WRESTLING REUNION ROCKS CARTERET, NJ
- 06/02/2007 (11:26:14 pm)
- Georgiann Makropoulos
……
A turn away crowd converged on the Wrestling Reunion convention at the St Demetrius Banquet Center in Carteret New Jersey today. Seventy five to a hundred fans were turned away at this sell out event. What a fun convention this was and the best yet Mambo Rivera has put on to date. We arrived at the building at nine am and the line to get in was already forming. Being we have known Mambo and his wife forever we were let in to the nice air conditioned hall to do some pre-show shopping and get some vendor guest autographs. Upon entering we saw some friendly faces Bud Carson and James Soblasis from 3 Count Promotions. We said our hellos and walked around a bit stopping by vendors and making a few purchases. The dealer room was pretty stocked with some great wrestling merchandise from shoot interviews to figures to photos. After doing some shopping the wrestlers sitting at vendor tables began to file in so I thought I would take advantage of this. First stop was Jimmy Snuka who signed two belts for me. Also stopped by for a visit with the Iron Sheik and (Erick Simms you guys remember the you tube slap guy lol) who greeted me and Taylor with a big hug. Sheiky Baby was in great spirits as he signed some autographs for us. After Sheik we went over and saw Nickoli Volkoff and Johnny Valiant and got some more autographs. The guy who was sponsoring JV and Nickoli was very nice and helpful and was charging five bucks each for your items which was a bargain. As always JV and Nickoli were very friendly, old school all the way. After finishing with those two we went over to the K+S table ( Ken and Steve) to get a few signatures from the Godfather and Ahmed Johnson. I really wanted to meet the Godfather as I LOVE the Papa Shango gimmick. One of my favorites. K+S were charging $20 each for Godfather and $15 for Johnson. Steve hooked us up nicely with our purchases and I was very satisfied. The Godfather was awesome and spent a bunch of time with us. I asked him who came up with the Papa Shango gimmick and he said Vince McMahon did but he came up with the Godfather. Just a quick comment on K+S, I was very impressed with how they run things. Very orderly and on time. I pre-paid for my tickets when I got there and they wrote my name down before the doors opened. As soon as ten came around, the doors opened and Godfather and Johnson started signing on time. As we approached their table after visiting some other vendor guests Steve put us up front of the line and we had no wait and got our items signed. The whole pre-pay thing is a great idea, kudos to K+S for the system they have. After the Godfather we got on line for the big auto session which was due to start at eleven thirty. There was no number system in place so I figured get on line early as possible which really paid off. At about quarter of twelve the session begun as the guests were introduced and came out from a back door. The biggest pops went to Sid Vicious and Kurt Angle. As we got into the autograph area the Islanders were first. They were friendly and it was nice meeting the Tonga Kid for the first time. After the Islanders were Mil Mascaras and Dos Caras. Mil didn't seem to want to be at the convention as I would soon find out. I started getting my items signed and Mil stopped halfway through. He said he was only supposed to sign one. I quickly told Mil that I had purchased 2 super tickets ( 175 each) and four extra Mil Mascaras tickets for the extra items. He ended up signing all but two of my items for the time being, anyway. ( More on Mil later) Dos Caras was next and he was the complete opposite of Mil, very friendly and signed happily. After Dos was DDP who was truly awesome. He brought his WCW world championship belt with him which he let Taylor hold in the Polaroid photo we took with him. After a great visit with DDP Medusa was next. Again, very friendly and happy to meet the fans. We chatted a little about the WWF title garbage can thing which was a little bit of a problem when Medusa did that on TV. After Medusa was the man I came to see Big Sid Vicious a late addition to Wrestling Reunion lineup and a great one at that. Would Sid live up to the reputation he had of being standoffish. I was about ten feet away from finding out. As we approached Sid we were greeted with a warm hello and handshake from this former Skyscraper. Geeze I thought to myself, another urban legend about Sid's rep. He asked what we had to get autographed and I handed him the items. Sid signed big beautiful signatures on all the items I gave him and he told us a few stories in the process. We talked about the WWE and WCW and how different the two companies were at the time of his championship title reigns. As our visit was coming to and end we took our Polaroid photo. When Sid stood up for the Polaroid photo ( again, Sid stood up from the table and didn't just sit there shows you he cares about the fans) I couldn't believe how tall he was. I thought Kevin Nash was tall but Sid is taller. At the end of our visit Sid thanked us for coming to see him and as we walked away Sid called Taylor back to the table and gifted he with another photo. What a nice gesture on Sid's part. He truly was the best guest at the show. After Sid we had two more guests to go. Gail Kim was next, again she was top notch and very friendly. I called her Superfly Gail for the leap she did of the cage at Lock Down onto Jackie Moore a few months back. She laughed as we took our Polaroid photo. Like Sid, Gail took time and stood up for the photo with us. Last but not least on the autograph line was Kurt Angle. Kurt was friendly as always. Our time on the autograph line had come to an end and I had three more stops to make the first being Pedro Morales. Man when I think about Pedro the wrestling memories are endless. As we made our way to Pedro we were greeted by the man himself James Soblasses from 3 Count Promotions and now Co- Promoter of the Legends Of The Ring Convention who would be handling Pedro. I had a bunch of items to get signed and James took care of everything. Pedro looked pretty good and we talked about some of the items I had which was a little trip down memory lane for Pedro. After Pedro we had two more stops to make one being Danny Spivey. We went over to where Spivey was sitting and he was gone for the day but I was directed to a back room where I was told he was doing a private signing. When I got to the back room he had left already and but all was not lost. Adam Handleman who brought Spivey into the show gave me 2 signed photos of Spivey for free and apologized to me as Spivey had to leave to catch a flight home. After the Spivey thing, we headed over to Missy Hyatt to get 2 items signed. Missy was charming as always and signed my two WWF programs that had articles of Missy Manor in them. She liked seeing those and wished the Missy Manor thing happened. Missy signed our items at no charge which was very nice of her. Thank you Missy Hyatt! I still had two tickets left that I had purchased for Mil Mascaras autos that I didn't use, what to do lets see. I went over to where Mil was sitting and spotted Mambos wife in the area. I explained to her the dilemma we had in the morning with Mil and how I still needed to get two autos from him. Mambos wife had Taylor go right up to Mil with the items and he gladly signed them. What a difference it makes when the co-promoter, Mambos wife speaks! Anyway after that it was time to say our goodbyes to everyone and to head home after a long day of autographs and meet and greet. As always, some thank you are in order. First to Mambo and his family and his staff for putting on a super convention. We look forward to his show every year and can't wait for the next one. Thanks to all the wrestlers, yes even Mil Mascaras for taking time out and meeting with the five hundred plus fans who showed up. Special thanks to DDP, Sid, and Gail Kim for going out of their way and making our visit with them extra special today. Thanks to Erick Simms for bringing in the Iron Sheik who always is fun to visit with. Sheiky Baby Rulz! Many thanks to K+S for their kindness shown to me and Taylor and for bringing in The Godfather and Ahmed Johnson to the convention. Both a treat to visit with. A super duper thank you to James for all the great Pedro signatures, James always come through with his end of a bargain. He said Pedro would be there, and he was. Thanks to Dan the Man and Ben for all their help with my title belts. Always nice seeing you guys at these conventions. And last but not least to Adam Handleman who despite Dan Spivey leaving hooked us up with a few signatures of Spivey thank you Adam! All in all we had a fun time at Wrestling Reunion. If you have never been to a Wrestling Reunion event keep checking their web site http://www.wrestlingreunion.com/ for the next one as I am sure you will have a great time.
From... Ray and Taylor Dutczak of Yonkers NY
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