Like it was yesterday, I can remember driving home with Douge from Temple one day and discussing if we were going to attend the very first ECW TV taping at Cabrini college. It would be the company’s debut taping with Eddie Gilbert as the booker. The talent on their first card was filled with several old WWF legends like Jimmy Snuka, Don Muraco, and Terry Funk along with some fresh faces like Chris Candido and JT Smith. There was nothing Doug loved to do more than to see wrestling matches in person. Doug would always be at the Philadelphia Civic Center shows during the late ‘80s with his friends and would be there yelling at the guys in the ring. He would often heckle the babyfaces as Doug always loved the heels. The tradition continued when we attended the first ECW shows at the Arena and Doug would yell out at the Dark Patriot, call out that he was Eddie Gilbert’s brother, and would even hold up a sign that read "Dark Patriot is a USWA jobber".

Around this time we also had our very own feud going in our backyard wrestling promotion that was actually held in my parent’s basement. Doug and I had a bitter blood feud that was settled in a Japanese-style fire death match. We surrounded our makeshift ring (which consisted of three old beds) with strings that had flash paper attached to them so that when one of us got close to the ropes they would light it on fire. Eric Gargulio was also a huge part of this promotion that we called TKO. I actually still have this stuff on tape and we were so proud of it at the time. I still am in a way as it represents a moment of time that I feel so grateful for. I guess, just like all wrestling fans, we just wanted to be in the business, and fortunately all three of us were lucky enough to fulfill our dreams.

After I started to build RF VIDEO up during my college years, I had hired Doug to work for me full time. He only had one year of college left before he could graduate, but I told him that if he would work for me I would give him a job for life and would always make sure he had a job in wrestling. Looking back, I was lucky Doug didn’t laugh at the suggestion, and instead he immediately signed on because that’s the type of guy Doug was. He would do anything for a friend. I had just got into ECW as their official video distributor and was sending out our catalogs to hundreds of wrestling fans the old fashion way; getting them copied at Office Max and spending hours upon hours with Doug and Eric folding those things and stamping them. Looking back, a lot of our friends that helped us during the beginning made it into the business in some fashion like Trent Acid, Rob Styles and countless others who were stuck folding and stapling the old RF VIDEO updates.

Doug had such a deep passion and love for wrestling that he put his education on the back burner and it was something that I would never forget. Doug could have went on to do anything in life as he was one of the smartest guys I had met in college. His major at the time was geography and when we were on the road he loved to point out famous buildings and other landmarks. He loved geography and would often read books on buildings while we would be on long car rides. Doug always got me where ever we needed to go, whether it was our long car ride from Philly to Toronto, or in the subways of Tokyo, Doug was our like our very own Mapquest. He would always get us to the venues but he also manage to find the furthest parking spot from the door. I can't tell you how many times the entire van would tell him to pull up closer. It’s the little things like that which still make me smile.

ECW was really taking off around 1995 and we were in on the ground floor. Doug was friends with everyone in ECW and we had a deal with the company to sell our products at all of their shows from day one until it ended in 2001. We had our very own merchandise table at all of their shows and every day was an absolute blast. I didn’t really realize it at the time, but it is amazing to think that we were lucky enough to be apart of ECW. Two kids from Philly - who were the biggest fans ever - were now traveling with the very same guys we grew up watching on TV like Terry Funk, Paul Heyman, and learning the business every step of the way. We were living our dream, and ECW would be the place that we would learn the wrestling business the right way from people that were actually in the business.

Doug would often sit at my table watching Japan videos with all of the ECW guys as he was the biggest mark for FMW and Wing tapes. He knew everything about the Japanese wrestling landscape and everyone knew it. They would often come to Doug for advice on what promotions they could go to over there for work. Doug was able to go over to Japan in 1995, as we became friends with Victor Quionnes, who was in charge of booking and talent in FMW along various other companies. Doug would always talk with Victor on the phone and get all the dirt on what was going on behind the scenes in Japan. He always knew more about Japan than anyone I knew and when we went to Japan, Doug already knew how to get around the subway system in a day. I could live there for a month and still get lost, but not Doug.

As time went on Doug became so smart to the business that he was responsible for bringing in foreign talent to ECW. Doug hand picked Tajiri and Super Crazy to be brought into ECW as well as others like Jado, Gedo, Kenamura, Tanaka. Doug would always lend a helping hand to Paul Heyman when Paul needed new talent from Japan and Mexico. Doug, on his own dime, got Tajiri and Super Crazy an apartment to live in that was next to our office. He did everything for those guys, like taking them food shopping and helping Tajiri pick out his dog. He would drive them around where ever they needed to go. He was just a great person at heart. If Doug was your friend, he was your friend for life.

Doug was well liked by all of the boys. I will never forget getting to all of the towns early and Doug would be setting up while talking with Tommy Dreamer about sports. Lance Storm and Doug would often be in deep conversations about the business as well. Most of the time they were making fun of how many bumps that Lance and Jerry Lynn would take during their matches. Doug was a great person to have at the table as he knew everything about our collection and was so friendly with the fans. Doug was customer service. He lived it, he breathed it. He was the good will ambassador as everyone loved to talk to him and had friends in every town we would go to. He would be in deep conversations with fans for hours in some towns about the business. At times I would have to physically drag Doug into the car, so that we could go to the next town, because he would always be the last to leave as he was so nice and would talk to everyone.

Doug did get to live his dream as he did appear in the ECW ring to face Tony Stetson as the Broad Street Bully. He was the first person in our group to get choke slammed by 911 which was not fun. As the years went on Doug knowledge of wrestling grew and grew. Doug became friends with so many of the wrestlers that we did shoot interviews with. He had these incredible friendships with everyone he met in wrestling. When ECW folded Doug and myself went to every indy show that was around doing our same deal that we did with ECW. We had our merchandise tables everywhere and Doug would film the shows.

Doug would often go to indy shows and he would help the promoters book their own shows if asked. He would always have ideas on how to improve something as his brain seemed to never sleep. They were lucky to have him as a lot of promoters out there do not understand the business and that there is a formula to follow if you want success. Doug was fortunate enough to learn the proper formula and smart enough to make it even better. Doug knew how to get guys over and he also was very creative in setting up promos with guys on the shows. I remember talking to Doug in Dec 2001 about starting our own promotion. We were both tired of going to shows and seeing them run the wrong way and we knew that we had enough knowledge and connections to do it ourselves.

Doug and I were friends with everyone from the NJ/NY/PA indy scene. A lot of the guys respected Doug for what he did in ECW and knew that he possessed great knowledge of the business. He was also a great connection for indy guys to get booked over in Japan and Puerto Rico, so it’s safe to say that Doug was well connected in the business. He did a lot for too many guys to list and would help out anyone and everyone. He would often think of others before thinking of himself. He was very selfless in that sense.

Doug never had an ego and was the most humble person that I have ever met. He and Tommy Dreamer have the same personality to a tee. When we started our wrestling company in 2002, Doug and I put together and mapped out the possible talent list. I remember when we were at a JAPW show and Doug sat down with a lot of the guys to tell them what we had planned he was very excited about it. Doug was not the kind of person to tell people he was about to take over the wrestling world. In fact, that was the exact opposite of what he was about. He was about helping out everyone that he liked and Doug personally brought in so many people into our company. Doug was our scouting division and we brought in American Dragon, Spanky and Michael Shane from seeing them down in Texas when we filmed Shawn Michaels’ TWA shows. We hand picked all of the NJ/NY talent since we were going to all of the IWC/UXW/JAPW shows. We called up a lot of our friends from ECW and we prepared to start something fresh and new.

This is when Doug's true talents shined. He came up with many of the gimmicks like Special K and was responsible for writing a good share of the storylines for our company during the first few years. He was responsible for many of the gimmick matches as well, such as the scramble cage concept match with Teddy Hart in NJ that is still talked about today. Doug hand picked almost 99% of the talent there up until July of 2004. We went to as many shows as possible, so we knew who could go and who had the “it” factor. Doug also was great at editing DVD's for the company, even teaching himself how to make music videos. Even his early stuff was amazing to watch and there were just no limits to Doug’s talent.

Doug would later get to do what he dreamed of doing, which was book a company without anyone holding him back. We were given the funds to run a few shows and Doug booked them 100%. Doug booked both PWX and PWE shows. I basically put together the shows and Doug came up with the finishes and all of the storylines. To this day I would say all four shows were just as good as anything we have done in the past. We used a lot of new talent and mixed them with guys that people were familiar with. Doug had one goal in wrestling, and that was to run shows once again. It was not one of his main goals in life, because if you were to ask him what his main goal was, he would tell you that he just wanted to be happy. I know that one day I will be running shows once again and Doug will be right there beside me watching everything unfold.