This month's story is not lengthy in words but in lessons learned, it is immense.  I want to share a story that's sad but true concerning my first wrestling match and the way that I was broken into the business of wrestling and ribs.

The year was 1980 and I was wrestling against Billy Howard in a live television match that was broadcast over, I believe, Channel 41 in Kansas City, Kansas. The match took place in the Kansas City Memorial Hall. I was very nervous about how I would do; I was very nervous about how I looked; and I was very nervous about wearing my wrestling shorts for the first time in front of an audience.  Please remember that I was a Kansas boy, barely wet behind the ears and literally shaking in my wrestling boots.

The match proceeded much in the manner that it was supposed to.  I tried to focus on what I was taught and trained to do.  I tried not to focus on the crowd, even though I could hear them in the back of my head cheering me on.  Also, in the back of my head was the nagging thought of "what if my behind was showing too much" with all the bending and being thrown around and throwing Howard around.  I mean, I literally kept pulling down the hemline of the legs of my pants in fear that my butt would show.  

I guess that I must have been pretty obvious to my opponent because some ten or eleven minutes into the match, I bent down to allow him to execute a Sunset Flip and, you guessed it, that joker pulled my pants down and the fear of all fears was realized....all on live television.  

It was a rude awakening but I guess the experience was like jumping out of an airplane for the first time....you really will never experience worrying about a television audience and a live one ever seeing your hiney ever again.

See you next month.

Art Crews
a/k/a  The Kansas Cowboy
a/k/a  The Blonde Bomber