A Revolution Takes Place in California

“You say you want a revolution… Well, you know… We all wanna change the world.”

A revolution is taking place in California right now.  This revolution is not being fought with guns or weapons.  This revolution is being fought with armbars, headlocks and a lot of high flying.  This revolution is taking place inside a square ring with men and women proving that independent wrestling on the west coast is not dead and ready to come back stronger than ever.

The people responsible for this Revolution are Gabe and Shannon Ramirez. Their aptly named company, Pro Wrestling Revolution (PWR) only launched this past January and has already made a huge name for itself and established the company as the number one independent professional wrestling promotion in California.

I have been involved in professional wrestling since 1997 and have been in my fair share of towns running shows and I think it’s safe to say that I know a thing or two about professional wrestling on the west coast.  Believe me when I tell you that Gabe and Shannon have created something amazing with Pro Wrestling Revolution.  It is not an exaggeration to say Pro Wrestling Revolution is heads and shoulders above any other independent promotion in California right now.

Gabe and Shannon started running shows at the start of the year, but it was in May when my eyes were really opened to The Revolution!.  On May 17th, PWR had a show in their hometown of San Jose.  San Jose is not far from our home base in San Francisco and a place where the average independent show will draw anywhere from 200 to 400 people.  Imagine my shock when 800+ fans filled up the building to see the show, which featured Cheerleader Melissa vs. MsChif for the NWA Women’s Title in the semi-main event (watch that match here).

Two weeks later, we were on the road to Santa Maria (a 5 hour drive from SF, that I despise as much as driving to Bakersfield).  PWR had already ran two shows in Santa Maria, the first one drawing about 900 and the next one drawing 1100 fans.  This time we all had our doubts if Gabe and Shannon could keep the fan base growing or if it was just a fluke.  Well, it was not a  fluke, not by a long shot.

At bell time I walked around the ring and was speechless as I saw over 1500 fans packed into the building, without an empty chair or seat available.  During the second match I remember walking out to check on Shannon at the door and she had a bittersweet look on her face.  I knew she had to be pleased with the turnout, but she pointed out the door and showed me a line of about 200 fans that had to be turned away and I could tell that upset her.  The building just would not hold them, it was completely sold out.  Now that’s the type of problems you want to have in this business!  That night I remember the drive home was not as long as usual.  Being involved in a show like that gives you a buzz that keeps you wired, even more so than my regular supply of Red Bull.

Back home, we didn’t have long to brag about the turnout because another PWR show was coming up the following Saturday.  This time, the show was in our hometown of San Francisco, so I was really looking forward to it and seeing how Gabe would do compared to my modest (a nice word for horrible) turnout at a series of shows I did at Kezar Pavilion in SF back in 2006.

The San Francisco building was a bit smaller then usual and we estimated a maximum capacity of about 900 people.  900 people was a lofty goal, even after the previous week’s sell-out of 1500+ because when you’re running shows in San Francisco, you’re competing with a whole universe of entertainment options.  Running in small towns, the wrestling show is often the “big thing” to do on the weekend and you get a strong turnout.  That rule does not apply in larger cities like San Francisco, so there was plenty of cause for concern.

Two weeks before the SF show (and a week before Santa Maria if you’re keeping track) we spent two full days standing in the sun handing out 20,000 flyers at Carnaval, a popular San Francisco street fair that attracts about half a million people over the course of the weekend.  Gabe and Shannon love to promote and it was a lot of fun spending these two days with guys like JJ Perez, Jeckles, Jody and the rest of the crew.  Of course, with any wrestling weekend, you have to have a drama, so let’s just say I’m going to be a little more careful about who I let stay at my apartment next time we have events in the City and we’ll leave it at that.

Turns out a nice suntan was not the only thing we got from weekend at the street fair, we also got a lot of attention.  All those flyers were not wasted as the night of the show the building slowly started filling up.  By bell time I stood once again, at ringside and could not believe it, Gabe and Shannon had done it again.  Another town, another sellout.  The cherry on the top of this evening was the was the fact that some former volunteers that had worked with us, but turned bitter and wanted to run their own shows had been claiming San Francisco as their “territory” (after only 2 shows, lol) and were recently bragging having a sold-out show a few months earlier.  Well, their “sold-out” show was actually in a building that only held 200 people.  Not that impressive, if you ask me and watching Gabe come to town and sellout a real building, not a small club was really an accomplishment.

Just like last time, we didn’t get to sit around and pat ourselves on the back for long.  The following morning I picked up Chris (our Production Manager) at the office and we hit the road for Las Vegas.  It was time for Cauliflower Alley Club’s 43rd Reunion and this year we had something special planned.

Before I go into detail about the show, I need to say that if you are in the wrestling business and not already a member of the Cauliflower Alley Club, you need to stop reading this post and go right now to http://www.caulifloweralleyclub.org and sign up.  I can’t say enough about being in this exclusive club, so I will let WWE’s Jim Ross tell you in his own words. JR’s comments on CAC from his blog.

As a member of the Cauliflower Alley Club Board of Directors, I am always looking for ways to improve the annual reunion and bring in new faces and talent.  In years past, we have held special training seminars, which would build up to an private wrestling exhibition at the end of the week.  These were some great shows and had some excellent matches, but limited exposure due to rules set by the hotel and other issues.

This year things were different.  The Riviera Hotel & Casino were open to the idea of running a public show as part of the reunion and details started to fall into place.  I hesitated no time in contacting Gabe and asking for his support and the next thing we knew, PWR was scheduled to hold it’s first show outside of California.

When word got out that we were planning an open to the public show in Las Vegas, my inbox was flooded with wrestlers from around the world asking to participate.  I knew right off the bat that our hands would be full with this show and I wanted to make sure we could involve as many wrestlers, refs and ring announcers as possible.

On a typical show, we have the card completed well in advance.  We know who needs to be where and when and things run smoothly.  Gabe and I pride ourselves on the fact that people call us a “well-oiled-machine” when it comes to running shows.  We know what needs to be done, how to do it and most importantly, how to handle it when things go wrong that are out of our control (and believe me, it happens on a regular basis).

This was not a typical show.  Since many of the names asking to be involved were unknowns to us, we made the decision to have an open tryout at noon on the day of the show.  The tryouts were to be led by Oliver John and JJ Perez, with Gabe and I making the decisions on booking.  When I saw that we had over 75 men and women show up for the tryouts, I knew we would need more help. In situations like these, it’s nice to have a guy like none other than “Handsome” Harley Race by your side.

Legends are everywhere during CAC, but Harley is a one-of-a-kind and has accomplished so much in this business.  You would expect Harley to want to relax and enjoy spending time with his peers, but instead Harley was part of the tryouts from start to finish. It was a tremendous honor to have him involved in our show.  Others may say it, but Harley proves it when he says he cares about the future of the business and the younger wrestlers that are working their way up.

Thanks to help from Harley Race, Ross Hart and others, we assembled a show to take place that night.  The headliners were Chris Masters, GO Shiozaki, Oliver John and Gangrel. I would like to say this all came together fairly smoothly, but unfortunately there was an incident in the locker room involving Gabe and a promoter that I won’t name, but his promotion has the initials A. W. A.  Luckily, it did not escalate because I didn’t have any more room on the card for an additional match and I don’t think Gabe brought an extra pair of boots and gear from the One Stop Wrestle Shop (cheap plug).

After the dust settled and the show started, things lightened up and everybody had a lot of fun.  Several of the legends including Nick Bockwinkel and JJ Dillion got involved on the show and the climax was an amazing main event match between GO Shiozaki from Pro Wrestling NOAH and our own Oliver John. These guys tore down the house and at the end of the match had the building on their feet giving them a standing ovation.  I remember seeing Pat Patterson cheering the performance and I knew this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime type matches.

What I didn’t know was during this match Oliver John suffered a minor concussion and I didn’t realize it until getting backstage and saw Gabe attending to Oliver as he really had his bell rung and was feeling the affects of one of the most physical matches I have witnessed live.  Fortunately, it didn’t take long before Oliver was all smiles and back to normal and able to enjoy being surrounded by US and Japanese press as they swarmed the dressing room getting pictures of Oliver and GO.

After the long day, I was ready to unwind and so I made the mistake of joining JJ Perez, Derek Sanders and Oliver John and we headed out to hit the Las Vegas strip.  I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas and am to the point where most all casinos look the same to me, so I didn’t understand when they said we needed to taxi across town to some random casino and was more then happy to just hang around the Riviera.  However, it was quickly explained to me that we were heading to play Beer Pong.

I must have sounded like an old geezer when I said, “what the heck is beer pong?”, because these guys looked at me like I was from the stone age.  Apparently it’s the drinking game of choice these days and I was going to be learning it.

I won’t go into a whole lot of detail on the rest of the night, because honestly I don’t remember it and it doesn’t have much to do with the subject of the post.  I will just leave you with this  shot of JJ Perez showing off his beer pong skills.

Since I have drifted completely off subject and am now wondering where I can find a beer pong table in San Francisco, I would just like to finish up this post with a huge congratulations to Gabe and Shannon for their continued success with Pro Wrestling Revolution.  I may not be old enough to call Gabe my “son”, but I sure am proud to call him a “brother”.  Thank you, Gabe.  It’s an honor.

Jason Deadrich
Promoter and Proud Supporter of the Revolution

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