Commentary

As far as reasons go, there are not terribly many. Overall, the hype of the show kind of died since 2007. People asked me about it a lot last year, and that whole aspect kinda killed the momentum. As everyone probably knows, I broke my 4th metacarpal bone in my right hand in March and it took a helluva long time to heal. Additionally, I am realizing that maybe my days of backyard wrestling are over as I graduated from college this year. I'm not entirely upset about not ever getting to do the Reunion Show, because I wasn't really sure if anyone else was as excited as I was. I'm glad I never really put a set date like I almost did before I hurt my hand.

I finally finished Ric Flair's "To Be the Man", and I'm not gunna lie...but Naitch is kind of a hypocrite. He complains about his days in the NWA and AWA about people would blame him as World Champion when ratings were down and that it was unfair. Yet, he also says the Bret Hart was a good worker, but not a good World Champ. He says that Bret Hart couldn't draw ratings as World Champion, yet Flair himself hated when people would blame lackluster ratings on the champ. Doesn't make too much sense...

Not saying the book isn't good, I found some interesting quotes that I actually agree with:

"...winning the title was not as glamorous as it seemed. You came back to the dressing room at the end of the night in some god-forsaken city. Everyone else on the card had left, so you were the only one there. Nobody was around to say, 'Good match, bad match, mediocre match.' You showered, got dressed, walked into an empty parking lot, started your rental car, and either went back to the hotel or the next town." - Ric Flair

I completely agree with that statement in regards to BBA. When people like Rob, John, Fred, and I tore down the main event match...nobody would be there to see it. That was one of the drawbacks of being in the main event. As everyone knows, my first year in BBA was filled with BBA World Championship reigns. As I began to notice the same trend as Ric, I decided to drop to middle card status (like with the TV Title, US Title, etc.) It was tough, because I knew I belonged in the main events, but I also wanted people to know how good I was. I didn't want to waste my main event caliber match for the referee and the commentator(s). I wanted the other BBA wrestlers to see me in the ring. People didn't care about the whole effort of the show, they only cared about their own individual stuff. Midcarders like M80, Mike Savage, Firestarter, and Chuck Fury usually left after their matches because they didn't care about what happened after them. That was one of the main reasons that Rob and I decided that our last match at Realm of Champions II would be third on the card.

"He [Ricky Steamboat] shared my belief that the best matches are called in the ring and on the fly, not laid out on paper." - Ric Flair

Again, Naitch is 100% right. Fred and John always wanted some long drawn out spots that took forever to memorize. We would stand in the ring for almost a half an hour before the show and practice spots. The result? Somewhere, somehow, something would get fucked up. It always seemed to happen. I don't mind working out some spots for the end of matches, but everything else seems so arbitrary. That's why I consider some of my better matches with people like M80, Real Deal Rob, and even Backlash Brady. We worked out the fundamentals of the match, but nothing even remotely complicated. I remember I could tell people were getting tired of watching Firestarter vs. Me at Hotter Than Hell so I made sure to bust out a huge ass bump for a clothesline which got a great reaction from everyone watching the show. That was on the fly, and it happened all the time. If people were getting bored of the ground style with submissions, I remember throwing in some high spots to get the announcers and other wrestlers back into the feel of the match. Fred and I practiced our Realm Of Champions match maybe 3 or 4 separate times. We had a sequence of pins that was supposed to happen during the third fall. We had it down to a science. But when push came to shove, we fucked up. The tarp began to get caught in our feet, and the referee didn't seem to be reacting to our pin sequence as quickly as we would have liked. What we should have done was improvised and changed the spot on the fly, but we stuck to the plan. Fred rolled me up along with the tarp and basically we were rolling under the tarp and it was bad and embarrassing.

That's about it. Sorry for the lack of any interesting updates. For people interested, the REAL last BBA show is finally available for purchase. It took me 5 years to finish the video. No, it wasn't an incredibly difficult video to make, it was just something I had put off for a long ass time. One night a couple of months ago I sat down and dedicated my entire day to it. I love the opening video I made to "Blurry" by Puddle of Mudd. I really believe it is one of the best BBA presentations that ever took place. If you can't decide which VHS to order, Calypso's personal recommendations would be "Total Carnage", "Realm Of Champions II: Final Approach" or "BBA Tape #11".

I will continue to update the BBA site whenever I can because it is enjoyable to me. I know there are no more BBA events to look forward to, but I like reliving every moment of the BBA: The Good, The Bad, The Funny, The Serious, The Scary, EVERYTHING. I thank everybody who made it an enjoyable experience for me.

The Man
The Myth
The Legend
Calypso