Iowa's Most Wanted

I’m getting ready to fly out to Seattle, and then drive a couple hours into the woods for a wedding this weekend. It’s going to be a lot of fun with family and friends, but I believe flint & steel maybe the most technology I see. That being said, I figured I would leave everyone with a nice road story before coming back Sunday. When I return I’ll do a Quazi’s Crystal Ball for Money in the Bank.

Around 2005, I was on the road with CJ Otis and Josh Raymond as I tried to get a spot working for Ian Rotten’s IWA Mid-South. At the time Ian was working with NWA: No Limits in Iowa, so I hitched a ride to a show in hopes of getting my face seen. We made our way out to Muscatine, IA for a No Limits show, which was always a fun time. I have a handful of stories from Iowa, and they all are good memories. This time wasn’t any different.

My dad grew up in Iowa, and I spent almost every summer there. It’s like a second home to me. Yet I had never been to Muscatine before NWA: No Limits. It started out as a great night with a ton of people in the locker room being old friends that I had worked with in the past. I hadn’t talked to some of the guys in years, so just catching up made the trip worth it.

Then Jimmy Jacobs cut a rehash of the famous Ultimate Warrior Airplane promo. It was awesome to watch Jimmy put his own spin on the cult classic promo. Later Matt Sydal wrestled through a nasty knee injury.

Matt took the match outside the ring and popped his knee out in the boxing ring set up in the back of the armory. Knowing Sydal’s knee was out, and watching him wrestle almost ten more minutes was a sight to see. He’s as tough as he is talent. Yet neither of these moments were the strangest from the night.

Near the end of the show Chris Hero led a brawl into the parking lot of the Muscatine Armory. The fans followed the brawl outside, and it felt more like a scene from “No Holds Barred” than a wrestling match. Hero and his foe traded fists until out of nowhere bright lights shined in on the crowd.

Soon four police cars, a mix of local and state, swarmed the crowd. Chris Hero pulled away from the fight as one of the officers strolled out of his car. It turns out that when the brawl started the officer had been driving by. He quickly radioed in the incident, and in small town Iowa, this meant calling all cars.

The officer began questioning everyone, and Chris Hero took up the role as spokesman. Hero walked over to the cop and tried to explain everything. He told the cop that they were pro wrestlers and that this was a wrestling show. The cop then responded in true cop fashion, “Aren’t you a little small to be a Pro Wrestler?”

Without missing a beat Hero fired back, “Aren’t you too fat to be a cop?” It got the pop of the night.

The officer puffed his chest up, but soon realized even with back up that he wasn’t in the best place to swing his dick around. The promoters got between Hero and the cop. Things got cooled and Hero returned inside the venue, not without receiving a few empty threats from the police. Once the cops left the match continued, and I believe Chris Hero picked up the win.

At the end of the night driving home from Iowa to Michigan, the whole car deemed ourselves Iowa’s Most Wanted. It’s not the sexiest story. It’s not full of behind the scenes juice. To me it is a story that encapsulates what is indie wrestling, that on any night at any show, you’ll see something you’ve never seen. To me it was watching a cop gets his own dick swinging knocked down his throat by a guy who truly cared what Barney Fife had to say about the sport he & the fans around him loved. To me that was the night I really became a Chris Hero fan.

Now I'm off to Seattle, where I hope this road trip produces the same kind of memories as my treks out to Iowa, but without the cops. Unless Chris Hero is there, then all bets are off.