PSYCHO MIKE STARTED HIS CAREER IN 1981.AFTER COMPLETING TRAINING AT THE JOHNNY POWERS SCHOOL OF WRESTLING,DEBUTING MAY 3,1981 AGAINST THE MASKED SUPERSTAR.
BEGINNING HIS WRESTLING CAREER AS A MASKED WRESTLER CALLING HIMSELF "MR. PSYCHO"
BEGAN FEUDING WITH THE DEMON OF DARKNESS AND THE ORIGINAL SHEIK.EARLY IN HIS CAREER SPILLING BLOOD THROUGH-OUT THESE FEUDS,
PSYCHO MIKE HAS WRESTLED IN NUMEROUS INDEPENDENT PROMOTIONS THROUGH-OUT HIS CAREER SUCH AS: I.W.A. , MICHIGAN CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING ,G.L.W.A.(Oh.) ,U.S.W.L. ,C.W.A. ,E.S.C.W. ,CLEVELAND ALL PRO,A.C.W. AND MASTERZ OF MAYHEM, AND OTHER SMALL INDEPENDENT PROMOTIONS,
HOLDING QUITE A FEW CHAMPIONSHIPS ALONG THE WAY,AS WELL AS WRESTLING FOR THE WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION TV TAPINGS IN EARLY 1985-86 WHEN THE WWF TAPINGS WERE ONLY HELD AT MID-HUDSON CIVIC CENTER IN POUGHKEEPSIE NEW YORK,
WRESTLING NAMES SUCH AS S.D. JONES,PAUL ROMA,PAUL "MR.WONDERFUL" ORNDORF AND JAKE "THE SNAKE"ROBERTS.
PsYcHo MiKe WoUlD LiKe 2 ThAnK TheSe InKsTeR'z:
RaDiCaL RON
RODNEY ROSE
JERRY & MIKE DAVIS
TONY DERIGO
MORE TO COME SOON.......................................
The following column just goes to show that it's a small world. Picture it, if you will (sorry,
had to steal a 'Dusty'). One night while catching a band in Cleveland with some friends of mine, we decided to wander out back behind the bar and get
some 'air'. For some odd reason,
the topic of my
column came up amongst the conversation and I
heard a voice behind me pipe up, 'Hey, I'm a
professional wrestler! You write a column for
Scoops?' I expected to turn around and see some
Mulkey look-a-like who's wrestled one match in
his life.
Well, I turn to see this large,
tattooed man who introduces himself to me as
Psycho Mike. He gave me his card and the first
thing Monday morning, I checked out his website
and found pictures of bloodshed and spewing fire. Well, the first thing that came to my mind after
I saw this bloody man blowing fire? 'I've got to
write about this guy!'
How many people go out for a simple night on the town and end up meeting a guy who's wrestled such hard core legends as Abdullah the Butcher and The Original Sheik? It
just goes to show you never know when you're
going to find a topic for a column (which is
great because I've been suffering some serious
brain rot as of late and couldn't think up a
cohesive column if my life depended on it).
So, after playing email tag for weeks, I caught up
with Mike at a show in Canton, Ohio, my old
stomping grounds (as well as Mr. Marilyn
Manson's, but everyone tries to keep that quiet,
for good reason) on July 17th.
I have always
admired hardcore wrestlers and their bloodlust
for entertaining so this was a treat for me, to
say the least. Since I'm not the type with the
patience for a formal sit down interview, Mike
and I spent the day downing some beers (if you
would've seen some of the matches that were going on, you'd understand the need for alcohol).
We talked about everything from Abdullah's fork
getting caught in his pierced tongue to his
television show that he has been running in
Cleveland for the past 9 years to his latest
appearance in the HIGH TIMES Magazine's Hemp 100.
You'd think
with him booked in the main event, Psycho Mike
wouldn't have time to sit down and give me about
three hours worth of conversation to sort
through.
But when he arrived, the promoter
told him that he didn't have an opponent. Mike
later informed me none of the guys in the back
wanted to work with him because he worked them a
little hard.
He even propositioned the ring
announcer for a match, and when the announcer
shrugged it off as if it were a joke, he said
with a smirk, 'Don't laugh'. Psycho Mike came
down to wrestle and up until the very last
minute, no one even wanted to face him. (They
decided to throw him on the mic and initiate a
battle royal).
He also had plenty of time to
sit down and talk since he doesn't like to hang
out in the locker room. He pointed out a
fortysomething looking worker and said, 'I once
saw that guy break down and cry in the locker
room when told to do a job - that's the reason I
don't hang out in the locker room.
After
talking to Mike, I finally fully realized the
respect that I have gained for independent talent and the lengths that they go to participate in
the sport that they love.
I must have been
blind or stupid, but after spending one day with
Psycho Mike, I developed a whole new perspective
on the guys that roll into your town and play to
a show of, maybe, fifty people to a couple of thousand in high schools & arena's.
There's nothing about love of money
involved, it's all about being a wrestler. That's not to say making millions a year in the WWE is a miserable way to live, of course… Psycho Mike had his days in the WWF around '85/'86. When I asked him about that period of his career (now
spanning about 20+ years), he was brutally honest: 'I was the Job Squad before there was even a Job
Squad. Pin me, pay me…' He did get to job to such wrestling luminaries as Jake Roberts but being a
jobber, even to megastars, didn't always make up
for the abuse.
Mike told me about an
experience with George The Animal Steele that
would make anybody rethink a wrestling career. At the Cobo Arena in Detroit in front of 2000
people, he was punched in the nether regions by
The Animal when he worked him on the wrong side.
That was a far cry from headlining
Wrestlemania...Mike said he got tired of going to play baseball with his buddies and hearing them
say, 'We saw you on TV, we saw you
lose…again.'
He told me a lot of tales from
the road, a few of which aren't exactly legal or
fit to print. In the interest of privacy, I'll
keep the juicy ones locked in the vault. Of
course, he did mention that the only person that
ever gave him a lot of attitude was Hogan, but is that really a revelation? His WWF career
finished?, he moved onto better things (jumping ship to WCW),
Mike kept wrestling independently
and meanwhile, kept bothering the local cable
company concerning local access. He was the first program on local access in Cleveland with Masterz of Mayhem Wrestling: an even mix of rock and
roll, wrestling, and chaos. He's recently helped
other fledgling independent promotions start
programs of their own..
Psycho Mike has become something of a Cleveland
mainstay in recent years, appearing on local
television programs and doing a lot of charity
wrestling and told me he only works about two weekends a month. Two
weekends a month is a pretty sweet gig for a
husband and father.
The entire Psycho Mike
clan gets involved in dad's business.
Perhaps the funniest part of the day was when Psycho Mike told me he just might 'color' and that we should
sit up front for his match...his two daughters
sat right up front with us and heckled all of
their father's opponents during the main event
battle royal. You think ECW fans are rowdy? (Of
course, they probably learned the fine art of
heckling from their father,
whom was giving lip
service to a slightly overweight female wrestler
by yelling: 'Honey, I'm going to make you mine! I got fudge!'). Hell, at one point they were
heckling their own dad when they heard him
calling a spot too loudly. Psycho Mike's wife is
also an integral part of Masterz of Mayhem - she
holds the book. I asked her if this was the
family business and she said 'He eats, sleeps,
and shits pro wrestling. He'll always have his
nose in the business somehow.
Maybe that's why I liked Psycho Mike so much.So often we see the negative side of the business,
we don't see wives and families and the like. He
told me one of his better memories of Mick Foley
was when Mick put one of his daughters on each
knee and ate milk and cookies with them, getting
crumbs caught in his beard.
It's the kind of
story you won't hear on 'Inside Edition'. But
then again I also liked Psycho Mike because he
wasn't one of these guys running around spouting
at the piehole about being hardcore and wrestling about as hardcore as Sable.
Mike went to the
trouble to supply me with a 'Best of' tape (which featured him getting "Put Over" on current stars like Raven,Al Snow and D'Lo Brown).
He said it wasn't that hardcore
but it included a few downright gorefests with
forks, pencils, and chairs. I'd hate to see the
REALLY hardcore matches.
After the main
event, Mike told his daughter to go get the
Polaroid so we could take some pictures. He
started tensing himself up and hitting himself in head to make the blood flow for a more impressive photo.
Now that's dedication. I wish I could
have that kind of drive when it comes to my
soul-sucking job. That's it. Any comments or
questions? Email me: achrist14@hotmail.com. Until next time, Gail
Check Out Scoops wrestling page@
http://www.scoopswrestling.com/
GREAT F'n STORY ThAnX GaIl....PsYcHo MiKe 7/9D9
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