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Pro Wrestling IRON: 2001-2005 – What Happened?
(note: this is not intended to be a historical archive. It’s an opinion piece, as my feelings on APW and what it’s done to the wrestling business are well known…but I felt this was an interesting story in terms of how things came about and how it reflects the current state of wrestling. Hope you enjoy, and any comments, rebuttals (that should be good for a few laughs) are encouraged. E-mail me at jim@wrestlingclothesline.com. Thanks!)
On September 2nd, a note went out to all current Pro Wrestling IRON wrestlers and wrestlers-in-training stating that effective immediately, the school was closing, and all assets related to IRON were being sold, which barring a miracle shuts down all promotional operations for the fed. So another indy fed bites the dust.
Why?
Well, to find that out, it’s best to start at the beginning to see how and why IRON was formed and what led to the latest indy fed shutdown. What looks at first glance to be another run of the mill indy fed story turns out to be a neat little tale of second chances, doing things for the right reasons, and knowing when it’s time to move on.
NOAH Sails In
Pro Wrestling IRON…well, the concept of IRON began when founding fathers Donovan Morgan and Mike Modest received contracts to wrestle for the NOAH promotion based in Japan. Morgan and Modest had toiled for years in California’s All Pro Wrestling, and looked to be headed for careers as big fish in a very, very small pond. All Pro Wrestling (APW) has been a topic of a few columns here, and their *ahem* reputation precedes them, as it preceeded Morgan and Modest wherever they went and whenever they wrestled.
Based on who you talk to, it was either Roland Alexander, a.k.a. Rolo the APW Carny, or Donovan Morgan who made the initial call in early 2001 to invite representatives from NOAH to come to Hayward, California, to check out APW. If Rolo was the one who decided to call, then it would probably be the first time in recorded history that he ever followed through on anything he had promised or set out to do. Lord knows he certainly wasn’t the one who made the actual call. Once NOAH came in and saw the APW product, featuring Morgan, Modest, Mark “Bison” Smith, and several others on the APW roster, they offered contracts to those three and they quickly started tours of Japan under the NOAH banner...
…but not before having to take control themselves and securing their own futures by dealing with NOAH directly. Rolo, as he tried and failed to do with Spike Dudley back when Spike debuted in ECW, tried to insinuate himself into every part of the relationship Morgan, Modest, and Smith had with NOAH. Rolo always believed that he was entitled to get 20% of anybody who ever stepped foot in APW- even if it was for just one training session, on any future contract they ever signed to work anywhere in the world, be it for the WWE (WWF at the time), WCW, ECW, or even another indy. Naturally, he never collected on that 20% from anyone, from Spike Dudley to Crash Holly to Vic Grimes, but it never stopped him from trying. His only success in securing that 20% was back in 1998 when he received 20% from the TV station that produced the “expose” featuring Modest, Morgan, and Maxx Justice- and only did that by getting it directly from the producers who paid him first. Considering that he had to actually be registered as an actual agent- and of course act like an agent in terms of doing something for his client and not just for himself- getting the 20% legally was never going to be a possibility, as shown during the Ong trial in 2005.
It didn’t help his cause that Rolo was always just being himself, by all accounts doing just about everything wrong when it came to NOAH, Japan, corporate Japanese traditions, and even simple things like eating a meal without disgusting the clientele. Looking back at Barry Blaustein’s movie Beyond the Mat, it’s hard to disagree with that assessment, as he showed up to probably the most important meeting of his life with the WWF and Vince McMahon unshaven, wearing a baseball cap, sweatpants, and a T-shirt two sizes too small.
The deals with NOAH came in early 2001, back when wrestling was just beginning to come down off of its record high in terms of fan interest, revenue, and overall popularity. APW, however, managed to take advantage of almost none of this good fortune, as their home base, a converted garage, was unable to host actual, paying shows for several years thanks to Rolo’s ineptness, reckless, and negligence- characteristics that would come back to haunt him in a major way later- in procuring simple permits. Shows were actually at this point done outside of the garage, but the roster was small even then, with shows often having six or seven matches tops using a lot of “fly-ins,” a.k.a. talent not from APW- another trait that would come back to haunt Rolo and APW in the months to come.
APW: Where Death Is Just an Inconvenience
With three of his top stars now working on a regular basis for NOAH overseas, Rolo true to his nature tried piggybacking on their success and achievements by mentioning this every chance he got in just about every forum imaginable. Any other promotion would have been able to build off of this, but APW being APW and Rolo being Rolo, things were destined to get worse. Much worse.
The situation with Brian Ong has already been documented here (see Pure Carny Scum), but back in May 2001 when this happened there wasn’t much information on exactly what happened. At this point most people begin asking what kept people like Modest, Morgan, Smith, and…well, anyone on the APW staff or roster, around. After all, someone died. On APW’s watch. Well, outside of the contracts that several people were under at the time, preventing them from doing anything else, this was due to Rolo and APW, like Rolo’s cronies Jason Deadrich and Gabriel Ramirez, disseminating as little information as possible out to others associated with APW, to the point where it took months for most people to even know who was in the garage at the time of Ong’s death.
Keep in mind that this attitude of silence and conformity was always the main thing promoted by APW, as guys like Modest and Morgan had been under that banner, and therefore under that influence, for several years. Once word did get out about what might have actually happened in the garage, just about everyone gave Rolo their opinions and advice on the matter, such as APW’s manager Buddy Sotello, an attorney in the “real world,” a world most people involved with APW were devoid from for some time. When the death of a co-worker isn’t enough to jar someone into breaking out of a hostile work environment, it’s evident that something is really, really wrong.
With Ong’s death swept under the carpet as best as possible, APW kept moving along for a few months. Everything was building to their second King of the Indies supershow, actually two shows scheduled for October. King of the Indies, a.k.a. KOTI, was to be APW’s big showcase, their version of an indy Wrestlemania but actually just a rip-off of ECWA’s long running Super 8, at that time already in its fifth year. With the tragic situation surrounding Brian Ong’s death being ignored unilaterally by the higher ups in APW (a concept hilarious on paper, even moreso when you factor in the actual people), and relatively unknown to anyone else in APW, everyone focused on KOTI and how to get the company to that weekend. By APW’s standards, it was smooth sailing…until July 28, 2001, when Vallejo, California hosted APW’s “Welcome Back” card.
How Four Minutes Can Wreck One Fed But Start Another
With another tour of Japan with NOAH under wraps, Mike Modest headed back to work the Vallejo APW show, arriving the day before and bringing a bout of the flu with him thanks to the conditions on the flight. Modest’s opponent that evening, “Scrap Iron” Adam Pearce, was an experienced worker so it was never a concern for Modest to have to carry Pearce; however, Pearce was always known for working snug, and Modest was exhausted. All of this factored into the match, scheduled to go 13 minutes, but after Pearce dropped Modest on his head, Modest decided it was time to wrap things up. None of this was ever noticed by the audience, who seemed to enjoy the match as it was presented.
However, it wasn’t enough for Rolo, a person who never seems to get enough. After the show, when everyone was packing up and taking things apart, Rolo lit into Modest in the back. Modest, Rolo’s “Golden Boy” from the beginning of APW, the workhorse of the fed, the unquestioned locker room leader and also without question the best wrestler that ever came out of All Pro Wrestling, was lit into because the match went nine minutes rather than the 13 that Rolo wanted. Rolo, a man with no in ring experience, was taking Modest to task telling him that if he wants a match to go 13 minutes then it goes 13 minutes “no matter what.” This was, true to Rolo’s form, being done in front of the hired video crew and most of the APW workers. Then Rolo made the first of many future mistakes as he threatened to take Modest off of the KOTI card, to which Modest replied, “you don’t have to take me off the KOTI card because I quit.”
All over four minutes.
So with KOTI a few months away, the biggest star in APW was gone. Not for long, though, as it appears Modest and Rolo reconciled at some point since Modest worked one more APW show in September. Morale, based on talking to several who were working for APW at the time, was at an all time low. Attendance was down. APW hadn’t drawn 500 at a show in months, even though everyone else across the country had been with ease. Everything pointed towards APW’s two day extravaganza, which should have been a showcase of APW’s stars and what they can do but was changed to feature mostly outside talent, with the regular APW wrestlers segregated to their own area in the back as well as on the card. Yet another example of Rolo and APW failing to learn from their own mistakes. Fly-ins that were previously used to support an APW card were now used as the backbone of the promotion. This treatment did not go unnoticed by the APW regulars.
Cut to October 26th, 2001. Apparently somewhere in between this show and KOTI, Rolo and Modest had another falling out, this one for good, as notes on several message boards indicated that Modest pretty much told Rolo to fuck off the week before KOTI, a tourney he most likely was going to work in as the featured star and go over in at the end.
The first night of the APW King of the Indies began, ironically back in Vallejo, with Rolo using the fly-in talent and bringing out Nick Bockwinkel and Dick Beyer, two Cauliflower Alley Club members, out for the weekend at APW’s expense. Rolo for years had always looked to the Cauliflower Alley Club. a.k.a the CAC, as an avenue to promote APW- from getting Donovan Morgan designated a “Future Legend” to flying in retired wrestlers to watch an indy show at the fed’s expense. To this day Rolo continues to be involved with the CAC, a venture that to this day hasn’t gotten APW a dime of profit.
With Bockwinkel and Beyer comped, Rolo took it one step further by giving the outside talent like Low Ki, Christopher Daniels, Scoot Andrews, and Doug Williams their own locker room (For Tournament Wrestlers Only was actually written on the door) and sequestering the APW regulars to their own area, a step that went over REAL WELL with mainstays like Maxx Justice and Robert Thompson. Nothing promotes a more positive attitude for your longtime staff by shoving them to the side for a show they helped build to for months. Morale remained low, workers felt shunted, and sure enough, the tournament semifinals only featured one APW wrestler- Donovan Morgan. Yet interestingly enough, the first night did feature Mike Modest- but only in the crowd as a fan. This got people talking more than the card itself, as there were already rumblings about Modest and Morgan’s discontent with APW. Once APW regulars saw Modest back in the garage, that got the rumors flying. Was Modest looking to recruit? Time would tell…
The first night of the tourney came and went, with the self-proclaimed “best indy show in history” drawing about 170 for the evening. 170 during a boom period in the business and with months of hype. The next night drew about 350. This included, according to Rolo himself, about 200 reserved for comps. According to several sources, most notably Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer, Rolo and APW lost over $12,000.00 that weekend- but were about to lose a whole lot more.
When the Cauliflower Club Gets Your Ear, It’s More Than a Bad Pun
With Modest out of the picture, everyone in and out of APW looked to Donovan Morgan as the next wrestler to be pushed by Rolo- the next “Golden Boy.” Alas for Rolo and APW, it wasn’t meant to be, thanks once again to Rolo and him looking more to please himself than others, even at a cost to himself and his own promotion. Supposedly, Bockwinkel got into his ear at KOTI and told him that if he didn’t put American Dragon into the finals instead of Morgan, then he was “nuts.” Dragon was at the time an up and coming wrestler with about a year and a half’s experience which translated to him looking like a veteran in the ring thanks to his natural abilities. So, the big KOTI tourney, designed initially to feature and promote APW talent, now shoved another mainstay out of the way so Rolo could appease a guest. Morgan lost to Dragon in the semis, and Dragon went on to lose to Low Ki in the finals- the exact same finals match of the ECWA Super 8 held just a few months earlier.
It gets better.
Rolo at this point has lost over 12 grand. His locker room is full of discontent. His Golden Boy is now gone for good, and his next in line was cast aside so Rolo could make a guest happy. So what does Rolo do? Offers American Dragon, a wrestler with less than two years’ experience and seven documented concussions, a job as the head trainer- bypassing Donovan Morgan once again, and telling Morgan that his performance against Dragon in the semis was sub-par, along with accusing Morgan and Bison Smith of faking it in their match, which brings up a whole other situation.
Bison Smith, who’s written about his dealings with Rolo and APW in the past, had apparently messed up his knee over in Japan and aggravating it at KOTI, and for some inexplicable reason decided to leap over the top rope into the ring during his entrance for his match with Morgan, banjaxing his knee even further. He told Morgan this, they took it home, and Morgan advanced. This did not sit well with the already paranoid Rolo, who accused Morgan and Bison of half-assing it, which coming from Rolo is laughable on several levels, one being that he did a pretty good job of half-assing Smith on six prior paydays. So rather than uniting his fed, Rolo managed to divide it even further, alienating three of his best workers in the course of a single week, two of those in one day.
Mike Modest, Donovan Morgan, and Bison Smith had dealt with APW in every aspect for several years. They had been indoctrinated into the APW mindset that what Rolo says, goes- like it or not. There’s probably only so much of that treatment that a person, any person, could take. It is fascinating that Rolo the APW Carny would go so far out of his way to estrange the three workers that would have, could have, and should have, gotten him and APW the most positive publicity, but Rolo always let it be known that the buck stops with him- often to his own detriment. That, once again, would come back to haunt him later.
So with all of the NOAH workers now on the outs in APW, this freed them right up to being what they had been talking about for months- forming their own promotion. Fortunately, but through their eyes unfortunate at the time, they weren’t given much of a choice the following month when the APW garage was shut down for a few weeks and Rolo put up a picture of Modest and Morgan in the garage with their faces X’ed out that said DO NOT LET THESE GUYS IN THE GYM. Of course, after that act Rolo was nowhere to be found. With no one in APW at all able to even practice in the APW ring, most of them decided to move over once Modest and Morgan announced the formation of Pro Wrestling IRON.
This left APW with a roster of approximately six wrestlers left as at least 75% of their talent and staff moved over once PWI was formed. The roster included Peter Snott, who had been with the school since 1999 and went on to greater infamy as Larry Blackwell, an obese no talent who only got pushed because he paid his training dues on time. On the outside, Rolo certainly didn’t let on that this bothered him- which was convincing for about six seconds. He posted on his own boards about the “State of APW” where he declared that a $12,000.00 loss is considered a “success” and claimed that he garners so much anger and vitriol against him because everyone else is jealous of his success. This in the face of losing most of his roster, having anyone that left prior to KOTI blast him in public, either on his own boards (where Vic Grimes called him an “egomaniac”) or elsewhere (Spike Dudley often said of Rolo that “he thinks he deserves respect but has done nothing to earn it”).
Rolo followed his story of “success” by initiating a 40% reduction on the price of joining the APW training school, resurrecting the old Olu Olyami storyline from Global Championship Wrestling in Texas where Joe Pedicino claimed to have a huge investor for the fed (and here, like it was with poor Joe, it wasn’t a storyline), and attempting to direct some sympathy towards himself by citing health problems and possibly stepping down. Well, it’s four years later and that still hasn’t happened, so chalk that up as another Rolo BS story. What was most interesting is that KOTI had actual people waiting to get the tapes of the show, and it took months for that to ever happen. Except for Bob Barnett, who found out that APW did not “wish to do business with this individual” when Bob went to pay $50.00 for the tapes- so Bob got a copy of the shows for free in less than a week. Only Rolo the APW Carny would, after losing 75% of his roster, canceling shows for the rest of the year and reducing the price of his training school 40%, refuse business.
IRON Presses Into Action
Meanwhile, with all of this nothing going on over at All Pro Wrestling, Mike Modest and Donovan Morgan began setting things up down the road in Hayward, which may have been convenient for them, was probably not the best idea in hindsight. Good or bad, up or down, the biggest ongoing problem Pro Wrestling IRON would continually encounter was the inevitable comparison to APW and Rolo. It’s a natural thought process, as the two founders were from APW and their training program was set up similar to APW’s. Starting up operations in the same town as APW wasn’t going to shake that comparison.
And it didn’t end there. While IRON was able to get things rolling fairly quickly, things looked pretty similar to APW. Impressive as it was to get a show booked away from APWLand in Ukiah, California, it was booked on the Redwood Empire Fairgrounds, which sent a few people running to message boards (in reality, it was most likely just Rolo and/or APW lackey Jason Deadrich) complaining about this being a fair show, like many of APW’s recent affairs. The problem with that comparison is that in this case PWI rented the building, making the show the main attraction of the fair, not part of it.
In the midst of all this, Rolo and Donovan were apparently going back and forth as Donovan still laid claim to the APW Univeral belt, and wasn’t eager to give it back. Rolo wasn’t really willing to pay for it, so at one point it looked like the belt was going out to the highest bidder. Thankfully, calmer heads prevailed, once everyone realized that no one outside of APW was going to put down real money for an APW belt, Donovan got paid, and the belt was returned.
PWIron debuted in May of 2002, while Rolo and APW were still on “vacation” from running shows since KOTI. In that time, new investor Doug Anderson came aboard with APW- not coincidentally the father of wrestler Cheerleader Melissa, who went from a several year veteran of wrestling as a manager of the Ballard Brothers to “APW trained” in no time. It was also no coincidence that Melissa was soon pushed as the next “big thing” to come out of APW, along with regular dues payer Larry Blackwell. Melissa’s frequent wins over the only other female wrestler Sara Del Ray (Nikki) became so rote and mundane that she was placed in matches with the men on the roster, mostly due to the roster being so small. Del Ray eventually had enough of putting Melissa over at her expense just to satisfy Melissa’s father and keep the money rolling in, so she left APW for PWI- once she got past the guilt trips Rolo gave her about paying her fees and dues on time.
On PWI’s debut show Juventud Guerrera was brought in to work, as well as stick around the next day for IRON’s wrestling academy, Tetsu, to give a few pointers. While Juvi might not have been the best choice, it beat what APW, as well as any other school in the area, were doing by a mile for their students. It certainly took the bad taste people had in their mouths as the main event of the show was two midgets wrestling, especially after IRON touted themselves as being “100% wrestling” and “zero gimmicks.” Still, the card drew 350, which beat either day at KOTI and was more than APW had drawn in almost a year.
Things did begin to differentiate PWI from APW later in the summer, as APW ran a show at a zucchini festival (where Rolo was served papers he’d been avoiding for several months in regards to being sued by the Ong family), while PWI brought in Mitsuharu Misawa and Yoshinari Ogawa unannounced (at their own request) to their August show. As far as the wrestling academy, there isn’t much information on what went on there- given what happened with Ong and how things operated in APW, that’s not a surprise- but things were running on a regular basis. Meanwhile, American Dragon lasted less than a year with APW as he ran as fast as his feet could carry him (not coincidentally soon after Rolo got served with trial papers) to the New Japan dojo in California.
Other differences included the introduction of Frank Murdoch into IRON, who came across as very no-nonsense and very, very uninterested in message board or interpromotional “feuds” that didn’t draw money for anyone involved. Murdoch, along with the others who joined PWI at either its inception or soon after, found a marked difference in the atmosphere, as people were told the fed wouldn’t work without them, as opposed to APW, where people were just told to shut up and do what they were told. It was either that or being avoided entirely or screamed at so loudly over the phone it distorts the reception, as Rolo was often wont to do. While IRON was cultivating, Rolo was creating his own world, which grew smaller and smaller and smaller. While Modest, Morgan, and Murdoch were busy welcoming people with open arms, Rolo and APW also had open arms- deliberately or not pushing people away with what have been described as “anti people skills,” things people honestly feel Rolo has worked on over the years.
More of the Same, Only Different
As IRON progressed, things looked pretty familiar when you looked at the show results, as several were from the academy, known as student shows. While it’s not known if they were forced to have only a certain amount of people at their student shows like APW was after their garage was briefly shut down for zoning violations, it looked like IRON was following the same format as APW- another sticking point for critics who kept pointing out the similarities between Pro Wrestling IRON and All Pro Wrestling.
While there were things that remained the same, for the students and workers in IRON, it was thankfully a completely different workplace. Gone were the backstabbings, pushes based on money rather than merit, and the cadre of yes men that populated APW. People like Jason Deadrich, who most people in and out of APW compared personality wise to a lizard, were not found in the new academy, nor were people like Gabe Ramirez, who began as a fan at the garage and ended up as a storyline commissioner and overall bully despite his stature and laughable image. If there were people like that in IRON it certainly was never talked about, as practically all online activity from the wrestlers down to IRON staff were non-existent. The one big difference between IRON and APW was the extreme lengths IRON, headed by Frank Murdoch, took to suppress and eliminate any possible online snipings between the two camps.
Other marked differences included IRON actually following through on promises, either in a shorter period of time (as IRON secured a DVD deal with the World Wrestling Network while still in their relative infancy), or in general (as IRON workers got gigs doing jobs on WWE Velocity and TNA). On the other hand, APW continued to never have any future tryouts with any other organizations, their DVD deal was preposterously overexaggerated as their claims years later of national distribution were quickly exposed as a sham, since the DVDs were never found outside of the local Hayward market and it was deduced that staffers made deals with the local branches of stores like Sam Goody and Best Buy. Local bands looking for a break do the same thing with their CDs, but this was a wrestling promotion that was either around for ten years or seven depending on which spin Rolo wanted to put on it.
Another change was the almost immediate formation of an LLC and a corporate structure, which was done to avoid anyone involved with the company to be held personally responsible if something negative or bad happened. According to IRON staffers, APW had intentions (read: more promises) to do the same thing, yet spent more time trying to figure out a name for the corporation rather than filling out any necessary paperwork. This was something that- you guessed it- would really come back to haunt Rolo and APW later on.
But the stigma of APW remained over Pro Wrestling IRON. When Sara Del Ray arrived, IRON went out of its way welcoming her with open arms- yet reminded everyone of their attachment to APW as Donovan Morgan had a brief program with her deriding female wrestlers, refusing to wrestle them in matches. This only brought attention to APW’s use of women in all types of matches, done out of necessity rather than advancement. Besides all that, IRON was promoting in the same towns as APW had in the past- places like Pinole, Lathrop, and saddest of all in Cloverdale, where in 2000 APW had drawn over 500 people, yet three years later IRON drew 128.
Problems that plagued every other promotion also came up in IRON, as the wrestling business was slowly dwindling once the WWE and Vince McMahon gobbled up WCW and ECW in 2001. Crowds were getting smaller and smaller, so trying newer venues, even ones APW hadn’t been to and killed the market already, weren’t working. Towns like Angels Camp and Riverbank ended up being busts for IRON, and often it seemed that their idea of promoting was getting the word out on the IRON Website. Flyers weren’t distributed and often times the TV ads got the dates and times for the shows wrong. Welcome to professional wrestling- where this kind of stuff seems to happen in just about every fed imaginable.
Back in the delusional world of APW, Rolo began trying to merge with other feds, finding little success as he managed to kill two promotions in the course of six months- but at least they weren’t his own. Henry Luna and his Golden State wrestling fed changed names and went under the newly formed APW-LA banner, proving that Luna was either as much of a sleaze as Rolo or incredibly stupid. The mergers were unanimously seen as a joke and soon APW-LA and APW-Central Coast (after Rolo merged with a fed that most people never knew existed in the first place) went the way of the dodo. Unfortunately, one dodo remained- he had more promotions to kill.
Paying Tribute
On November 6, 2003, Mike Lockwood (a.k.a. Erin O’Grady in APW, Crash Holly in the WWF) passed away. Lockwood was one of the first success stories that came out of the garage, although true to form it wasn’t the result of anything APW had done for him. JR Benson, a local indy manager, had sent a tape of him and Vic Grimes to Jim Cornette, who landed the both of them developmental deals with the WWF. As was the norm for anyone that achieved success outside of APW, Lockwood never acknowledged APW in any future interviews- yet Rolo and APW managed to drop his name into any conversation within the first five minutes. Lockwood’s true feelings came out before he died when he took the time to post a few messages on the APW boards at the time Modest and Morgan left- advertising his own training school in North Carolina. Meanwhile, Lockwood had previously visited the Tetsu Academy a few times during with tenure with the WWF and afterwards, yet never bothered showing up at the garage APW claimed had brought him all of his success once IRON had opened.
Nine days later, IRON held a memorial show for Lockwood that had no angles and straight wrestling. APW’s voice at this time was a thread on the APW message boards where memories were shared, including Rolo’s, who made sure to mention his “not so fond memories” of Lockwood and to of course bring attention to himself by mentioning that he and Lockwood didn’t get along in the years before Mike passed away, ruining what could have been a classy thread on Lockwood. APW made claims of running their own benefit show for Lockwood that managed to have no representation from anyone from the Lockwood family, while IRON had several problems securing venues and the like to put on their own “official” show for Mike Lockwood.
The Inconvenience Becomes Real Trouble
During the period of all the failed mergers, tribute shows, poor drawing towns, and infighting between the promotions (which was pretty one-sided as the level of silence from anyone involved with PWI was almost frightening), things began heating up with the Brian Ong death. Word began to filter out once the legal team of Hersh and Hersh came on board back in 2002 about what happened back in May of 2001 when Ong died. Unfortunately for PWI, it involved a few members of Pro Wrestling IRON who were still with APW at the time of Ong’s death. However, nothing could top the absolute audacity of Rolo the APW Carny, soon after the Pacifica show, sending a final bill for Ong’s training to Ong’s parents, which might go down as one of the most reprehensible acts in professional wrestling history. This indefensible action only fueled the flames of many of APW’s critics, who couldn’t imagine that Rolo could sink any lower than he already had in the past. Stopping payments on checks is one thing (ask Ron Rivera) - this was a whole new level of sleaze coming out of APW.
With the courts backlogged in the first place, it took several months for anything to really happen after the Ongs initially decided to sue Rolo and APW for damages. While PWI was mostly left out of this, the impact of the Ong trial would be most devastating to them in the short term. On July 12, 2005, after taking less than a day to review the case once it was handed to them, the jury found Roland Alexander and All Pro Wrestling more than two-thirds responsible for the death of Brian Ong, to the count of over a million dollars. While this verdict will no doubt seriously affect Rolo for the rest of his life, it had more of an immediate impact on Pro Wrestling IRON- as it was the final nail in the coffin of the promotion.
PWI had been struggling as it were with low attendance, poor incoming revenues, and a declining overall interest in professional wrestling as a whole…but things began to get really difficult once real life began to intervene in the business. In short order, Mike Modest had his first child, got married, and moved to northern California once he and his wife had their second child. This wasn’t a backstabbing or arbitrary move- with a chance to raise a family and own real property as opposed to renting in an expensive area like the San Francisco area and its surroundings, Modest, like anyone else, went with family and moved. With one of the three owners of PWI basically out of the picture, it was left to Donovan Morgan and Frank Murdoch to hold things together.
That didn’t last for long, as Morgan also got married, but in his case moved all the way to Florida, as that’s what you do when you’re married and your spouse has a better paying job than you do. Murdoch wasn’t left holding the bills, but it became increasingly difficult to hold things together- and his interest in the business waned once he got dropped on his head during a match in April 2005 and was forced to retire from active wrestling.
With the three hearts of PWI scattered across the country, there wasn’t enough time to get someone in there to run things on a daily basis- and things only got worse after the Ong verdict as the insurance on the Tetsu Wrestling Academy went way up thanks to Rolo and APW refusing to settle and losing the case, setting a precedent that will guaranteed affect every wrestling school in America. So with all these factors- higher insurance, the owners all over the place, wrestling in a down period, and no money coming in, Modest, Morgan, and Murdoch did the only thing they could: They shut down Pro Wrestling IRON.
It’s only been a few months, but looking back, will Pro Wrestling IRON be looked at as just a failed experiment?
APW’s Gabe Ramirez thinks so- he referred to PWI’s history as a “short story,” proving that no matter how low APW will sink, they will, to a man, in one form or another, find time to attempt to put themselves on a pedestal above others, warranted or not. And it never was.
Donovan Morgan doesn’t. When contacted, Donovan wrote, “Other wrestling schools just carry average liability [insurance], however if we wanted to do things the right way it would cost us way [too] much. I really don't blame the closing of the school on any one person. It was just seen as the right time to move out of the wrestling school biz by all the owners.” He has nothing but fond memories of the school and the promotion, noting that “Misawa coming out was a big thing and those shows were awesome. Getting WWE guys to come down and teach on their own b/c they liked what we were doing was a compliment. But hey, things change and the business changes and we just made a business choice.”
In the end, any PWI worker or staffer contacted echoed Donovan’s words that they “would rather do things right for 4 years then do them half ass for 14.”
What’s Next? Is There a Next?
Based on the notes sent out from PWI, there’s a possibility that they will be promoting shows in the future- but running another wrestling academy is out of the question. What started out as a great idea ended up done thanks to the wrestling business and PWI, while trying so hard to avoid it, unable to escape their fate they fell under while still with All Pro Wrestling.
PWI put a note up on their Website and had a final show on August 27th. The note talked about the consequences that PWI would face now that their insurance was raised and there were more eyes looking at training schools thanks to the Ong trial verdict. The note was signed by Frank Murdoch, who stated, “Not only do we not want to be liable for one million or more in monetary damages, but we just don’t want the same dreadful day that haunted APW to ever haunt us. Modest, Morgan and I all have families and assets. As much as we love wrestling and breaking new wrestlers into this fine sport, we love our families even more and we don’t want to put them through the same personal defeat that the owner of APW must now face.”
To the end, Murdoch rose above it and avoided any cheap shots at anyone else. Meanwhile…
APW’s back to shilling their last success, the crowning triumph that set all this in motion- selling tapes from King of the Indies from almost four years ago. It’s clear that no one in APW learned anything from the Ong trial- or from any situation for that matter, as losing three-fourths of their roster in 2001 did nothing to light a fire under APW other than to create failed mergers that benefited no one in the company except, of course, for Rolo.
Rolo continues to benefit from whatever’s left of the APW training school, and decided to turn the time machine back to WWF 1999, as he is now a main character in the ring as well as outside of it. The roles that staffers like Jason Deadrich and Gabe Ramirez tried to fill are now filled by Rolo the APW Carny, who is trying to channel the success of Vince McMahon and his Mr. McMahon character but fails to realize that the WWF character succeeded based on McMahon’s natural charisma and personality, while Rolo based on his own history seems only to be adept at exposing his lack of both.
Unbelievably, APW is still running garage shows and based on their message boards still want students to apply to their wrestling school. Yes, you read that right- this after a million dollar judgment against them for recklessness and negligence in the death of an APW wrestling student, plus a possibility of their insurance either not existing or not being in place at all- which places them at even greater risk than before.
Rolo the APW Carny and All Pro Wrestling will stubbornly continue to run shows in whatever fashion they can conceive until the day comes when they are forced to shut down by either their own ineptness, or legal factors they can’t circumvent. Stooges and morons on a few message boards have had the gall to try and taunt the IRON staff for shutting down, completely ignoring their own sad history with APW and stupidly failing to realize one simple thing:
Sometimes, it’s better to know when to quit rather than continue to do something based solely on your own stubbornness and pathetic ego.
(This is a work in progress, so please let me know of any additions,
corrections (that means something that exists in the real world), or comments.
Thanks for reading.)
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The comments and statements
do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brett Schwan and the Wrestling
Clothesline (although many times, he comes damn close!) Please feel free
to e-mail HIM with any comments, questions, complaints, etc.
Jim has been watching wrestling for over 20 years and has followed and reported on indy wrestling for over 6 years. He's also a fan of the New York Giants, New York Yankees, St. John's Red Storm basketball, Alabama Crimson Tide football, and the New Jersey Devils, but please don't hold that against him.
Contact Jim at BilJim2@hotmail.com
