ekend in Harrisburg, AR promoted by Austin Lane and Baxter was promoting it on his morning radio show. I heard it was canceled Saturday morning on a commercial that Brandon made and shot him an e-mail saying..”What happened to the show??” I found his response about the show very interesting and just things in said about the business in general. I thought my visitors would like to see it……. The Harrisburg show ended up being a very frustrating situation. I had not done a wrestling show since our radio station’s “4th In The Forest” event. My schedule has been crazy, and I had been turning down the bookings…plus nothing had sounded very exciting.
He also had an idea to involve my co-host, Booger, in a “Battle Of The Sexes” deal with his wife, Nikki…and since this would play into some of our recent discussions on our morning show, I thought we could help generate some interest. A little back-story: A number of weeks ago on the show, I brought up Hillary Clinton considering running for the office of President in 2008. Booger said that there would never be a female president…that was a man’s job…and many of our female callers got extremely fired up over that comment. In wrestling terms, Booger took a heel like stance on the issue, and I saw the “Battle Of The Sexes” being a payoff of sorts for our listeners. Plus, we could make some extra money!
So we accept the booking, and begin promoting the event on our show. We were getting a great response, and so was the National Guard Armory in Harrisburg. I received a call at 10:15AM Thursday morning from a Sergeant with the National Guard. He told me that their phones were blowing up over at the Amory with people asking about the show, but the problem was that no one had booked the building! I couldn’t believe it! In all my years in the wrestling business, I’ve never heard of the BUILDING not being booked!
I was rather upset, and made a few irate phone calls. Austin Lane told me that he was responsible for booking the talent (Sarge, Mickey Ray, Hollywood Jimmy, Booger, myself, etc…), but that someone else was responsible for booking the building. He was upset as well, and he said he would get to the bottom of it all.
The guys who were supposed to reserve the building tried to resolve the situation Friday. However, due to it being the National Guard’s “Drill Weekend,” we couldn’t use the Armory. They tried to work something out with the High School, but because at this point there was only about a 24 hours notice, that wasn’t doable either. So Booger & I had to go on the air and tell our audience that the event that we had been promoting was cancelled, due to the ever popular “circumstances beyond our control”…which is an embarrassing situation!
So maybe all the talent that accepts bookings in this area should call the buildings to confirm that the show is actually going to take place! It’s stuff like this that gives wrestling a bad name in this area, and it makes it more difficult to get into good buildings, and get good television clearances. So many sponsors, buildings, and TV stations have been burned by so called “wrestling companies” over the years. And many casual observers don’t know how to differentiate between the credible companies and the groups that lack credibility. The word “Wrestling” is what they hear, and many times every company is painted with the same brush, regardless of how accurate that may be.
