by Jake Brown
Jasmin: I had to fight twice as hard to be taken seriously because I was a woman running my own show, and that extended to every area of the business — from hiring and firing talent to physically kicking hangers-on out of the back-stage/locker-room area of the arena. I had my share of throwing people personally out of the arena, so as time went on; people who had second-guessed my authority in the past or press got to see it in action first-hand. I had put time and considerable resources into getting this business off the ground, and now that we finally had momentum, I wanted no dead weight slowing us down or holding us back. By this point, as my fortunes continued to rise, Rob Black’s were fast dwindling, and for better or worse, it put a smile on my face when…well, maybe I should let the media do the talking:
‘Rob Zicari and Janet Romano, better known within adult as Rob Black and Lizzie Borden of Extreme Associates, have been indicted on 10 charges by a federal grand jury for allegedly distributing obscene materials via the United States Postal Service and the Internet. Zicari, Romano, and Extreme Associates, Inc. were indicted for allegedly distributing three obscene videos to the Pittsburgh area through the mail and six video clips in various digital formats over the Internet to the Pittsburgh area. The tenth charge was one of conspiracy to commit the alleged crimes… According to U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, prosecutor for the case, Zicari and Romano, if convicted both face a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison and a $2.5 million fine and probation. Extreme Associates Inc. faces a $5 million fine and could have to turn over their domain name. ‘For over a year Extreme Associates, Inc. has been investigated by the LAPD Obscenities Squad,’ the warrant reads, in the section entitled ‘Summary of Case: On February 7, 2002, PBS-Frontline interviewed Extreme Associates, Inc. during a movie shoot of American Porn. The PBS-Frontline cameraman and interviewer stopped shooting during the movie shoot. We believe they left because of the shock and disgust of the rape scene, which was subsequently released as Forced Entry. During the PBS-Frontline interview, [Rob Black] (principal) and Extreme Associates issued a challenge to U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft [USAG].They touted the USAG in regards to the content of their movies and that USAG could not do anything about it.’
— AVN Network ‘Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft promised upon taking office that he would crack down on the distributors of adult entertainment material such as movies, magazines and Web sites. Much as his Reagan administration predecessor Edwin Meese III did in the 1980s.’Today’s indictment marks an important step in the Department of Justice’s strategy for attacking the proliferation of adult obscenity,’ Ashcroft said. ‘The department,’ he said, will,‘continue to focus our efforts on targeted obscenity prosecutions that will deter others from producing and distributing obscene material.’
— Los Angeles Times, ‘U.S. Indicts Porn Sellers, Vowing Extensive Attack,’ By P J. Huffstutter, August 08, 2003 Jasmin: Now you see why I got out of the porn business as quickly as I did. And by the complaint being lodged from Pittsburg, it was clear this part of the country wasn’t very welcoming of XPW’s ‘East Coast Invasion’ after all. He wasn’t very wanted back home in L.A. either, as I found out later he’d run for Mayor of Los Angeles in 2001, receiving only 789 votes. His ego was out of control, to where he’d even tried opening a wrestling school, which fell flat on its face:
‘In April 2003, Rob Black and Lizzy Borden were indicted on obscenity charges due to pornographic material produced by XPW’s parent company, Extreme Associates…The stress of the trial took a toll on the owners of the company, and XPW could no longer be subsidized financially.’
— Wikipedia.com With Rob Black now out of the way, 3PW moved full-steam ahead into our second show at the Electric Factory, held on March 29th, and entitled ‘Legends Collide’ which featured as its Main Event a 3-way LEGENDS match between Terry Funk, Abdullah the Butcher & Dusty Rhodes ‘The American Dream, as well as under card matches between Homicide vs. Xavier and Nosawa vs. Balls Mahoney, and of course, Jasmin St. Claire vs. Missy Hyatt — Panties & Pasties Match. We drew around 1000 people to that show and had a full show schedule for the remainder
248 what the hell was i thinking?!! of the year. I was commuting back and forth from L.A. during the period in between matches, subsidizing income with dance gigs, and still running my wrestling league from the road. I’d liaise with Todd on booking decisions for upcoming shows, which was made a little easier by the fact I’d booked a lot of our name wrestlers into multi-match commitments, so we didn’t have to go from show to show sweating out who our mainevent talent would be. I was juggling a lot of balls at once, but loved the challenges I had before me now. For the first time in my life, I was 100% in charge of my own destiny, and living it to the fullest.
Our show that May, ‘A Funkin Classic,’ held on the 3rd, was as starstudded as ever, featuring a Title Match between Jerry Lawler and Terry Funk, we also had a hard core match between Ian Rotten and Balls Mahoney, and of course, a ‘Miss 3PW’ beauty pageant, which I hosted. We always made sure to feature girls for every type of guy, and our attendance was up from the March show to around 1500. Our other wrestlers included Trent Acid vs. Ric Blade, Rockin’ Rebel & Jeff Rocker vs. Da Hit Squad, Homicide vs. Kid Kash, the Blue Meanie & Roadkill vs. Joey Matthews & Christian York, and Kevin Sullivan vs. ‘Pitbull’ Gary Wolfe. We kept the pace right up heading into June’s show, and took full advantage of Rob Black’s exit to welcome back in some of the ECW talent he’d tried to steal away from us a year earlier. Aptly titled ‘A New Era,’ and one which 3PW absolutely owned in that moment, the show featured a bevy of heavy hitters. It included a three-way match between Sandman vs. Terry Funk vs. ‘ Pitbull’ Gary Wolfe, N.W.A. TNA’s AJ Styles vs. Kid Kash, Da Hit Squad vs. the Blue Meanie and Roadkill, Damien Adams vs. Ricky Vega, and a tag-team match-up of Joey Matthews & Christian York vs. Matt Striker & Rob Eckos. As well as the 2nd round of the Miss 3PW Contest, hosted by yours truly. I’ll happily admit, looking back, that it felt a lot nicer to be HOSTING a beauty pageant than to be starring in one.
Because it was June and we had our usual Jersey Shore competition, we drew around 1000 people, but we still covered our overhead and made a profit. Having just come off back-to-back shows, everyone wanted a little break, so we decided not to hold a July show and focus our resources on August’s show, ‘That’s Incredible,’ which we held in the middle of that month on the 16th. Our roster for that show included a title match between Justin Credible and Terry Funk, as well as match-ups between Sandman vs. ‘The Pitbull’ Gary Wolf, Ricky Vega vs. CJ ODoyle, the Sugar Shack with myself & George Frankenstein, ‘Hot Stuff ’ Striker vs. The Blue Meanie, and a tag-team match between Nick Berk & Damian Adams vs. Monsta Mack & Rockin Rebel among others. I had my own little brawl outside in the parking lot with some punk bitch who we’d caught papering our parking lot at the June show. I’d let him off with a warning, and then saw him again at our August show doing the same fucking thing, which made me livid! After my security caught him and alerted me to what was going on, I PERSONALLY beat the shit out of him in the parking lot. I was fucking pissed, and he started wining about the cops getting called, until we told him we had off-duty cops working as security on the show. After that, he put his tail between his legs and limped away to lick his wounds elsewhere. By that point, you could safely say word was out on the street that 3PW wasn’t a league to be fucked with, we gave everyone their money’s worth, but we also fiercely protected our turf, especially after what Rob Black had pulled over the last year. After going through all of that together, we had become a tight-knit gang.
By the end of the summer, we’d started running ads for our return to the ECW Arena, whose lease had now become available again with Rob Black’s having been run out of town by all the powers that be. We had had a wonderful run at the Electric Factory, but the history of the ECW Arena dictated that we return with a show that took the fall to plan. I told Todd I really wanted to blow the roof off of the arena, and we promoted the HELL out of our return — between rad
io, local television and Newspaper ads, as well as a street-team that flyered all over town throughout September and October. Unlike Rob, we had earned the right to host our shows out of the ECW Arena, and if I had it my way, we weren’t going to get kicked out of there again. Thankfully, the owner also wanted us back because he knew — again, unlike Rob — that we were reliable, and it made me feel good to know we’d earned our respect through sheer hard work, and our profile continued to rise as a result. Over in the U.K., we had our first year of shows in steady rotation on the Wrestling Channel. Residuals coming in from that allowed me to begin reimbursing myself for the TENS of thousands of dollars I’d laid out since the beginning to get my company to where it was at that point.
We titled the show ‘Raven’s Rules,’ and in designing the dialogue and match-ups for the show, were really focusing on the character-driven story lines that had made ECW Wrestling classic to begin with. I truly considered ourselves the next generation of that legacy, so we decided our title match with Raven would also serve as a great surprise ending to
25 0 what the hell was i thinking?!! fans when we unveiled his new title within our league as ‘3PW Commissioner.’ I also gave a new female talent named Talia her first break, where she then went onto work at NWA TNA which to me, underscores why I felt 3PW was a great place to grow new talent, in addition to our routine rosters of wrestling legends.
‘OPENING MATCH: C.J. O’Doyle defeats Ricky Vega; MATCH: Monsta Mack def Roadkill; MATCH: ‘Hot Stuff ’Matt Striker defeats Ruckus; IN THE RING: Bob Artese, Joey Matthews, Todd Gordon, Jack Victory + Raven…This was a drawn out segment leading to the announcement of Raven being named 3PW Commissioner…Raven’s first act of duty was to stripe Justin Credible of the 3PW title…Raven said that he, Sabu and ‘someone else’ would fight in a 3-way dance for the 3PW title…Raven said that Joey Matthews’ girlfriend (Alexis Laree) abandoned Raven’s flock so he wasn’t high on Joey…Raven set up a match between Joey Matthews & Low Ki…MATCH: Low Ki def Joey Matthews… MATCH: The Blue Meanie def Rob Eckos w/Matt Striker…Matt Striker came out dressed as Jimmy ‘Superly’ Snuka — his entire gimmick is of an 80s wrestler…Raven came out after the match, and said Matt Striker will face the real Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka next month! TODD GORDON SUGAR SHACK: Todd Gordon, Jasmin St. Claire and Gary Wolfe…Jasmin said Todd Gordon had bought her lots of presents lately so she had one for him…Jasmin went to the back and brought out a hot blonde named Talia…Jasmin’s said she is a piece of white trash and will be Todd Gordon’s sex slave…Todd Gordon toyed with Talia, asking her to touch her toes etc…Todd Gordon then introduced Gary Wolfe and his ‘ mystery woman’ to talk about his change of attitude…Todd Gordon said Damian Adams was trash talking Gary Wolfe, so he challenged him to a match…MATCH: Damian Adams def Gary Wolfe… SPECIAL ATTRACTION MATCH: Xavier def Homicide… 3PW TITLE MATCH: Raven defeats Sabu and The Sandman to win the 3PW title!’
— Recount of the show’s highlights from Obsessed With Wrestling.com After the success of the November show, we were doing extremely well, and had reached a high point where I’d achieved something no other wrestling promoter had since Paul Heyman: which was to sell-out the ECW Arena. Rob Black certainly couldn’t, and our profile continued to rise. I spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas in New York with my mother, while Brian stayed back in Philadelphia with his. We were on the outs a little personally from his pushing me earlier in the fall — but professionally we were known as a team and had an image to uphold. On top of that, we did work well together, he was a reliable employee of mine, and one of the only men in my life who I’d been close to that actually lifted a hand to really help me get one of my dreams off the ground. I can’t ever take that from him, even though I was the mastermind behind what we eventually built.
I don’t mean to sound like a broken record with that fact, but it became so misconstrued over the years in the media that this is my only opportunity to fully and completely correct that record — figuratively speaking.
At that point, we had a pretty harmonious thing going between everyone in the 3PW camp. We had no shortage of talent coming out of everywhere to work for us, and we wasted no time planning for our yearend show, which was one of my favorites because I booked a wrestling LEGEND, ‘Superfly’ Jimmy Snuka, as one of our headliners. We even named the show in his honor: ‘Su-Su-Superfly’ and it was a BLAST! Jimmy squared off in the ring against Matt Striker. We also had John Zandig and Wifebeater vs. ‘Commissioner’ Raven & Sandman, Sabu vs. Jerry Lynn, ‘Pitbull’ Gary Wolfe vs. Damien Adams, and of course, a Braw and Panties match between me and Gorgeous George who had changed her professional name to George Frankenstein for her appearances with 3PW. It was a lot of fun working with George. It was killer! I was in the company of greatness in the star roster and capacity-crowd we turned out for that show; it was a true triumph for us as a company, and for me as its owner/founder. We really were BOOMING as a business, and anything I’ve ever done in business I’ve done big, and with the goal in mind to be the best.
My resolution for 2004 was more of the same.To be bigger and better than we’d been, and part of my strategy for how to achieve that next level involved taking on investors, beginning with a wrestler of ours — ‘Pitbull’ Gary Wolf ’s — girlfriend, who had family money, and had expressed interest in investing in 3PW. At the time, we were looking for a domestic T.V. syndication deal for the 2 seasons of shows we’d taped and that had been such a hit over in England on the Wrestling Channel.Todd Gordon
252 what the hell was i thinking?!! had first suggested the idea of taking Gary’s girlfriend on as a partner, and I went along with it. I was inundated — between booking existing talent and the massive number of new demo tapes I was getting in from all around the country from up and coming wrestlers wanting to work for my league. On top of that, I had gotten involved in a new project with Cleopatra Records, which is owned by my longtime friend Brian Perera, one of the nicest and most loyal people in the business. He had a new DVD coming out called Hollywood Rocks and he offered me the job as host, which OF COURSE I jumped at. My very first interview was with Johnny tempesta from Helmet/Rob Zombie’s band, then my second was with Joey Belladonna from Anthrax, and Brian thought I did a great job, and I think he was impressed with the depth of my knowledge of the genre. Metal has always been my other love — the heavier the better and I had always had a blast as hosting metal fests over the years. Anyway, my success with that first series of interviews gave me my other resolution for 2004: to expand my professional reach into the world of Metal!
Jasmin modeling Championship Wrestling Belt.
toP: Wrestler Rhino Piledriving Jasmin in ring during ECW heyday. bottom: Jasmin getting started on indie wrestling circuit.
toP: Jasmin and Blue Meanie, June 2002 on Wrestle the Radio. bottom: Jasmin celebrating 3PW ‘One Year Anniversary’ Show (featuring wrestling legends Terry Funk vs. Tabu for the Title), February 15, 2003.
toP: Jasmin at the 3PW ‘Raven’s Rules’ house show (starring Raven, Sabu and Sandman), November 27, 2003, Philadelphia, PA, Viking Hall. bottom: Jasmin at 3PW ‘Not Enough Time’ Title Match in Philadelphia, May 15, 2004.
Jasmin at the 3PW ‘Su-Su-Superfly’ Title Match (starring Raven and Sandman), December 27, 2003, Philadelphia, PA, Viking Hall.
Jasmin at 3PW ‘Splintered’ Title Match, June 19, 2004, Philadelphia, PA, Viking Hall.
Jasmin heating up a sold-out crowd at the 3PW ‘Splintered’ Title Match, June 19, 2004, Philadelphia, PA, Viking Hall.
The Blue Meanie defeated Roadkill wJasmine St Claire at ‘Splintered’ 3PW Title Match, June 19, 2004.
Jasmin in ring at 3PW ‘Splintered’ Title Match, June 19, 2004, Philadelphia,
Jasmin entering ring at 3PW 5 Star 4 Way, August 21, 2004, Philadelphia,
Raven’s Rules DVD cover.
Jasmin entering the ring at 3PW ‘Till We Meet Again’ Title Match at October 16, 2004, Philadelphia, PA, Viking Hall.
Jasmin hosting ‘For the
Gold’ Title Match, November 20, 2004, Philadelphia, PA, Viking Hall
Jasmin wrestling in the ring at ‘For the Gold’ Title Match, November 20, 2004, Philadelphia, PA, Viking Hall.
Wrestling Promo Poster.
Part XV iii
Metal, Metal & More Metal!!!
January marked the beginning of a new era for me professionally in which I had been bit by the metal bug and knew my ambition was hungry again for a new challenge, which I had to balance with 3PW’s position in the business at that point. If we got the investments in for 3PW, great, if not, we’d keep rolling right along, and I figured I could have the best of both worlds with metal and wrestling in the same time. We had one of our best shows ever at the end of that month, with Al Snow, and the ECW Arena was beyond packed! I felt I’d finally made my mark as the most successful independent wrestling promoter — and a female at that.
That February, it was time to do our two-year anniversary show, which we held on the 21st and billed as ‘3PW: Second Anniversary.’ It featured matches including: Derek Wylde defeating Rob Eckos; Slyk Wagner Brown w/April Hunter defeating Mike Kruel; the FLORIDA X-TITLE MATCH featuring Roderick Strong w/Ron Niemi defeating Mikey Batts to win a vacant title. Ruckus vs. Damian Adams; a TAG MATCH between Rockin Rebel & Jack Victory defeating C.J. O’Doyle & Blue Meanie; ‘Macho Man’Matt Striker w/Miss Talia defeating Monsta Mack. The DOG COLLAR 3PW TITLE MATCH, which featured Raven defeating ‘ Pitbull’ Gary Wolf to retain the title; and finally the TRIPLE THREAT match, which starred Joey Matthews defeating Sabu and Jerry Lynn.
