My Time with Dale Gagner's AWA

[Dragonfly]

As I've said before, I used to write for Dale Gagner and the promotion formally known as the "AWA." For a while, I decided to stay silent, mainly out of respect. (I got my current job thanks to my tenure with Dale.) That... well... let's say that a year of silence from "Camp Gagner" and a $20 paycheck for nine months of work can do crazy things to a person. So it's like this: if you have a question, ask it. I'm willing to talk about everything - Vince McMahon, Zero-1, Larry Zybysko, Sonny Roselli, why the storylines stunk and my hand in them... anything. Ask away.

[thesam07]

How did you get the job with Dale?

[TromboneMan]

What would be your most and least favorite angle or story that was run while you were working there?

[strykerdarksilence]

How was Dale to work for and did you ever have a problem with or get frustrated at his manner of promotion?

[Bobby Womack]

would you say that gangers financial skills rival greats like paul heyman and ian rotten?

but seriously, how much did this bum charge promoters to use the awa name?

[Dragonfly]

Oct 26, 2008 3:43:18 GMT -5 @thesam07 said:

How did you get the job with Dale?

I wrote him an email that boiled down to "Your site's content sucks. I can do better." And that was that. Sometimes having a set the size of the moon is a good thing.

Oct 26, 2008 4:35:58 GMT -5 TromboneMan said:

What would be your most and least favorite angle or story that was run while you were working there?

My least favorite would be the "Howie Gordon" thing. For those unaware, Howie Gordon was the "star" of Big Brother (US version) a few years back. He had this brilliant idea to turn this guy into a wrestler. This wasn't a Mike Mizanin (always wanted to be a wrestler" thing. He was just some washed-up reality "star" with a penchant for "Star Wars." Interviewing the guy sucked big time. He had this "high school jock" vibe about him that was horrible.

As for my favorite... that's easy. Sometime in the summer of '07, Dale told me that Larry Zybysko was going to start working shows for us. With Larry came Team Vision - Chasyn Rance, Jared David Saint Laurent, and So Cal Val. Dale wanted me to start a feud Chasyn and "Light Heavyweight champion for life" Kirby Mack. That was fine by me, since I loved working with Kirby.

I decided to take a different approach with Chasyn. Instead of doing my normal "Hot Seat" interview, I had him cut the written equivalent of an introductory promo. I told him he could say whatever he wanted, just as long as he mentioned Kirby and kept it clean. What I got back was surprising, to say the least. It was standard fare for the most part - he put himself over, he put Team Vision over, called Kirby a "cripple" (he had a collapsed lung at the time)... that sort of thing. He also went into detail how he used to repeatedly fool around with TJ's (Kirby's brother) girlfriend while the Mack slept in the other room. Wow. Not only was it real, both Macks were pissed off. Legit pissed off. Kirby responded by calling Chasyn a "spoiled rich kid" and claimed that he never worked a day in his life. That was real as well. I had stumbled across a goldmine.

TJ was working a "split personality" gimmick at the time. Sometimes he was TJ Mack, other times he was Dexter Poindexter: Super Nerd. Dale loved the Poindexter character; I didn't. I decided to make this fun by adding Noah Lott to the mix. Early on, I had given Lott the gimmick of "James Bond supervillain in training." He just had (or rather, has) that vibe to him. My initial idea was to make the Poindexter character a superhero. Lott would plow through TJ Mack with ease, but couldn't beat Dexter Poindexter at all. He would then figure out that TJ and Poindexter were one in the same and make it his mission to unmask the superhero once and for all. This went out the window after I heard back from Chasyn.

Now for the recap: I have two guys named Mack pissed off at Chasyn Rance for being a shameless home wrecker, Chasyn pissed off due to the "spoiled rich kid" comment, a supervillain, and an alter ego that I didn't really like anyway. Here is what I came up with:

Due to both Chasyn's comments and Kirby's collapsed lung, Team Macktion was finally back on the same page. (Steve Corino and Danny Wenkel ran an angle where TJ was tricked into turning on his brother by Dale.) Chasyn, on the other hand, had one thing in mind: force Kirby to retire. At the same time, Noah Lott would announce that he received funding from an "anonymous backer." He did what any good supervillain would do with a pile of money - hire a henchman (Zach Gowen). There would be some words back forth between the Macks and the Lott/Gowen camp, leading to a tag match. Lott would win by cheating and declare himself to be number one contender to Kirby's Light Heavyweight title. During the buildup to the title match, Lott would conjecture that Kirby was still too injured to wrestle. Kirby would deny it, of course.

The match would start with Kirby just going off on Noah. Slowly but surely, however, Kirby starts to slow down. By the end, Kirby can barely stand up. Zach Gowen then throws Noah a chair. One hit, and it's all over. Noah Lott is your new Light Heavyweight champion. Noah and Gowen then start to beat heel out of Kirby, until Dexter Poindexter runs out of nowhere to save the day. Just as Poindexter is about to level Noah, Mister Saint Laurent comes out from the back. (Unlike everyone else in this feud, MSL is a big fat guy.) He's the "Doomsday" to Poindexter's Superman. MSL quickly unmasks Poindexter, revealing that he was TJ all along. Chasyn Rance comes out and cuts a promo as the heels stand triumphant.

The Macks would then stay quiet for about a month in order to sell their injuries/embarrassment. Lott would be bragging that he finally "killed" the Macks, while Chasyn would be demanding a title shot. Thing is, he would never get one. The first title shot would go to Zach Gowen. The second to whatever hotshot Dale brought in to sell tickets. Finally, Chasyn has enough and sends Mister Saint Laurent in to "take care of things." He takes Gowen out and challenges Noah to a match. Noah is now officially scared to death.

The "match," if you would to call it that, would have lasted about two minutes and ended in a no contest. Why? TJ Mack would come to save the day. He'd then cut a promosaying that they should band together to fight the common enemy. They agree and reluctantly shake hands.

The next day, it would be announced the Light Heavyweight belt was being stripped from Noah Lott for "private reasons." The belt would go to the number one contender - Chasyn Rance. (It would be revealed later that those "private reasons" were actually "Team Vision bribed Dale.") While Chasyn wouldn't have to defend the title right away, he would have to work the next show with MSL against the team of TJ Mack and Noah Lott. Long story short, Noah and TJ win. Noah then turns on TJ, since the threat of "MSL" was been taken care of. (Hey... he's a supervillain. Treachery is what they do.)

Between shows, you'd find out that a TJ Mack/Noah Lott match has been signed for the next show. No rematches. Chasyn would then issue an open challenge to anyone for the Light Heavyweight belt. At this point, both Rance and Noah should look unstoppable.

As you'd expect, TJ Mack doesn't show up for his match with Noah Lott. Dexter Poindexter shows up instead. It's the first time we would have seen the character since the MSL incident a few months earlier. Dexter is kicking ass, but stops halfway through. As Noah just lays there, Dexter takes off the outfit and "becomes" TJ again. Noah gets up and immediately starts plowing through him again... almost. TJ keeps kicking out. Then he hits a reversal. Soon enough, TJ Mack is beating Noah Lott silly. TJ wins. He takes his Dext Poindexter glasses and walks off.

Later on, Chasyn Rance comes out for his match. The challenge, of course, is accepted by none other than Kirby Mack. Kirby would end up beating him in a very underdog, "Rocky" sort of way. MSL and Noah Lott would then rush the ring, only to be greeted by TJ. Macks clean house and the crowd goes home happy.

Everyone loved the idea, except for Dale. He didn't want anyone else to hold the Light Heavyweight title other than Kirby. By that point, Dale had other things to worry about, so my edited idea (along with everything else) got put aside from the big tag team tournament.

Oct 26, 2008 5:20:50 GMT -5 @strykerdarksilence said:

How was Dale to work for and did you ever have a problem with or get frustrated at his manner of promotion?

He had so much great talent that he wouldn't even look twice at. World-1 had Sterling James Keenan, Ricky Reyes, Larry Sweeney, Up In Smoke, and Pelle Primeau. CWF had Otto Schwanz and Cham Pain. Dale has dealings with GQ Gallo, which mean he had access to all of those great IZW guys as well. Who did he book? Buff Bagwell, The Patriot, Jake Milliman. As for Dale himself... he would change his booking philosophy every other day. Sometimes, he wanted sports entertainment. Other times, he wanted ROH. Then he'd want it to be old-school AWA. Scrapping everything and starting all over quickly became a gigantic pain in my ass.

Oct 26, 2008 12:45:14 GMT -5 Bobby Womack said:

would you say that gangers financial skills rival greats like paul heyman and ian rotten?

Dale makes Heyman and Ian look like Donald Trump and Warren Buffett, respectively.

[@TenaciousBe]

One thing I've never understood is how Dale's still using the name AWA and the logo, when, didn't Vince buy those rights a while back? I know there was some kind of lawsuit about that but how does he justify still using the name?

[Mayonnaise]

Oct 26, 2008 21:49:29 GMT -5 @TenaciousBe said:

One thing I've never understood is how Dale's still using the name AWA and the logo, when, didn't Vince buy those rights a while back? I know there was some kind of lawsuit about that but how does he justify still using the name?

He lost that battle this week and had to turn over all AWA trademarks possible (mainly websites) to WWE and stop using their trademarks this week.

[@TenaciousBe]

Ah, cool.

[andrew8798]

If you want more info about the lawsuit check this thread out

officialfan.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=WWE&action=display&thread=157407

[Mozenrath]

You seemed to of mitigated the Mack conflict with Chasyn well, all things considered. Did you interact with wrestlers much, or end up going through Dale for that, typically?

Dale sounds like a major league douche.

You mentioned Vince McMahon in your first post. Care to elaborate on that?

[Dragonfly]

Oct 26, 2008 22:41:03 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

You seemed to of mitigated the Mack conflict with Chasyn well, all things considered. Did you interact with wrestlers much, or end up going through Dale for that, typically?

I talked to them through email. Dale was really weird about me getting in touch with them any other way for some reason. Hey... email worked fine, for the most part.For every one guy that would never get back to me (Zach Gowen and Buff Bagwell), there were three that would bend over backwards for me (Chasyn Rance, Kirby Mack, GQ Gallo). I still have all of their email addresses.

Out of everyone though, the I was probably most nervous dealing with Steve Corino and Takao Omori. I was fine with guys like Chasyn and Kirby - they're roughly my age. Steve Corino, on the other hand... I have video tapes that feature that guy. As far as I was concerned, he was a huge star. Unlike everyone else (aside from Sonny Roselli, but that was a different case), he never "kept it nice" with me. If he had a problem me, he said it. Needless to say, I got yelled at by Steve (he hated it when I called him "Mr. Corino,") on a fairly regular basis. Still, in a strange way, it was great. Him going all "Dr. Cox" meant more to me than others trying to be diplomatic.

Now Takao Omori... that was interesting, to say the least. Dale wanted me to interview him for this little magazine he was putting together. (Unlike all of his other plans, Dale actually went through with the magazine.) I had to give a list of questions to HCW promoter Linda Bade. She translated them, then handed them off to Zero-1 President Yoshiyuki Nakamura. (I have his private email address as well. Nice guy... can barely speak English.) He then gave them to Steve Corino, who supposedly helped Omori answer the question backstage. He ended up not answering about half of my questions. Anything about All Japan or No Fear was off-limits. (All Japan I understand, but No Fear... that was odd). I ended up getting my piece in fourteen hours before deadline. It took that long to get everything done.

And I have to mention... I'm still pissed at Dale about the Zero-1 thing. I was literally four days away from having a phone interview with Masato Tanaka when all of that ugliness went down. So close...

Dale sounds like a major league douche.

Oh yeah. You should talk to Bryan Logan... his stories make mine look tame by comparison.

You mentioned Vince McMahon in your first post. Care to elaborate on that?

Dale took the WWE lawsuit as a slap against him. You know all indignant TNA gets when Vince is mentioned? Dale was worse. That's actually how Larry Zybysko got involved with Dale. He wanted to help Dale "take Vince down."

From my end, I didn't care. In fact, I had written a story that would have explained a name change. (Naturally, it barely got off the ground.) My point was that we had (access to) some great wrestlers. Focus on the wrestling, not the stupid name. Dale, Johnny Stewart, and Larry Z felt differently. Fine... whatever. I wrote a "anti-Vince propaganda" piece, complete with a picture of the "AWA" - the Ambridge Water Authority building in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. It made Dale happy, and that's all that mattered at the time. That said, I'm convinced that I made on Vince McMahon's "hate list" with that article. I can see it now...

Personal Hate List of Vince McMahon:

- Randy Savage
- US Government
- Ted Turner
- Nailz
- Randy Savage
- Mick Foley
- New Jack
- That kid who wrote that derogatory article about me in the summer of 2007
- Randy Savage

[Dave at the Movies]

Why does Larry Z want to help take down Vince? I don't remember ever hearing a story about him and WWE.

[default]

What did the talent you dealt with think of Gagner? I don't expect you to name names or anything. It's just from what I've read, he seems to be a mark.

[Mozenrath]

Oct 27, 2008 1:05:09 GMT -5 Dave at the Movies said:

Why does Larry Z want to help take down Vince? I don't remember ever hearing a story about him and WWE.

I'm assuming Larry Z probably was humoring the dude. If he wasn't, he has been in the business long enough to know better, so that'd reflect poorly on Larry.

[Trip Fisk a.k.a. Foley is Good]

Well Zybysko tried to sue WWE twice over the "Living Legend" trademark which Jericho used in 2001 and Orton used in either 2003 or 2004.

[Chris Decker-The Wild Rover]

Do you know, Johnny GLitter and WSW here in PA. and whats your take on them?

[Joe Neglia]

Fun little fact about Gagner: He signed up at another wrestling board years ago just as his AWA started to really kick off (well, as opposed to what it was previously). His password there? The n-word.

[Johnny B. Decent]

Oh, that's nice.

[mediamaven]

Yeah, really classy to use that as your password, or at all really.