Travicity
11-30-2010, 12:34 AM
The Twilight View
by Greg H.
Hi! My name is Gregh. I am a long time wrestling fan as well as a long time ROH fan dating back to the beginnings in 2003. I have been invited to do a semi-regular column here and I have decided to accept. Since most of you don’t have a clue who I am allow me to tell you a little about myself. I am a truly veteran fan of wrestling having watched my first match on TV in 1955 watching a program called Wrestling from Washington. I was a mere 5 years old at the time and I was somewhat startled and impressed to see the dastardly Hard-Boiled Haggertry doing terrible things to his opponent. I remember guys like Antonina Rocca and Eduard Carpentier as the good guys of the day and then there was the tag-team called the Fabulous Kangeroos who pretty much beat ever tag-team of the era. It was probably at about age ten that I became really hooked on wrestling whereupon I pretty much had to watch every wrestling program on TV. I have been a devoted wrestling fan ever since. What I would like to do in this column is bridge the past with the present and offer some of my wrestling experiences and views over the last 55 years. In doing so I hope to relate to that my later experiences with ROH where my undying devotion to the sport reached new levels. What I would like to do in each column is offer a taste of the past as well as a taste of the present. It is my longevity as a fan that makes me somewhat unique but understand that being a longtime wrestling fan is something that I am neither proud of nor ashamed of. Why should I be? Wrestling is one of my favorite recreations but I do have lots others. Each of us as individuals has the right to choose our recreations and my view on that score is if you enjoy it and aren’t hurting anyone then go for it and indulge yourself with your choices and don’t let others rain on your parade. I am a supporter of the idea of respecting others views and choices even if they differ from yours. Clearly if I listened to everyone who had some snide thing to say about wrestling ,my tenure would have ended a half century ago. So I ignore negatives about wrestling and I persist and enjoy. In addition I am the antitheses of the picky wrestling fan. It’s really hard for me to not enjoy a wrestling show.
One of my earliest impressions of wrestling is the hero villain thing. FYI in the “old” days the term was not “heels” and “faces”. That came much later. It was simply bad guys and good guys. Rocca was one popular good guy – an Italian from Argentina. He had huge ethnic followings at that the Garden(MSG) both Spanish and Italian. They loved Rocca so much that when legendary bad guy winky the Bruiser fouled him badly at the Garden the fans rioted and the Bruiser was banned from the Garden for life a bigger loss to us New York fans than to him. But one thing about good guys and bad guys of yesteryear is that it was clear what they were and they rarely if ever changed their stripes. There were no “tweeners” back then and a so-called face or heel turn happened so rarely than when it did it was a huge event. Now turns occur so often that they hardly raised the temperature as turns have become trivialized.
As far as ROH goes I recall how a young wrestling fan protege of mine(I introduced him to wrestling 12 years ago) came to me in 2002 and told me about ROH. I said “forget it kid. .I don’t care about some two bit promotion. I had relocated from NYC to the DC area at that time and the clever devil talked me into taking him to a wrestling show for his birthday. So reluctantly I took him to Philly to a bad part of Philly at that at a place called the Murphy Center(that was some dump) and it was 6/2002 and it was there I got my first taste of ROH. Shocking to me I loved the show. I met a couple of interesting aged fans at the time. One was actually older than me and it turned out that he was fairly well known. Unfortunately the poor fellow died withing a year of that show. The other old codger I chatted with was none other than Cary Silkin the current owner of ROH. Funny thing is that it was another two years before I actually learned his identity. So my young protege returned the favor. I introduced him to wrestling and he introduced me to ROH which was the beginning of some of my best wrestling experiences ever. To be continued.
ROH
by Greg H.
Hi! My name is Gregh. I am a long time wrestling fan as well as a long time ROH fan dating back to the beginnings in 2003. I have been invited to do a semi-regular column here and I have decided to accept. Since most of you don’t have a clue who I am allow me to tell you a little about myself. I am a truly veteran fan of wrestling having watched my first match on TV in 1955 watching a program called Wrestling from Washington. I was a mere 5 years old at the time and I was somewhat startled and impressed to see the dastardly Hard-Boiled Haggertry doing terrible things to his opponent. I remember guys like Antonina Rocca and Eduard Carpentier as the good guys of the day and then there was the tag-team called the Fabulous Kangeroos who pretty much beat ever tag-team of the era. It was probably at about age ten that I became really hooked on wrestling whereupon I pretty much had to watch every wrestling program on TV. I have been a devoted wrestling fan ever since. What I would like to do in this column is bridge the past with the present and offer some of my wrestling experiences and views over the last 55 years. In doing so I hope to relate to that my later experiences with ROH where my undying devotion to the sport reached new levels. What I would like to do in each column is offer a taste of the past as well as a taste of the present. It is my longevity as a fan that makes me somewhat unique but understand that being a longtime wrestling fan is something that I am neither proud of nor ashamed of. Why should I be? Wrestling is one of my favorite recreations but I do have lots others. Each of us as individuals has the right to choose our recreations and my view on that score is if you enjoy it and aren’t hurting anyone then go for it and indulge yourself with your choices and don’t let others rain on your parade. I am a supporter of the idea of respecting others views and choices even if they differ from yours. Clearly if I listened to everyone who had some snide thing to say about wrestling ,my tenure would have ended a half century ago. So I ignore negatives about wrestling and I persist and enjoy. In addition I am the antitheses of the picky wrestling fan. It’s really hard for me to not enjoy a wrestling show.
One of my earliest impressions of wrestling is the hero villain thing. FYI in the “old” days the term was not “heels” and “faces”. That came much later. It was simply bad guys and good guys. Rocca was one popular good guy – an Italian from Argentina. He had huge ethnic followings at that the Garden(MSG) both Spanish and Italian. They loved Rocca so much that when legendary bad guy winky the Bruiser fouled him badly at the Garden the fans rioted and the Bruiser was banned from the Garden for life a bigger loss to us New York fans than to him. But one thing about good guys and bad guys of yesteryear is that it was clear what they were and they rarely if ever changed their stripes. There were no “tweeners” back then and a so-called face or heel turn happened so rarely than when it did it was a huge event. Now turns occur so often that they hardly raised the temperature as turns have become trivialized.
As far as ROH goes I recall how a young wrestling fan protege of mine(I introduced him to wrestling 12 years ago) came to me in 2002 and told me about ROH. I said “forget it kid. .I don’t care about some two bit promotion. I had relocated from NYC to the DC area at that time and the clever devil talked me into taking him to a wrestling show for his birthday. So reluctantly I took him to Philly to a bad part of Philly at that at a place called the Murphy Center(that was some dump) and it was 6/2002 and it was there I got my first taste of ROH. Shocking to me I loved the show. I met a couple of interesting aged fans at the time. One was actually older than me and it turned out that he was fairly well known. Unfortunately the poor fellow died withing a year of that show. The other old codger I chatted with was none other than Cary Silkin the current owner of ROH. Funny thing is that it was another two years before I actually learned his identity. So my young protege returned the favor. I introduced him to wrestling and he introduced me to ROH which was the beginning of some of my best wrestling experiences ever. To be continued.
ROH