New England Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame and Fanfest

By Chris Sullivan

On Saturday, May 21 the New England Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame held the second annual Pro Wrestling Fanfest at the Brotherhood of the Holy Ghost Charity Hall in East Providence, Rhode Island. The event is set-up by local promoter and founder, Joe Bruen. The event was a full day of meet and greets, wrestling stories, and surprises.

The Pro Wrestling Fanfest doors opened at 8:45. Vendors were selling wrestling videos/DVDs, magazines, photos, office promos, and much more wrestling items. Many of the different wrestlers appearing for the event started to appear around 9:30.

Wrestling Ink had Tammy “Sunny” Sytch. Legend of the Ring had TNA Knockout Rosita. Bmoreceleb had WWE legend Paul Bearer and former ECW tag team champion Balls Mahoney. MWF Wresting had WWE Hall of Famer Iron Sheik and former TNA X-division Jay Lethal. Big Time Wrestling had former ECW Champion and current BTW Champion Shane Douglas. Off the Mark had the original Doink the Clown Matt Borne.

At 10am the wrestlers appearing on the Super-Ticket was announced to the crowd. Tito Santana, Rick Martel, Chief Jay Strongbow, Headshinker Samu, Howard Finkel, Kenny Dykstra, Jameson, Heart-Throb Antonio Thomas, Armando Estrada, and John (Cena Sr.) Fabulous. Romeo Roselli was unable to appear due to an injury that prevented him from traveling. All the wrestlers were all in a great mood and extremely to see the fans at the event.

Jameson from WWF Primetime Wrestling and the Bobby Heenan Show was in “character” the entire event when he was in the meet and greet hall. Only for a few minutes of the day was he out of character. He said he had no idea that wrestling fans wanted to meet him and was looking for him. He said he did not think he forgot many things that the wrestling fans were talking to him about.

Samu talked to the fans about his wrestling family, in fact showed many of his new tattoos of his family he had. He had Yokozuna tattooed to his forearm, the Wild Samoans holding the WWF Tag Team Champion on his shoulder and Umaga on his other shoulder.

Chief Jay Strongbow had his full headdress that pleased so many. Estrada was in full WWE gear.

Just after the 10 many of the lady wrestlers of the New England area stated to appear. Mistress Belmont, Amber (from the Boston Shore), Tealor, and Barbie. Local wrestler “Purty Kurty” Kurt Adonis came to the event to see old friends and pay his respect to many of the wrestling legends he grow-up watching.

It was nice to see so many wrestling greats at the events. With most of the mainstream wrestling conventions being in the tri-state area (NY, NJ, PA) it is nice for the fans to get a more one on one time at the event.

Sunny looked amazing and was very happy to see so many of her fans. She spent a lot of time in the New England area before but in the last 6 years she had spent very little time north of New York. She is always great with the fans.

Ball Mahoney was a great but crazy guy. He was like a kid in a candy store looking at old magazines telling stories about different press agents he spent time with. He had not seen many of the legends in a long time. He was very happy to she Samu and Estrada.

Around 2pm there was a special question and answer session with the Super-Ticket guest. They talked about favorite matches, going from area to area before it was just WWE, favorite Randy Savage matches/stories, and much more.

There was a break so the staff and guest could get ready for the Hall of Fame dinner and speeches. As doors opened for a the Hall of Fame many local wrestlers arrived that had been put into the Hall of Fame in the past and many that just wanted to show there respect to many of the wrestlers that came before them. Former WWF refs Danny Davis and Tim White was in the building to see his old friends. The Duke of Dorchester Pete Doherty, a former WWF enrichment talent, was in to see the night’s event.

The speeches were good. Many of the wrestlers talked about different road stories and matches. A very talent wrestler by the name of TJ Richter was very moved about being apart of the New England Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame. He talked about how it was something he just had to be apart of the world of wrestling and it was something he watched with his family. He also was a big fan of Randy Savage and wanted to be a bad guy be guy because of Savage. Ebony Blade talked about how he wrestled all over the world and for 7 of the 25 years he wrestled in New England and how it was his favorite time of his career. Blade had always been a powerful speaker. Other wrestlers that went into the Class of 2011 included “The mother of pro wrestling” Georgiann Makropoulos, Tony Roy, Joel Davis, Johnny Vegas, Richard Byrnes, The Lake Sisters, Tom Burke, Irish Terry Gunn, and others.

Former WWF Primetime Wrestling star and co-Host of the Bobby Heenan Show, Jamison got the Wrestling Personality of the year. His speech was very funny and had people laughing for sometime. He started of in character saying he did not know what to say and was going to read letters he got in the mail. One from Vince McMahon, Jimmy Snuka, Obama, and Bobby Heenan. Very funny. Then he said he was able to get out of character to talk for real. He said that he did not think he should be getting an award because he was an actor that McMahon saw during a play, he did not travel the road and get hurt. He said he had nothing but respect for what the wrestlers do each day. Jamison said he never thought fans would remember him or want his autograph. He said he looked his time in the wrestling and looked forward to coming back in the scene.

WWE announce Howard Finkel was the host for the second part of the Hall of Fame. He talked about how important New England was to the history of the WWE. Howard Finkel also announced that there was a special guest that no one besides he and Joe know was going to be at the show. It was former WWF Champion Mr. Bob Backlund. Backlund talked about what type of people Martel, Santana and the Strongbow were and how that is more important then what they did in the ring. He said how he would never forget how important they were to his life and just wanted to thank them. Just as fast has he arrived, he left with many of the fans still in shock of what just happened.

Tito Santana talked about the number of matches he had at the Boston Garden and the night he won the IC Title at the Garden. Then talked about the match against Randy Savage where he lost the title to the Macho Man in the Boston Garden. Rick Martel talked about how important the local wrestling area on training the future stars and talked a little about his different events in New England. Chief Jay Strongbow talked the day he came up with the name Duke of Dorchester. Strongbow was quick with his speech and just want to say thank you to everyone he wrestled in front of.

After the Hall of Fame the different wrestlers signed autographs and took photos with fans that asked as they said their good byes. It was a great event and something I hope continues on. Joe runs great events and had a number of surprises that will make fans want to return to future events.