CAC 2009

Leaving Detroit and going to Las Vegas has been a pleasure for me a lot of times now. This trip, I chose Southwest Airlines for the duty of getting me there safely. My flight left at 5 p.m. and went to Chicago's Midway Airport and continued at 7 p.m. to Las Vegas. Arriving at 10:30, I was met by Barry Orton and whisked to the Orton compound, where I stayed for the next two days.

On Saturday, I was joined by Tito Carreon, a fabulous star in wrestling from the 50's. We spent a lot of time on the phone talking with Danny Hodge, Abe Jacobs and Roger Kirby, just to name a couple. Tito talked to me about some of the old timers and the great matches he had with them.

Sunday morning, Bill White picked me up at Orton's, and we went to the Gold Coast for an Easter Sunday morning service given by Bp. Jason Sanderson.. He had nearly a full house as a lot of the wrestlers wanted to attend. A great sermon was given by Fr. Sanderson about setting aside differences and taking care of business by not being selfish. He had wanted to be at his home church in New Hampshire but was very thankful that he was in good company in Las Vegas at the CAC.

Following the mass, we went to the Buffet and ate very heartily with all the attendees that had shown up by that time. The Gold Coast has a five-part buffet that caters to many different countries. They also have great servers that cater to your every need.

Bill White and I returned to the Wyndham Desert and sat back in his condo and worked on our laptop computers. We exchanged almost 150 gigs of stuff between hard drives. We spent the rest of the evening watching old Durango Kid Movies and Laurel and Hardy films.

Monday morning started by going to breakfast at the Gold Coast, where we had the $3.99 special. We went around the room and exchanged hellos, and then it was up to the reception room where we got our name tags and set up the Cribbage tables.

During the next few hours, we spent hobnobbing with all the legends that had come by to look at the new Cribbage Bragging Board that Bill White had designed and built. Besides the championship board given to each winner, now they have a bragging board to show off. It will be brought back and sought after each year from now on.

Monday afternoon, Bill White and I were asked by the Board of Directors to accompany the young wrestlers to the ring for their matches that night. I was asked to accompany the Champ himself, who would be in the Main Event. He, like me, was very humble in his promos, only letting his opponents know what he was going to do, not to whom.

Backstage, we met all the guys and girls from the event and rubbed elbows with all the legends. Bill had the pleasure of getting together with one of the largest athletes on the card. They planned their attack and went forth when the time was right and did their thing.

The crowd was very loud and offered me no sympathy when I addressed the referee and tried to open his eyes to all the rulebreaking going on in the ring. The title changed hands only because there were three on one in the ring. Had we been in a singles match, it would have been a whole different story.

Following the match, a bunch of us went to TGIF and had a few social drinks of soda (?) and chatted until the wee hours of the morning before going our separate ways.

To be continued…

Percival A. Friend, Retired
The Epitome of Wrestling Managers