In September of 2008 the AWA was hoping to bring in The Dudley Boyz/Team 3D whose contract with TNA were about to expire. Mr. Gagne asked me to write a piece hyping the potential arrival of The Dudley Boyz to the American Wrestling Association as well as hyping the importance of the Tag Team Championship. a task that was right up my ally.
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This was a piece that I wrote not long after ESPN began airing episodes of AWA All-Star Wrestling on ESPN Classic. Being a huge fan of old school pro wrestling and not so much of the modern product I found this to be the perfect vehicle for me. Just me being me delivering my opinion on why old school wrestling was (and still is) the way to go. In January of 2008 I wrote a piece remembering the many wrestlers who we had lost in the previous year. Unfortunately, this piece was only intended to be put up temporarily and therefore is no longer available via the archived awastars.com website so, I am presenting it to you just as I originally submitted it to Mr. Gagne. While writing my column for for awastars.com I was informed by Mr. Gagne that he was launching a brand new AWA wrestling magazine titled, "AWA Intensity" and that he wanted me to write the first piece featured in it. I was honored. The one problem was that, living in the Cincinnati area at the time I had never been to a live AWA event. All of my AWA knowledge was from a historical prospective which was why my primary duty was to write columns connecting the modern AWA with the magnificent history of the past. Gagne said that is exactly why he wanted me to write the first article. He wanted the very first thing that the fans would read to be one that assured fans that the great AWA legacy would endure just as they remember and the old school tradition which they love would continue. For the second straight year the American Wrestling Association was well represented in the WWE Hall of fame. Having seen the inductions of AWA alumni Verne Gagne, Gene Okerlund and Sherri Martel the previous year, 2007 saw the inductions of AWA World Champions Nick Bockwinkel, Jerry Lawler and Curt Hennig. When writing my tribute piece to this men I wanted to do more than pay respect to the wrestler so I presented the AWA's Dominance of the WWE HOF as throwback to the great inter promotional wars of the 1980s which to many is still the greatest era in the history of professional wrestling. 2007 saw Larry Zbyszko claiming to be the true AWA World champion having never been defeated for the belt in 1991. The angle would end with Larry reclaiming the AWA World championship. Prior to the angle being launched I was asked to write a column hyping up the severity of this issue while going into great detail to make the controversy as complex as I could. As always I focused heavily on AWA history to bring legitimacy and importance to the angle. Unfortunately, shortly after the piece was submitted, Steve Corino dropped the title to Takao Omori and my piece was never used. I still think that they could have just switched the names and printed it as is. None the less, here is the article just as I had originally submitted it. Although I never met him personally, I was especially saddened by the passing of professional wrestler John "Earthquake" Tenta on June 7th 2006 after a long battle with cancer. Having lost my own father from the same disease just over two years earlier his passing really hit home. In his memory I wrote a short poem which I originally read on my wrestling hotline, posted as part of my blog on awastars.com as well as posting it on wrestlecrap.com where Tenta's daughter was known to frequent. She saw the poem and personally thanked me for it. To my surprise, it even made it's way to the writers at Pro Wrestling Illustrated who gave me high marks for it. Here's my original AWA Column: Sherri Martel had been a fixture of pro wrestling for over 20 years having been featured prominently in the AWA, WWF and WCW during her career. So, when the then current reigning AWA Woman's champion announced that she was retiring from in ring competition I couldn't NOT write a tribute to her amazing career and the unfillable void that her retirement would leave not only on the AWA Women's championship but on the entire world of professional wrestling. Her passing just one year later came as a complete shock to the entire pro wrestling world and would warrant another tribute but, here is the piece that I originally wrote at the time of her retirement... When Mr. Gagne asked me to write a piece in regards to Steve Corino winning the AWA World Championship I saw an opportunity to covey the values of the past into the direction that the company was moving. His moniker of "Mr. Old School" made Corino the ideal subject for such an undertaking. Playing on more than just his "Old School" nickname, I also used his ECW history to connect with modern fans in order to make the AWA World Championship relevant to today's market. I then took it one step further by projecting a "what if" scenario by reflecting on Dan "The Beast" Severn's NWA Worlds title win and how he brought the championship back into the spotlight to give a sense that the AWA title was also about to rise from obscurity to once again become one of the top prizes in the sport of professional wrestling. My second writing for the AWA was actually per request from Mr. Gagne himself. The AWA owner enjoyed my Hulk Hogan piece so much (both the writing and the attention that it generated) that he actually reached out and offered me my own column for the official website. Wanting to incorporate more of pro wrestling's past (specifically the AWA) he wanted to take advantage of the many wrestling greats of the 1980s who were still competing on the independent scene in 2005. Per his request, I wrote a piece introducing the AWA Legends Championship. Former AWA World Heavyweight Champion "The Living Legend" Larry Zbyszko became the inaugural (and to my knowledge the only) AWA Legends champion. The title was later abandoned as Larry was awarded the AWA World Heavyweight Championship on February 5th 2008. |
Author: Sean BossmanFrom 2005 to 2008 I was a columnist for the Minneapolis based American Wrestling Association (under the moniker of "Sean Bush" claiming to be a spoiled relative of then U.S. President George W. Bush lol) both for the official AWA webite as well as their short lived printed magazine. In order to differentiate myself from other columnists, I avoided writing straight ahead pieces about the here and now and instead wrote everything from a historical perspective always referencing the AWA's grand legacy in correspondence to where the company was going. Mr. Gagne appreciated my unique style so much that he assigned me to write the opening article for the first issue of the newly launched AWA magazine. Archives
August 2008
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