The Dumbest Kid in Gifted Class

by Dan Ryckert

  Not every idea or opportunity I had yielded positive results. My family and I were eating at a Japanese steakhouse one evening when my ears perked up at the mention of professional wrestling. At the table next to ours was a large guy who was speaking to the rest of his table. I couldn’t make out the whole conversation, but I picked up tidbits like “back when I was in the ring” and “Foley.”

  Halfway through dinner, I got up and approached the guy.

  “I’m sorry, but were you saying that you used to be a wrestler?” I asked.

  “I did! Got hurt and took a bunch of time off, but I’m looking to get back in there.”

  It didn’t take long to realize that the rest of the table seemed relieved that I had taken the conversational burden off of them. This was one of those hibachi places where they’d seat you with strangers, and I got the feeling that he was boring them with his wrestling talk.

  I didn’t want to talk his ear off for the entire dinner, but I did get a few key pieces of information in the short time I spoke with him. He had been in a tag team with Mick Foley at some point, and he had a plan to get to the WWF. It involved sending a promo video to Vince McMahon, so I mentioned that I had experience with video production work. He gave me his number and said that we should set up a time to discuss some ideas.

  That weekend, I met up with him at Borders. He brought pictures of himself and Foley in the ring, assuaging my fears about him being completely full of shit. That said, I’ve tried in recent years to track down information about this guy, and I haven’t found any regular tag team partners of Foley’s who fit this guy’s description. My guess is that he was in one or two independent matches alongside Foley before he got hurt and Foley went on to bigger things.

  I was willing to go along for the ride, even though I was already thinking that this guy’s grand plans to get hired by the WWF seemed ambitious, based on his age and look. As I took notes and disingenuously nodded, he listed off cheesy character names and told me about all of the green-screen fire effects he wanted in his video. When I asked him if he had any kind of highlight reel of his signature moves so that we could demonstrate some of his in-ring ability, he said that he had nothing of the sort. He was dead-set on his vision, and my suggestions and ideas bounced right off him.

  We had a green screen at my high school, so I received permission for him to come in over the weekend. I had arrived at 1:30 p.m. to prepare the studio for our planned 2 p.m. shoot, and soon realized that he might be flaking on me. Two o’clock passed, then another fifteen minutes, then another and another after that. I tried to call him several times from my teacher’s phone, and was met each time by an answering machine. Eventually, I gave up on the idea and left.

  Later that night, I received a call at home. It was the wrestler guy, breathlessly apologizing and explaining why he didn’t show up. Earlier in the day, he had made a run to the gas station after picking up his son from a friend’s place. For some unexplained reason, Wrestler Guy tasked his young son with filling up his car. This somehow ended with Son of Wrestler Guy screwing up and filling his arm cast with gasoline (?) and having to go to the emergency room.

  He said we’d figure out another day to shoot the video, but I decided that the “opportunity” to be a part of a delusional guy’s doomed attempt at wrestling stardom wasn’t worth pursuing.

  I now had experience meeting with former wrestlers who never made it (Wrestler Guy) and internationally known superstars (Harley, Lawler, and Foley). To learn more, I wanted to meet with wrestling personalities who fell somewhere in between.

  Kansas City was a hotbed of wrestling in the territory days, but its local prevalence had fallen off almost completely before I was old enough to appreciate it. If independent wrestling had been around during my teenage years, I’d have been the obnoxious fan in the front row who acted like he knew everything about the business. After years of fruitlessly searching newspapers and the internet for signs of wrestling in the area, I eventually found a Midwest-based upstart in the early 2000s.

  Its website looked like every wrestling promotion’s website from that era (and some from this era, frankly). A lot of text was on fire, many buttons were spinning, the roster page was almost entirely inaccurate, and a counter at the bottom measured how many hundreds of people had visited the page. Most importantly, the contact information was an AOL e-mail address. This meant that I could potentially have a direct instant message conversation with whoever was answering their e-mail. I plugged the screen name into my AIM account, and they almost instantly appeared as online.

  “Who is this?” the person on the other end of the window asked.

  “My name is Dan Ryckert,” I said under a screen name that was almost certainly along the lines of HomerJamesBond007316. “I’m a really big wrestling fan from the KC area, and I’ve been hoping to contact an independent promotion. I want to learn as much as I can about the industry. If possible, I’d like to interview some of your wrestlers for a school project. Your website says you have a show coming up in a couple of weeks. I’d be interested in doing it there if at all possible.”

  The man on the other end of the window introduced himself as Sam. He said that not only was he the owner and head creative force of this promotion, but he was also one of its most popular wrestlers—and the direct cousin of WWF legend Shawn Michaels. I probably would have been more skeptical of this claim if I’d been a little bit older. Sam’s website made it clear that he idolized Michaels in numerous ways. He called himself “Kid Heartbreak”—Michaels was known as the “Heartbreak Kid”—and bragged about appearing in Playgirl just like Michaels. As our conversation progressed, he even passed along some supposedly exclusive insider info.

  “My cousin Shawn called me yesterday,” Sam said. “He’s announcing a big return on Monday. This is just between us, OK?”

  Michaels had been retired for years at this point, and a potential return had always been a hot topic of conversation on message boards. When Monday came around, Michaels was nowhere to be seen on Raw. Somehow, I still believed Sam’s other claims.

  We’d chat off and on in the days leading up to the event, and I was always surprised by Sam’s willingness to talk wrestling with some random teenager. He agreed to let me interview the wrestlers, even telling me that I could spend the entire show backstage if I wanted. Boy, what a nice guy!

  When I told my mother about this opportunity, she wanted me to go with someone she trusted. She worked at Macaroni Grill at the time, and a local cop would walk the waitresses to their cars after late shifts.

  Cop Friend was my ride to the event. Once he realized it was at a town festival that featured food stands and other things to do besides watch professional wrestling, he promptly disappeared. He told me to run along backstage, and said we’d meet up after the wrestling was over.

  This was an outdoor festival, so “backstage” translated to “over by those big trees.” A small curtain was erected to provide some level of separation between the wrestlers and the couple of dozen festival attendees who actually sat down around the ring. A lot of tough-looking dudes that I didn’t recognize were back there, and the only one who knew I was supposed to be there was Sam. Several wrestlers looked at me with obvious “who the fuck are you?” expressions. Eventually, I introduced myself to one of the guys and explained why I was there.

  “Sam’s not here yet,” he said. “I’m Mark Stryder.”

  Kansas City may not have been a big wrestling town anymore, but Mark Stryder—not his real fake name—was one of the most experienced active wrestlers in the area, despite being in his late twenties. He had been trained by the legendary Dory Funk Jr., and had worked hundreds of matches by the time I met him.

  Since Sam wasn’t around and there was still time before the show, I asked Stryder if I could interview him for my class. He agreed, and we chatted for close to an hour. As with Foley and Harley, I was surprised by how soft-spoken and calm this guy was (Lawler was the exception, as his real-life personali
ty didn’t seem too far from his television persona). Stryder answered all my questions thoughtfully, without ever rolling his eyes at this wrestling-obsessed kid who had just wandered backstage.

  At one point, I gestured to the bamboo rod sitting by Stryder’s duffel bag. It was a kendo stick, a commonly used weapon in professional wrestling.

  “How much do the kendo stick shots hurt?” I asked.

  He grabbed it and asked if I wanted an example. I said sure, and he reconfirmed that I was all right with taking a quick hit. Nodding, I closed my eyes and told him to go for it. A stiff whack came down on top of my head, almost knocking me out of my chair. I’m sure that he put forth a small approximation of the force he’d have given in the ring, but it was an eye-opener nonetheless.

  By fifteen minutes before showtime, the other wrestlers were loudly wondering where the hell Sam was. After all, he was supposed to be the “creative force” of the operation. Suddenly, he ran through the curtain and threw a duffel bag on the ground. Breathlessly, Sam started pointing around the “locker room”—an unremarkable grassy area—and telling the wrestlers who would be winning each match and how long the matches were scheduled to last. I didn’t want to butt in, because the wrestlers were obviously frustrated and Sam seemed like he was in no mood for an actual conversation. Instead, I sat on a tree stump by the side of the curtain and watched the matches.

  At no point did Sam seem to calm down. He was either arguing with a wrestler about a planned match result, talking on his cell phone, or putting on his gear for his main-event match (naturally, he booked himself in the main event). Before that match arrived, a scary spot happened in the ring. A wrestler named Icepick was supposed to take a German suplex, but he jumped with a bit too much force and landed on top of his head. He managed to finish the match, but he was clearly rattled when he came back through the curtain.

  “Somebody get a bag of ice,” Stryder said to no one in particular.

  I glanced around to look for a cooler, finding nothing but duffel bags. No one else seemed to be on the case, so I sprinted to one of the concession stands at the festival and explained the situation. They gave me a plastic bag filled with ice, which I ran backstage to give to Stryder. Sam acknowledged me for the first time, giving a quick “thanks” before heading out for his match.

  After the match, the mood was considerably lighter backstage, and I felt comfortable approaching Sam.

  “Hey Sam, I’m Dan. I’m the kid from AOL that’s putting together the school project.”

  “Oh right, cool,” he said. “Did any of the guys help you out?”

  I told him that Stryder had given me more than enough for a report and that I appreciated the opportunity to be backstage.

  “No problem,” Sam said. “Tell you what, let’s keep in touch. I might have something in mind for you if you’re interested.”

  He didn’t elaborate, but I told him that I’d love to help out behind the scenes in some capacity. I had once leaned over a WWF barricade and repeatedly screamed “I’m going to work for you!” into a confused Vince McMahon’s face. This seemed like a more reliable way to get some work in the wrestling industry.

  Sam and I continued to chat on AIM, but the conversations became increasingly odd. He went on angry rants about their current ring announcer, whom he called “old” and a “dumb piece of shit.” According to him, wrestling fans would prefer someone young as a ring announcer, not “some old guy in a cheap suit.”

  “Think you could pull off being a ring announcer?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” I said. It was an opportunity to get involved, so I enthusiastically agreed even though the idea made me nervous.

  “How bad do you want to be a part of this industry?”

  “It’s something I’ve wanted to be a part of for my entire life. It’d be a dream.”

  “Yeah, but how bad? What would you be willing to do if it meant you’d get a chance to get into wrestling?”

  My teenage naiveté wasn’t strong enough for me to ignore how creepy Sam’s phrasing was. It sure sounded like the words of a child molester, even if I was 16 and probably off the radar of most child molesters.

  “I’d be willing to work hard and improve at what I do,” I responded.

  It probably wasn’t the answer he was looking for, but he continued with the ring announcer talk.

  “All right. Tell you what, why don’t you come to my apartment this weekend, and I’ll show you some tape and give you some tips. We’ll give you a shot at our next show.”

  I agreed, with a heaping of increased skepticism. This guy had come off as erratic and weird while he was backstage at the first show, and this AIM conversation struck me as more than a little odd. Going to this dude’s apartment by myself wasn’t in the cards.

  I went to my father and requested that he join me. Under any normal circumstance, he’d have absolutely nothing to do with anything wrestling-adjacent. Once I explained the situation to him, however, I think his fatherly instincts of “don’t let my son get raped by a shady wrestling promoter” kicked in. He agreed to accompany me, as did my friend Chris.

  That Saturday, we followed our printed MapQuest directions to Sam’s apartment in a shady neighborhood near Arrowhead Stadium. None of us were tough guys by any stretch of the imagination, but we figured that three of us would be enough to handle the situation in case Sam got weird.

  I knocked on Sam’s door five minutes before we had agreed to meet. Sounds of shuffling briefly came from inside the apartment. No one came to the door, so I knocked again. More shuffling, then more silence. Chris, my father, and I looked at each other, all wondering what the hell was going on.

  One more knock seemed to do the trick, triggering even more random noises followed by the sound of a lock unlatching. Suddenly, the door was yanked open several inches before the chain lock caught it. A shirtless, wild-eyed Sam stared out from behind the opening.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Hey Sam,” I said.

  “Hey what? What do you need?”

  “You told me to be here today to talk about the ring announcer thing.”

  “God dammit. Hang on.”

  The door shut, and Sam disappeared for a minute before unlatching the door and opening it all the way. He was now wearing a shirt.

  “You can’t just do that,” he said.

  “Do what?”

  “You can’t just show up and surprise me like that.”

  I explained once again that I was simply arriving at our previously agreed-upon time, and that I didn’t intend on surprising him at all. He eventually calmed down and invited the rest of us to take a seat. We sat down and glanced around at his posters of “funny sex positions,” wizards, and mushrooms—all of which made his apartment look like a Spencer’s Gifts.

  Not only did Sam forget about our scheduled visit, but he also seemed to forget about what it was supposed to be about in the first place. Instead of talking about the ring announcer opportunity, he treated the meeting like he was trying to get us to invest in his wrestling promotion. Fifteen minutes into a rambling pitch, Sam grabbed a tape and threw it into his VCR.

  “I wanna show you how much pull I’ve got in this business. Take a look at who came to one of our shows.”

  A shaky video appeared on his television showing a line-up of wrestlers selling t-shirts and eight-by-ten photographs. In the middle was a tall guy with a blond ponytail and sunglasses. I instantly recognized him as Billy Gunn, a WWF veteran who was currently on hiatus due to injury. Even though he had never been a bona fide main event star, I was impressed to see that Sam had brought such a recognizable name to one of his shows (more than 15 years later, I would become a manager on the independent circuit and interfere in one of Gunn’s matches).

  This was all well and good, but it had nothing to do with the reason I was there. I eventually interrupted Sam’s rambling and asked about the ring announcer gig.

  “Oh right,” he said. “Yeah, you wanna do
that at the next show?”

  “Yes, I already said that. You said you wanted to discuss it and give me some tips this weekend.”

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s easy. Just show up a little early for the next show and we’ll go over everything.”

  We obviously weren’t going to get anything of substance from this guy while he was in whatever state he was currently in, so we thanked him for his time and got out of there. I eventually did announce a few shows for him, always accompanied by friends or family. These shows were largely uneventful, but the thrill of being involved in any capacity was great.

  A couple of months into my time with Sam’s promotion, my mother attempted to drive me to a show that was over an hour away, during a torrential downpour. It was one of the worst Midwestern storms I can remember, with water coming down in sheets on her windshield. Vehicles were pulled over all along the highway, and it was impossible to see more than a couple of feet in front of the car. Eventually, she had to throw in the towel.

  “I know this means a lot to you,” she said. “But this just isn’t safe. I need to turn around.”

  If things were going great, I might have been more upset about this. A no-show was surely going to upset Sam, but his personality had made me uneasy from the start. Perhaps it was for the best that we turned around. I never attended or worked any of Sam’s shows again.

  My first foray into the world of independent wrestling had been less than ideal, so I set my sights back on the big leagues. I bought tickets to a taping of WWF SmackDown at Kemper Arena and was determined to somehow weasel my way behind the scenes.

  I didn’t think it was possible to sneak my way backstage using pure stealth, but maybe I’d be able to deceive a security guard or two and wind up behind the curtain. My brilliant plan involved printing up fake press passes. There were plenty of wrestling news sites out there, and I for some reason assumed they were always allowed special access behind the scenes. Now that I’ve worked in the media for twelve years, I realize how insane and poorly conceived this plan was.