10 Things We Learned From The Secret Diary Of A WWE Superstar

7. A Taste Of Extreme, And Things To Come

Aleister Black silhouette
WWE

Weather conditions wrote off some of Hakushi's plans in February 1995, but he noted down what sounded like a transformative experience getting to catch the transcendent and white hot ECW in his downtime.

He said;

"I woke up in the morning and it was heavily snowing so it was impossible to fly to Hartford. Ms. Nakano called me from the Boston airport to tell me the show today has been cancelled. Mr. Saito called me to tell me tomorrow's show has been cancelled also. I thought I had to something during my time off. I was invited to an ECW show by Mr. Osamu Nishimura. It took 2 hours to get to Philadelphia which is the setting of "Rocky". I got to see Sabu, Pegasus Kid, and Cactus Jack there. Sabu was taken off on a stretcher during the show. I hope to fight him some day!"

He'd get his wishes granted in the end - an ECW World Tag Team Championship match at Heatwave 1998 saw him team with Hayabusa against Rob Van Dam and 'The Suicidal, Homicidal, Genocidal Maniac' and was for a while a cult classic within tape trading community and those plugged into Paul Heyman's product.

 
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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett