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Ten Years Later: The Southern States Super 8 Tournament

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 By: CMBurnham

The Southern States Super 8 tournament was an 8 man light heavyweight tournament that took place in 2002. 8 light heavyweight indy workers from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Louisiana competed in a night of great matches. It was partially my idea. I told John Crow, the promoter of OCW, if he wanted to put his light heavyweights over as being a big deal, he needed to have a super 8 tournament where he brought in top light heavyweights from around the country and feature his guys as the stars of the tournament. At this time, tape traders like RF video were still a big deal. I personally contacted RF and they agreed to buy and distribute the southern states super 8 once it happened. Supers 8 tournaments featuring light heavyweights were a popular seller. In order to get the the indy wrestling world more interested, we felt we needed to bring a name in. A lot of names were thrown around, including some ECW guys, some recently release WCW guys, and even Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Even some of the guys who had just been on tough enough season one on MTV. There was a worker back in the late 90's and earlier 2000's named Reckless Youth who was based out of the Northeast. He called himself the king of the indies and PWI and other such magazines treated him as such. He was kind of like CM Punk ten years too early. He wasn't a big guy, but he was charismatic and as I found out later, he was incredibly sound in his technique, psychology, and all around abilities. John Crow asked me about him as potentially being a name to bring in to help the card and I told him to go for it. John decided to have him face Brent Albright (Aka Vinnie Valentino) in the semi main event rather than have him in the tournament so that he would not draw attention away from the Oklahoma guys.

The only local guys featured in the tournament were myself, Kenny Campbell, and Tyler Bateman. A talented former Oklahoma wrestler who had relocated to Texas, Zane Morris, also showed up and turned out to be a very entertaining guy. He was one of Rocco's trainers back in the World Wrestling Empire days. Another really nice guy, this one from Kansas, who wrestled as Kraig "The Krow" Keesman and a couple of guys I had never heard of named Nick Bondage and John Saxon also competed. Filling out the final spot was a kid name Johnny Rage, who would later spend about 5 years in WWE developmental as Johnny/Curtis Riggs. While in developmental he would later become good friends with a kid named Max McGuirk. I knew all summer this tournament was going to happen and I was extremely nervous. So far I had wrestled all most entirely in my comfort zone against guys I had practiced with and knew pretty well. This would be me first time working a big match against somebody I had just met that night. For the first time in my life I went out and bought professional tights. To this point I had wrestled in some black and yellow martial arts pants and on occasion some baggy yellow shorts. I had grown out my long blonde hair to pony tail length and got an earring. I had been going to the gym regularly for about 2 months and was starting to develop a muscle or two. I even started tanning. I was actually starting to look the part a little bit.

The night before the tournament, Kraig "The Krow" Keesman and one of his buddies came into town and it was Kenny and I's job to show him a good time that night.Kenny and I weren't big club going guys. Hell, we spent all of our free time either training or watching wrestling videos pretty much. We weren't even 21 so there were only about 4 clubs in Tulsa we could even get into. most nights after the show we went to hooters and tried not to be too creepy. But we did take Krow and his boy out to the old Ocean Club that night. After a night of light drinking, we showed them how to get to their hotel and Kenny crashed at my house. The next morning they followed us to the Tahlequah Fair Barn where the show was to take place. It was August, the weather was hot and humid, the fair barn had no AC, and it smelt like cow manure. Kenny and I were the first match of the tournament. By now, we had wrestled each other so much we could communicate in the ring without words. That match that night with Kenny still stands as one of my best. We were very sound and the crowd popped at all the right moments. I introduced a new finisher that night where I hooked the guy for a uranage (rock bottom) on the top rope and did a back flip into the ring. Basically what Sin Cara and the SAT's do now. The rest of the tournament was kind of a blur but I won two more matches in that hot stinky barn in front of 100 (okay maybe 50) screaming fans. The crowd was solidly behind me when I won. Even after I went to the back they were still cheering. Rocco looked at me and told me to get back out there and give them what they want. So I went out for another bow. To that point, it was the best night of my life.

The show didn't make a lot of money that night and Reckless Youth knew it. He offered to put on a clinic the next morning in the ring for any of the local workers at $10 a person and let John Crow keep all the profits. So a bunch of us actually slept in the ring that night.My knee was pretty damaged from the last match so I wasn't able to give it my all in the clinic, but listening to Reckless Youth talk so passionately about the business and psychology of a match was very educational. Of course, John Crow squandered the money he made on nonsense and failed to capitalize on the event. Although one prototype DVD was made, John Crow failed to ever mass produce the event and eventually RF videos lost interest. Another one of his massive fails. But not quite the biggest fail in OCW history. That was yet to come.