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Ten Years Later: Dr. Styles, Jessica Simpson and Losers Leave Town

Posted: Jun 30th 2012 By: CMBurnham

In March of 2004, I was wrestling as a heel for Tornado Pro Wrestling. TPW ran weekly shows in downtown Tulsa in a very ghetto area of town at a place called Owen Park. Sonny C was the promoter and Rocco Valentino was doing most of the booking. Despite the smaller crowds that showed up most of the time, the product was usually very good, especially by Oklahoma wrestling standards. It was a laid back locker room. Most of the conversation in the back was about something other than wrestling.

One of the most entertaining guys in the back was Dr. Rick Styles. He was always putting on parties, telling dirty jokes, and he would make us laugh with stories about fights he had with his wife. Dr Rick began his career years earlier in OPW as ?Grenade.? Grenade wore a mask and was part of a group called ?The Casualties of Wars.? It was more or less an army gimmick. I?m guessing Rick must have been much more reserved back then for Rocco to think he needed to wear a mask and have a manager. He didn?t unleash his Dr. Rick Styles character until the end of OCW a year earlier when Ryan Styles (part of a tag team with Ron Mac known as the Heat Seekers) no-showed an event. He was scheduled to be part of a tag team main event and we didn?t have anyone to replace him. Grenade had already wrestled and we asked Rick if he would be up for saying he was Ryan Styles brother and wrestle in his place. Turns out Rick was a natural heel and because he and Ron Mac both had shaved heads, that looked good together. From that match on Rick took it to a new level. Even after Ron Mac left Oklahoma, we put Killer Karl Davis with Rick Styles and kept the gimmick going.

Around 2004 Rick Styles had been feuding with Deuce Rodriguez, a member of a tag team called The Latin Apostles with Romero. Deuce was awesome. He was the ultimate ladies man. He could play guitar and would go to open mic nights. We would tag along and watch as women fell in love. And then we would try to pick up the leftovers that he didn?t go home with. He was never afraid to talk to any woman. I remember one night a bunch of us were at a bar called Gray Snail. It was entirely way too packed and just to move across the room you had to navigate through a sea of people standing shoulder to shoulder. Deuce was standing behind me and he notices this girl who looks exactly like Jessica Simpson. In 2004, Jessica Simpson was considered one of the hottest women around. I really want to go talk to her and since Deuce hasn?t actually talked to her yet and he never called dibs, I knew that if I get there first, I will not be in violation of any ?bro? codes. Both Deuce and I are trying to force our way through this crowd to get to Jessica Simpson and I get to her first. My opening line is ?So are they filming your show here tonight or something?? She doesn?t quite understand. I then say ?You are Jessica Simpson right?? She immediately falls in love with me. I look back at Deuce who finally made it up to us and he looks pissed. If I hadn?t gotten their first, I?m sure mister ladies man would have taken her home. Funniest part of that story is I went home with Jessica without paying my tab and the bar tender made Sonny C pay it for me.

Deuce was getting ready to move back to Wisconsin, and since he and Russ had been feuding with the Heat Seekers, Deuce decided to lose to Rick Styles in a loser leaves town match. Shortly thereafter Rick Styles decided to retire and he lost to Romero Contreras (Russ) in a loser leaves town match.

It was sad to see two great members of our locker room go. Fortunately for us, around that time Michael Faith had been done wrong in some way by SRPW (our rival fed) and he decided to jump ship to TPW. Little did we know at the time that Faith would end up owning TPW (and eventually killed TPW).