5. "Watch The Receipt!"
"For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." - Ecclesiastes 9:12, King James Bible Remember those cowboy boots I worse when managing Christian York at KYDA Pro? Well, they ultimately led me to a moment two years later in which I booked one of the fiercest receipts of my nine-year "career." Fast forward to August of 2007, and Christian York was in a hot and heavy feud with Bazooka Joe, a tanned and muscled wrestler who has graced WWE wrings on an occasion or two in various roles. Joe's finishing maneuver was the "Click Click Boom," a hard right hand punch to the face. Thus, to get some heat on the feud, it was decided that York and I needed to jump him after a match and for me to stomp on Joe's right hand with my thick-heeled boot. Of course, being the neophyte manager I was, I didn't just step on his hand. I decided as well that since the babyfaces hadn't rushed the ring to save Joe, that I would take off my boot, and in a recall to the old school days of the Four Horsemen and JJ Dillon, hit Joe in the head with my boot. Yep, I didn't hit him very hard in a very safe area (as they teach you in wrestling school), instead I hit him square in the nose, and busted him open. Yeah, a) bleeding is illegal in Virginia, so we had to kill the post-angle promo and lost the go-home build for Joe vs. York. As well, when we got to the back, Joe was super angry at me, and I knew to stay away. We did business the next week and everything appeared smooth, but in the back of my head, I knew that at some point I was going to get a receipt for busting Joe open. Fast forward to 2009. I was in Blue Ridge Summit, PA for the SWA. The SWA has existed in some form for over fifteen years providing entertainment to the residents of Northern and Western Maryland, South-Central Pennsylvania and Eastern West Virginia. These aren't large crowds, but these are the type of people whose parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were wrestling fans. Thus, no matter the quality (or lack thereof) of what they see, as along as there is a ring, and people doing something that appears to be wrestling, they're over the moon. At one SWA show in particular, the promoter showed up, said that the booker quit, and nominated me to book the evening's events in under 15 minutes. Somehow, I could have expected that something out-of-the-ordinary could happen. Bazooka Joe was there. I booked him in a "surprise opponent" scenario in a tag-team matchup. I walked out with my tag team, and I started in on how much I hated Blue Ridge Summit, and how there was "absolutely nobody in the back" who could take down my tag team combatants. Unbeknownst to me, Bazooka Joe and his partner then "silently" sneaked into the ring. As the crowd repeatedly chanted "Joe," I started "putting the bad mouth" on Joe, until even the tag team I was managing knew he was in the ring. I backed up into him, and intriguingly enough, at that PRECISE moment, had a flashback to the KYDA incident. All I remembered was a fellow grappler's warning to me that night to "watch the receipt." I turned around, and I saw a smile on Bazooka Joe's face the likes of which I had never seen on a human being ever before (or since). See, I had booked for Joe to "knock me out, and then I'd powder to the back." Little did I know, I had opened the door for a receipt to be paid that was two years in the making. Honestly, I don't think I remember much else from that night until hitting a Denny's restaurant somewhere around the Maryland line. The lesson here? Time and chance certainly happeneth to us all.