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WCW | The Whole Truth


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WCW | The Whole Truth

The words of a booker…

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I grew up a lot when Rip Chord gave me the opportunity to be the booker of Mid Atlantic Wrestling. I was overly excited to begin my journey with a promotion full-time. I had been used to shuffling between the very small indy promotions on the east coast, so when I had the chance to have a job that wouldn’t end in one night – it was exciting to me.

 

The first show I ever booked for MAW was held in front of 200 people. They were die-hard traditional wrestling fans that were promised the best young talent in the world. I was dedicated to bringing some of the best athletes from around North America to our shows. Whether it was a one night match or a three match series it didn’t matter. If you were willing to work for decent pay and could perform at a top level, then you had a job opportunity with MAW in the early days.

 

A lot of people ask me why I hotshot Jay Chord to the top of the card when I had other guys to choose from. The reason I made Jay a focal point so quickly is because he’s so talented. I could care less which person has the best attitude. I wanted workers who were driven and determined to make it big. I didn’t want to waste time with people who had small plans. I always looked at the big picture.

 

2010 was a year to remember for a few different reasons. I was in a position where I needed to always be thinking of new and fresh ideas. I was the guy the fans counted on without even knowing it. I was the head booker of a wrestling promotion. It took a few weeks for that to set in on my mind. When I finally realized it, I ran to the bathroom and started heaving over the toilet. Perhaps it was the Chinese cuisine I had eaten earlier in the day. Or it was the fact that I had no clue what I was doing.

 

The job wasn’t an easy one. The head booker of a smaller promotion has quite a bit of responsibility when it comes down to it. A booker in a massive promotion has fewer duties (in my honest opinion) than a booker in a smaller promotion. You have to simply create good stories for the workers in your locker room – that’s it. A booker for a smaller promotion will begin to micromanage in order to cut costs wherever necessary. The stress on that booker can be much more excessive. I would know better than anybody else.

 

World Championship Wrestling has grown into a wrestling empire. We reach over 3.5 million viewers on television every single week. Our monthly pay-per-views are viewed by over 1 million viewers worldwide. We have countless people in our corporate offices who arrange travel accommodations, legal services, catering services, and many other aspects of the day-to-day business for a wrestling promotion. These people work hard to secure plans well in advance. It’s a piece of the job that I no longer am required to do and I certainly don’t miss it.

 

Maybe it’s the fact I started a job that I loved that made 2010 such a memorable year… or it’s because I had never lived like a rock star before. But Jay Chord sure did.

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I'm very excited to post the other parts of the behind the scenes story in the coming week(s). September 2022 is coming to an end and I'm hoping to begin introducing actual wrestling within the diary as of October 2022 to start with a fresh month. The month of October is going to be a hectic one for World Championship Wrestling. We're gearing up for the biggest battle royal (60-men) in our history (at Where It All Begins Again) and the winner will receive a title shot of their choice at The Night Of The Champions PPV in December. I can't wait to share more of this game with all of you. :D
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WCW | The Whole Truth

The words of a booker…

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m521/Logan_Rodzen/wcw-1.jpg

 

Jay Chord is the type of person who you always want to get along with no matter what. He’s the little kid in the toy store whining about what he wants his parents to buy him. Instead of making a huge scene in the store his parents buy him the toy in order to keep him quiet. I honestly believe that this is what happened with Jay throughout his life.

 

The first time I went out on the road with him was in April of 2010. I had just turned 21-years old and was the youngest of all active head bookers. Jay wasn’t even legally of age to consume alcohol, but that didn’t stop him from buying it. He was the son of a legendary wrestler and in the Mid-Atlantic region Jay Chord was privy to anything he wanted. Do you think he was ever asked for his I.D.? I don’t think so.

 

That’s one reason why I think he was content with MAW and never wanted to move on to a bigger promotion. He wouldn’t turn 21-years old until May of 2011 and that was over a year away. Nothing could ever stop Jay from acquiring alcohol. I was dumbfounded at times when he’d come back to the hotel room with three cases of beer and two bottles of liquor.

 

I had my share of “good times” in high school and had somewhat outgrown the partying scene by the time I was of legal age to drink. I rarely picked up any alcohol when I first started with MAW and if I did it was a few light beers after a show. I never went all out and downed a ton of drinks or took shots of hard alcohol. But I always felt I needed to be around Jay in order to keep him safe. I considered him one of the biggest pieces of the MAW puzzle. Losing him to drugs or alcohol would have ruined MAW in the early days.

 

I always knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop drinking heavily, but if I could convince him that there was a time and a place for partying and then there was a time to be legitimately serious. I won’t lie to you – he put me through more crap than anyone ever could. I’ve never been called so many names in my life – his vulgarity actually surprised me.

 

The next morning I would simply remind him of his shenanigans the night prior and he usually didn’t remember half of the night. The worst times were when he couldn’t remember wrestling the day or night before. It was getting dangerous that he had no self control over his addictive personality. I put my foot down more than once and treated him like a child. Jay didn’t like to be talked down to, but he accepted it when it came from me.

 

After meeting Jay just five months beforehand I had noticed that our friendship had really grown into something unique. He was this rich and snobby kid who wouldn’t take advice or listen to anybody. He was the definition of arrogance when I first met him. After showing him that we both had quite a bit in common (food, music, hobbies, etc.) he was able to really loosen up and talk to me on the road.

 

I’m sworn to secrecy for most of those stories, but what I can share with you all will really let you know the type of person Jay Chord really is. There is a lot more to his personality than an egotistical prick. When he first started wrestling in 2008 he was a legend in his own mind. Now he truly is. I refuse to take credit for Jay’s success in the ring, but I firmly believe he wouldn’t have made it as far without me constantly nagging / checking up on him every single day. Even if I didn’t have anything wrestling-related to speak to him about, I still called and asked how he was doing and if he needed anything.

 

I don’t play favorites and that’s the honest truth. But with Jay Chord it was something different completely. I needed him to be the best he possibly could every single night. I depended on him more than I should have and perhaps the pressure I put on his shoulders drove him to drink even more than he originally was. My only regret in the early days of MAW is not getting Jay in to see a specialist about his alcoholism. It would have saved both of us plenty of headaches (him more so than me) throughout the years.

 

(I couldn't stop myself from posting another part of the story, too excited to get it all out there :o)

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(I couldn't stop myself from posting another part of the story, too excited to get it all out there :o)

 

Dont think you will get any complaints :D.

 

Logan reminds me alot of Bret Hart at the minute. Pretty much babysitting other wrestlers to keep them out of trouble, but not being able to keep them from being themselves. Just hope Chord doesnt end up like Dynamite Kid.

 

Although I could be making those comparisons because I have just finished reading Brets book.

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WCW | The Whole Truth

The words of a booker…

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m521/Logan_Rodzen/wcw-1.jpg

 

My older brother was a huge Sam Strong fan throughout his life. The stories I heard about the iconic wrestler are endless. I met Sam Strong in late 2010 due to my growing relationship with Rip Chord. The two of them were old friends and would get together occasionally. The business relationship we had with Sam Strong and United States Pro Wrestling (USPW) was very fruitful for many years.

 

It’d be a lie to say that our working agreement with USPW benefited them because it certainly benefited us in the long run. We were able to send over unknown talent that USPW hadn’t seen before and in exchange we were opened up to many superstars who are recognizable at the national-level. Eventually we were able to trade for their main event workers, but that took many years of growing first.

 

I had always wanted to work with some of the talent in USPW because of the history some of them had. I grew up watching guys like T-Rex, Tyson Baine, Enygma, and Bruce The Giant. To go from a kid in Maine watching wrestling on television to actually writing out booking plans in an office was incredible. Knowing that I had the opportunity to work with some very talented young workers and legends made the job extremely stressful for me.

 

One of the great things about having Rip Chord as your boss is the relaxed atmosphere and the fact he’s actually open to listening. It wasn’t until two years into my booking duties that I finally gained the courage to talk to Rip about the philosophies of MAW. Of course, I had Jay accompany me in order to set the tone. Jay didn’t partake in many business matters simply because he didn’t care. When Rip saw him with me I could see the shock on his face: he knew we were about to suggest or ask for something big. And we did.

 

I introduced what I considered “the 10-year plan” for MAW. The first step on the list was producing more events per month. The second step was introducing higher quality merchandise for fans. The third step meant spending a tad bit more money in order to produce our events by having nicer equipment, special setups, and local bands.

 

The fourth step was why Jay accompanied me to this particular meeting. It was crucial that I show Rip that I wasn’t the only person who believed what I was about to tell him was possible. I told him that I wanted to have more control over the workers we exchanged and that I didn’t want MAW’s main purpose to be his original goal anymore. I wanted it to be bigger and better. I still wanted young workers to develop with us, but I felt like we needed to bring in more recognizable talent in order to grow our product.

 

It’s hard to tell a legendary figure that what they want isn’t what you want, but that you still want the job no matter what they say. If he didn’t like the idea I knew I’d be replaced in a matter of weeks or days. I was sweating profusely before, during, and after the meeting - it was legitimately embarrassing. I drank probably ten cups of water in a 30-minute meeting. I was extremely nervous and it showed badly.

 

At the end of the meeting Rip told us that he needed to ‘sleep on it’ and that he’d have an answer in the morning. I was stunned. He was actually open to the idea and not completely against it, or so it seemed. I’m not sure if I was so excited that he might go with my idea or if I was worried to death that he would fire me the next morning. Either way I didn’t sleep that night.

 

The next morning I got a call from Jay saying that Rip wanted to meet with me again about what we spoke about the day before. Instantly I felt my stomach drop.

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World Championship Wrestling CEO Jay Chord was quoted as saying, "WCW is stronger than ever. We've grown exponentially over the past couple of years and I firmly believe that we will continue to grow for years to come" after a stockholders meeting last night at the Bayview Hotel in North Carolina. WCW's monthly earnings are higher than they've ever been and continue to increase due to their booming pay-per-view business. They currently produce anywhere from one to three live pay-per-view events every month. One of the talks in the meeting was setting up some sort of bundle of pay-per-views in order for their viewers to watch all of the events each month instead of picking and choosing due to financial restraints.

 

Whether or not the company has picked up on their fans buying habits it seems like they genuinely want to make it possible for everybody to see every single show. They've prided themselves on the fact that they produce more television shows around the globe than any other company in the history of wrestling. If WCW is sincere about their plan to create a buying option in which a household can buy all three live events for a substantially cheaper price than buying them separately.

 

This option is already available if you order the events via their web site. The price wasn't an extreme discount, but apparently that is changing when they go back to their regular schedule in November (three events) and the option will be available to those who order through cable or satellite. "Where It All Begins Again" is the next and only pay-per-view offering from the global phenomenon that is WCW in the month of October. It will be coming to you live from The WCW Arena in New York City where over 75,000 fans are expected to be in attendance LIVE to witness the historical 60-man battle royal!

 

Everyone here at WorldWrestlingNews.com is extremely excited to bring all of you a preview and review of that "Where It All Begins Again" event in the coming weeks. Look for that soon!

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  • 1 month later...
Hey Logan, has this been shelved?

 

Sadly yes. I've started a new job thats opposite hours of my girlfriend and I haven't had enough time to write or play. The time I get off is spent with her. Hopefully I'll be able to get back on it in a few weeks when things aren't as hectic for me.

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