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Ten Years Later: The End Of OCW

Posted: Dec 16th 2011 By: CMBurnham

Definition of 'Lien': When a creditor or bank has the right to sell the mortgaged or collateral property of those who fail to meet the obligations of a loan contract.

When things financially start going bad for professional wrestling promoters, more often than not they start making bad decision based on the theory that any minute now, things are going to turn around and the money will just roll right in. In 2003, John Crow, the owner of Oklahoma Championship Wrestling, was making a lot of bad decisions. He did not have any more money. He had already borrowed money from his wife?s parents and that money tree was now all gone. So he needed someone else to loan him money. He needed someone who did not know any better.

At that time, a muscular Italian looking 26 year old had just joined the OCW training school. Andy (better known now as ?Sonny C?) liked wrestling. He was an accountant by day. A few weeks into training he and I struck up a friendship. I knew Sonny C was going to be in the show very soon and I was trying to get him ready fast. He had the baby face look and charisma. He obviously knew his way around a gym and had offered to start taking me to his gym (Mikey?s Gym on 21st street) to train me on how to lift weights. I was surprised at how everywhere we went, Sonny C knew everyone. He had a hook up at every restaurant, bar, club, gym, and store we ever went too. No matter what service you needed, he always ?knew a guy.?

One day John asked Sonny for a loan to keep the company going. Sonny asked me what I thought. I told him he needed to make sure he had protection in case John failed to pay him. So he came up with a contract that stated if John was ever more than 30 days late on a payment, his wrestling ring and belts would become Sonny C?s property. The ring was worth at least two thousand and the belts were maybe a grand in their condition at the time. Effectively, OCW?s biggest assets were now collateral property. John needed the money so he agreed. Within a matter of months, the payments were already behind.

Fast forward a few months. OCW had just started running shows in a new venue called Hot Wheels Skating Rink. The crowds were great. Even the SRPW guys (our rival fed) asked if they could wrestle on our shows and just put our guys over. We agreed to let a few of them come back as long as we didn?t hear one word about them recruiting any of our guys to their show. Of course it didn?t take long for them to start doing exactly that with our students.

The big storyline at the time had Rocco as heavyweight champ. He would constantly come out during my matches and attack me with a spike forcing me to bleed. He did the same treatment to my former partner Kenny ?Outcast? Campbell. I had saved Kenny one time, and now we had reunited as a tag team to take down Rocco. He was helping me even the odds against Rocco. Just when it looked like I might beat Rocco, Kenny attacked me and joined up with Rocco. With this new betrayal, Rocco and I were planning on this leading to a big match and title change at the last show in February.

Meanwhile outside of the ring, John Crow had lost all confidence from the OCW crew. On February 10th, I found out the skating rink would be permanently shutting down in less than two weeks, meaning our last show there would now be February 15th. Chances were that it might be a long time before OCW ran again based on John Crow?s mental state. The night of the 15th roles around and John is acting a little crazy backstage before the show. He tells Rocco he wants to come out and make an announcement at the beginning of the show and he has to come out to the nine inch nails song ?Head like a Hole?. We found out later he chose this song because of the one stupid lyric saying ?I?d rather die than give you control?. We delay the start of the show half an hour so John can track his song down. Finally, he comes out to the ring and tells the crowd that he is tired of the BS backstage. He has found someone to sell OCW to who won?t take crap from those guys because he was a champion kick boxer at some point(or something to that nature) and couldn?t be pushed around. He then said he was leaving with his family. The whole speech was a shoot. He didn?t tell anyone about this before the show. Sonny and I heard the speech and each had the same thought. ?What is he selling?? You can?t sell property that is being use for a collateral loan. The only thing John owned was the name OCW. Sonny and I talked about it for a minute and we knew that it was time for him to collect since John was now well behind on his loan payments and was now attempting to sell his collateral.

The show itself was awesome. This really talented kid named X-Cal (who started wrestling in my backyard years earlier) made his debut. I came out and told the fans since this was the last night in this building and we didn?t have another show scheduled anytime soon, that I wanted my shot finally at Rocco. We had a decent little match and Rocco and busted me wide open. The crowd was hot. The finish was a ?Dusty? finish. I hit the moonsault for the 1-2-3. The ref raised my hand and gave me the belt. However, during the match Rocco had slipped his spike in my back pocket and pointed it out to the ref after the match. The ref reversed his decision. The crowd booed the ref and then started chanting ?Justin Lee.? All the baby faces came out and we shared a moment in the ring knowing that would possibly be our last show for a long time. The crowd ate it up, sensing that this really was the end.

Now this night was kind of crazy, and I still get the details about who said and did what confused. To the best of my remembrance, this is how it went down. We knew that we had to be really careful what we did. I actually called John?s wife that night and left her a cryptic voicemail saying ?I thought she was a nice lady and I?m sorry that things ended the way they did.? After the crowd cleared out, Sonny and I went to business. The ring crew began tearing down the ring. Sonny and I were nervous because we knew that if John came back to the building to check on the ring, it could screw up everything. We knew that Burt (aka Canadian Luchadore) would be driving the U-Haul with the ring and belts in it. John hadn?t paid for the U-Haul because Burt was working at the U-Haul place and got it for free. We pulled Burt aside and explained what was going down. He was more than happy to do it. Apparently he hated John too. We did not tell the rest of the ring crew what was about to happen. They all (including Mike Two) went to John?s house to await the U-Haul for unloading. They waited a couple of hours. They started blowing up all of our phones to find out where the ring was. We didn?t answer our phones.

Instead of the ring going to John?s house it went to a secret location that was about 30 minutes out into the country where it would never be found. After everything was secured, we left the secret location. Finally I answered Mike Two?s call and told him to not worry about the ring and if he was at John?s house to just go home. I told him I couldn?t tell him anymore than that and that the ring was not going to be coming so he did not need to stay. Apparently this is where John made a promise that he was going to get his brother?s gun and splatter Sonny and I?s brain out if we didn?t bring his ring back immediately. He made this declaration to everyone who was there waiting for the ring. This information was then relayed back to us. I called my parents and told them I would not be coming back home that night and to not answer any calls from John or let him in the house if he showed up. I was worried that crazy asshole might actually follow through on his threats. Sonny and I hid out at a secret location that night and most of the next day. John did not let it drop. He got all over the message board and called everyone who knew. Sonny ended up getting a restraining order against John based on threats he was leaving on the internet message board.

I can?t blame John for being mad. He was stupid for taking the loan from Sonny that gave Sonny the right to the ring and belts. His stuff got repossessed. If you have ever seen one of those repo shows, nobody is ever happy when their stuff is getting taken away. We never did meet the mysterious kick boxer who bought OCW. I guess without a ring and belts, he wasn?t interested in play fighting. I never saw John Crow again. I?ve heard through the grapevine that he had forgiven my involvement, but still hated Sonny and Russ (Romero Contreras). Probably after he reads my articles, he will hate me again too.