I can't really believe he's gone. It so damn unbelievable. Even my family who have met him wanna believe that it's just a mean joke...but it's not.

I wanted to write something...I felt I HAD to write something. I mean, we haven't really been in touch recently but we started in the business together. We learned the moves together. We met some of the "Legends" for our 1st time working the same shows. Ironically we both returned to our "home" at Gleason's this year after a long absence even though I didn't perform on the shows he was at but I wish I had just cause we really all viewed each other as part of a brotherhood regardless of how long we are away from each other.

I can remember Jimmy's 1st week at Gleason's (I had already been there for over a few months). He started with his friend Gary and he already was talking to me about how he wanted to learn as much as he could and one day he wanted to be running his own promotion.

Yeah, ABC was planned from the get-go to a degree.

And during that 1st week, I wound up do something that he continued to rib me about every time I spoke with him just cause he knew I genuinely felt awful. I gave him his 1st injury, a concussion.

But it didn't stop him (hell, he didn't even tell me about it until 6 months later), we would get in that ring when we were training and just wrestle, nothing planned, with all intents on making each other look good regardless of the fact that there wasn't any crowd there.

He was one of the few that excelled in his training during a period of time that he, with a few others, were presented an award from Johnny Rodz himself.

Like my "brother" Tim Arson stated, he looked out for the boys when he could. For a while when I was interested into going to the independents, he would make suggestions and offer to help me out any way he could just cause he had already been doing it and felt that I had talent to make it but I was too nice for this business which has it's fill of backstabbers and liars. He told me on that he felt I would never bullshit him and that I was one of few people he could trust. That, ever prior to his death, meant the a lot to me.

The last few times we talked (last year), it would be late night convo's about things going on in the business. Almost every single time, we would disagree on something. The best part was, we could disagree, debate, hold our ground against each other, and not take it personally. He told me that was another reason why he liked me, we could bump heads cause I would kiss ass but not take it personally. In fact, and he knew this, my short lived column that was here on the DOI was springboard from my conversations/debates with him.

Damn, I am gonna miss him and I really wish I had got to see him one more time this year at Gleason's since the old crew was all coming back together and hanging but we just kept missing each other cause I was too busy...

My prayers go out to his family and I know he'll be watching over them as he's chillin with the man "upstairs".

Jimmy, rest easy and I'll see ya down the road.

-Mad Whipper Whip aka Pablo