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Ten Years Later: SRPW Truce, The Deep End & Stinky Wrestlers

Posted: Mar 24th 2012 By: mikeiles

At the end of 2003, there were two feds running in Eastern Oklahoma. Steel Rage Pro Wrestling, a group started out of dislike for Rocco Valentino (my mentor) and Tornado Pro Wrestling, the company for which I worked. Unfortunately, due to a head injury sustained in karate match in Colorado, I was not medically cleared to wrestle for at least a few months and maybe never again depending on how tests looked. The doctors felt that with the number of head injuries I suffered in a short amount of time, I may have be risking my life by continuing to put my head in harm?s way. TPW?s roster was starting to suffer defections. Partially because we just were not running very often and SRPW had just set up deals to run bi weekly at Mickey?s bowling alley and the Salvation Army Boys and Girls club. Gone from TPW were X-Cal, Shane Morbid, Canadian Luchadore (now calling himself Trey Christian), Black Bear (now calling himself Harry Sanchez), and Terry ?Mountain Man? Montana.

TPW needed a consistent weekly show location. Even though I couldn?t wrestle, I still wanted TPW to do well. I wanted there to be a place to come back to when (if) my head ever got better. I would rather give up than join SRPW. That is how heated the rivalry was between the two groups had gotten. Finally in November of 2003, Sonny C (promoter at the time for TPW) found a bar downtown called ?The Deep End? that would let us run Saturday evenings before the club opened for regular drinking. We didn?t care how inconvenient the location was or how small the building was (with the ring in there it seated about 40 fans). We were just glad to be back to consistent shows. A key member of our roster at the time was Kenny ?Outcast? Campbell. Rocco was booking the shows and decided to give Kenny a major singles push. He had him drop his light heavyweight title to Deuce Rodriguez and then win the TPW title from Anthony Jackson the next show. Unfortunately, Kenny revealed to Rocco that next week that he planned on working for SRPW, but would do so under a mask as ?Anarchy?. I imagine this was a little bit embarrassing to Rocco. He picked Kenny to be his VIP tag partner and then when Rocco retired, he booked Kenny to win the second biggest title in the company from the guy that retired Rocco earlier that year in a retirement match, and he even gave Kenny a female valet (Kitty the hellcat). I can admit I was jealous of Kenny?s book. I would have killed for Rocco to book me like that. Now after that push, Kenny was asking to run double duty and work for a promotion that had set some nasty things about TPW and Rocco.

Surpsingly, Rocco allowed Kenny to do both and remain TPW champion. This set of events lead to the first truce between the two companies. Suddenly several SRPW guys were seeing about being booked at TPW. TPW held their shows at 6pm and SRPW held their shows at 8pm. Many guys would ask to get booked early and then drive over to the SRPW show. Rocco was allowing it as long as they understood they would be putting the TPW guys over on the TPW shows. One of those guys who came over from SRPW to work was Cade Sydal. Cade and I never got along very well. He was a diehard SRPW guy who talked some smack on message boards about TPW. A year earlier when he came to Oklahoma, he showed up to the OCW training school to see about getting a try out match. Rocco had him work five minutes or so with me in front of him, John Crow (OCW owner), and Brent Albright. Afterwards they told Cade he would have to be retrained at the OCW School. Cade didn?t come back. Instead, he ended up at SRPW and seemingly held a grudge. As far as being a wrestler goes, Cade was alright. I don?t want to call anyone out, but there have been some wrestlers in Oklahoma history with unpleasant odor issues. Cade was up there at the top. I don?t know if it was him or just his never washed ring gear. You could smell the stench the second you stepped into the locker room.

Cade had some bleach blond medium length hair, which semi-resembled how I looked when I first started. Sonny C and Romero would tease me that Cade was my doppelganger. Rocco decided to work that into an angle with me and Cade. I would be sitting ringside at most events. Rocco (as commissioner) would acknowledge my presence and informed the crowd of the medical reason why I couldn?t compete. Cade would then come out wearing a Justin Lee shirt and copying my moves. This would anger me. After a couple weeks I would try to get in the ring and do something but security would catch me before I could get involved. Unfortunately Cade was not very reliable and the angle had to stop when he stopped showing up to the shows.

Just as things were starting to look better for TPW, ?The Deep End? bar where we were running our weekly shows was shut down. Apparently the bar owner and the landlord had a disagreement over rent. Not only was the bar shut down, but the landlord put padlocks on the doors so that we could not even get back in to get our ring out of the building. As successful as SRPW was becoming, TPW was just having set back after set back.