The Shoot: The Story Of The Booker.

[thebadguy]

The Story Of The Booker

 

An interviewer sits in a chair opposite of an old man with grey balding hair and a wrinkled face

 

Interviewer:

Okay, we are here with … Grand Avatar? That is what you want to be called right?

 

Grand Avatar:

Yes.

 

Interviewer:

Okay, you are known as a long time booker of SWF. How did you start as a booker in Supreme Wrestling Federation in 1977, how did you get the job?

 

Grand Avatar:

Well, I started out working with TWL back when Streets (Rocky) owned that piece of **** down from the south, helping out setting the ring up and getting things ready for the shows. When you work in a promotion that small you easily get to socialize with the other guys such as the wrestlers and I got close with Rocky, he was the one who drag me into booking, and then I started helping him out with the shows. When Rocky left and Erick (Campbell “The Lone Star Stampeder”) took over, he also took over the book and I was quietly pushed out as Erick wanted to make a new booking team with his friends Chief and Nero. I myself have never been a fan of Nero’s work, so in a way glad that I wasn’t a part of it. I drifted around for some time before Rocky called me up and asked if I wanted to be a part of a new booking team he and Richard (Eisen) wanted to put together.

 

Interviewer:

I suspect you did not get the head booker spot right away, what did you get to work with in the beginning?

 

Grand Avatar:

No, actually I was in on it all right from the start. The team consisted of Richard, Rocky, Moretti and myself. I was the one who got Richard to sign George (DeColt) after that fat **** Terry(Lambert) ****ed him over, Terry I will never forgive you for almost single-handed destroying one of my best friends career!!!. I was also one who suggested the Starr (Mickey)/Streets (Rocky) feud.

 

Interviewer:

Ahh, yes. That all started back with the second King of the Squared Circle tournament, I think the line up for that tournament was Rocky Streets vs. Captain Kaos and George DeColt vs. Mayhem Midden right?

 

Grand Avatar:

Serious, that was the worst tournament we ever held, TWO F’N MATCHES!!! I don’t know what Richard was thinking but he thought I would work out. But anyway, we had decided that Rocky should win the tournament so he could get momentum and turn heel so we could have him feud with Micky (Starr) when he had finished with Ares (Aegaleus). Rocky went on to win his first match against Kaos, who was heel and affiliated with Corporal Doom, who had a match with Chief Two Eagles that night, I seriously do not understand why Richard only went with two tournament matches as we also had Doom face Two Eagles and Hagar (Erikson) face Teddy Flame but they were not tournament matches. Anyway, so we had Rocky beat Kaos and then we had Mayhem, last years winner, face a mystery opponent, who had been hyped out over a longer period on Sunday Slamfest (SWF’s television show, at that time on POP Network). Richard and Rocky had at first planned Wild Man Sullivan to be the mystery man, but he had other commitments, mainly CWB (Championship Wrestling from Boston), so they brought in George and had him debut with a promo, and boy what a promo OOHH!! It blew the crowd away, there were around 8.000 people there and I think every single one of them cheered for George in his match against Mayhem.

 

Interviewer:

George is known for taking the crowd by surprise with his looks and charisma.

 

Grand Avatar:

Your right. We booked him to beat Mayhem and therefore had two faces up against each other in the final. It may not seem as much of a deal today, but back then Kayfabe still lived and everyone thought it was real. So, as I said we had decided to turn Rocky heel. We had Rocky do his intro first, but then hide and attack George when he did his intro. It almost caused a riot as Rocky was a respected face, almost seen as a leader to the younger guys, but with that crowd reaction we knew it had worked. Rocky then beat George with his feet at the ropes.

 

Interviewer:

This turn, was as you said, a part of the future Mickey Starr vs. Rocky Street feud, a feud known for making wrestling what it is today.

 

Grand Avatar:

Mickey had been our champion for 5 years. He had helped give SWF momentum, but Mickey, Moretti, Richard and Rocky had already before I arrived decided that it was time for a new champion and even though Rocky was pushing his 50’s he could still go and they decided that we would make him champion for some time before putting the title back on Mickey.

 

Interviewer:

But as the history shows, it was not what quite went down.

 

Grand Avatar:

No, we had this amazing feud between with Mickey and Rocky’s son Sid Street on one side and Rocky and his other son Dusty on the other side, with both the Mickey vs. Rocky and Mickey vs. Dusty matches being awesome. But it took a huge chunk of the planned story when Sid left SWF in April 1977 and went to APWF, out biggest rival at that point. You should have seen Richard when he got the news; he threw around with all his stuff and his office looked like a battlefield after that. I can see why he was pissed, he thought the storyline was ruined, but we were lucky because the fans was way into the feud. I guess that Richard forgave him after Rocky made him apologize when he returned in November. We decided to “kill” of Sid off-screen with Rocky and Dusty saying they had beat him up so bad he wouldn’t even show up for a family dinner anymore. Instead we teamed Mickey up with DeColt, who just had won the United States title, which then changed name to the North American title as he is.. you know Canadian. I belive he won it during his feud with Pangrazzio Jr (Richie).

 

Interviewer:

And how did you guys get the idea of giving the heavyweight title to George DeColt instead of Rocky?.

 

Grand Avatar:

I just felt like the right thing to do, George was over as hell. Everywhere we went the crowd was crazy for George, he got to the point where people brought tickets to see him and not Mickey, they did not even care he was Canadian he was almost like an honorary American.

 

Interviewer:

Right, you decided to give DeColt the title on a special of Sunday Slamfest.

 

Grand Avatar:

Richard was all about the chocking things and I remember the time when he broke the news to Rocky, Mickey, George. He and Moretti had planned it themselves. Rocky did not like the idea as he had originally been build up to be the champion, but George was madly over, and if Richard tells you to do something you do it. We also decided that he was pinning Streets in the match, not to ruin Micky’s momentum as he still was our main guy.

 

Interviewer:

After that the North American title was vacated and you held a big four way match for it with Rick Rumble, Hagar Erikson, Rocky Streets and Mickey Starr.

 

Grand Avatar:

Yes. After we decided to give the title to George instead we thought it would only be fair to give the NA title to Mickey Starr as he wouldn’t get the heavyweight title any time soon again, so we had him pin Rick Rumble in that match. And continued the Streets/Starr feud over the North American title.

[thebadguy]

Interviewer:

Okay, so lets focus on the Streets/Starr feud for now. So it went from main feud over the big belt too a feud over the North American title?

 

Grand Avatar:

Yes. I remember that the first title defense for Mickey was a hyped match against Ares…. That sh*t did not go down well.

 

Interviewer:

No. In fact many wrestling magazines and websites ruled it the second baddest match between Ares and Mickey, with the worst being their rematch that ended with a draw.

 

Grand Avatar:

Don’t know what went wrong. They had putted many great matches on while I still was working down in the south, I guess Ares just was getting to old to wrestle and the game had taken it tools on him and his f**cked up back. I guess it would have been better for him to stay retired after the match with Moretti.

 

Interviewer:

But lets get back to the Street/Starr thing.

 

Grand Avatar:

Ahh yes, they was still putting great matches on and entertaining the crowd, the fans just loved the chemistry between Starr and Street so Richard and I decided to just let the feud flow.

 

Interviewer:

But then the bomb dropped.

 

Grand Avatar:

Yeah… I thing I know what your talking about. Mickeys contract was coming to an end in December and Mickey and Richard were negotiating for a new contract, but as just about every person knows that did not happen. Mickey got greedy and believed that he could make more money in Hollywood and the territories than he could in SWF and that was the end of the Starr vs Street era of wrestling. So we did the only thing we could do, and had Street win the title in December, just 4 months after Mickey won the title, and retaining it in a rematch the next week in a cage. It cut Mickeys reign down drastically from what he had planned, but if he believed that he could make more money elsewhere I think its okay for him, at that time we had plenty of other stars ,and stars in the making ready to take his place. I personally believe that he was sick of loosing his spot as SWF’s main guy and believed that he could be the top guy in one of the territories… just bad luck for him that he had burned his bridges back when he joined up with SWF, nobody wanted to hire him back.

[ajcrible]

I'll be interested to see where you go with this. Could be really fun once you start running shows - I like the backstory setup (though I've never been a fan of the Grand Avatar).

[thebadguy]

actually my idea for this was to have the whole Dynasty being told in a shoot format rather than a show format to try something different.