like to read them to see the hate spew out. This weekend happened to be a mixed bag.

I went down to North Carolina to do a show for a friend who knows a lot about comedy. He just started this new room, and of course he had comment cards (again mostly to collect emails). After the show, while crashing on his couch, I decided to look through the comment cards. On most it was just a number next to a name with a slew of 4’s and 5’s. Some people put nice little comments like, “Thank You” or “Fabulous”. Then there were some who just didn’t like what I did and commented, “Too Blue”. That I don’t mind because at least it came with a legit gripe. Then there are the haters.

For some reason a lady (who didn’t specify if she was hating me or the headliner) put down a notebook of comments that took up the front and back of the card. I would think she is a friend of (or dating) the emcee because she kept comparing the feature and the headliner to the emcee. Nothing against emcees but if you’re getting quoted on only one comment card it’s a sign that card was written by somebody who wants you to look better (and is usually sleeping with you). This person went on to talk about timing issues, charisma issues, and other industry terms that comics use to describe comics. Finally she tied her hate tirade up with a paragraph about Louis CK and comparing his career with those of the feature and the headliner, along with a nice piece of advice that this person had memorized from an interview Louis CK did.

This is a hater. This is a person who offers no real advice even when they express they have more than a novices experience around comedy. The worst is how little they tried to cover up this hate. Railing on technique, delivery, and then quoting every open mic comedians messiah, Louis CK, to wrap up just screams hater. Nothing against Louis CK, but he didn’t just crawl out of the womb doing hour long HBO specials (then again maybe he did).

I guess my rant here is more a rant against myself. For hours I let this one little hater, who had issues beyond my act, bring down what was a really good show. I shook hands, had drinks, and hung out with all kinds of people after the show who had a great time (and I even changed the opinion of one person who thought I was “too blue” by flexing a little Shakespeare muscle). Yet after all these compliments and positive comments I let one person’s negative feelings lay judgment on my entire act.

In the end I learned that comedy is a lot like life. You need balance. You can’t spend all your time focused on the one bad comment, but merely put it as one drop in the bucket.  The same goes for all the good comments.  Every show is a new audience, and that means a whole room of blank comment cards ready to love or a hate you.

More Blogs Coming

I started this blog so that I could share stuff be it published articles & stories, or random thoughts. Look for a lot more of both to come in the near future. Keep checking out www.quazirockstar.com for something very very soon.

In Tebow We Trust!