This weekend I had Demolition Ax in town for JCW. As Ricky was putting his debut show together for his new building he told me he needed a legend to be the draw and told me he wanted AX for the show. I then booked Ax for the show and all was good. Then a few days later he told me his sponsor wants to do an all local show. I had a dilemma as I already booked Ax for the show and I hate to give a date and then cancel it. I was lucky enough to find my own sponsor for his match alone so all was good. I tried to make a double shot out of it as JAPW was running an afternoon show in Trenton. At the JAPW June 5 show I finalized the deal for AX. JAPW was sort of balking at it but I made a deal that I thought couldn't be refused as it was beneficial for everyone. I was now set for a good weekend with AX. This brings me to Saturday morning, and as usual when I get up I check my email for the day. I received an email from Frank telling me he had a booking meeting and canceled AX off the show. I was initially upset and was trying to make other arrangements. I spoke to my sponsor and we agreed just to do the JCW show. As it turned out, it all worked out in the end and JAPW did me a big favor by canceling AX off the show. Thank you to JAPW for doing that. I originally wanted to return the favor to JAPW for helping me out in a pinch with Kamala a month an a half earlier. I left for the airport to pick AX up as his flight was arriving at 1115 in the morning. I get AX and we discuss our day. I told him about the double now becoming a single shot. Instead of heading to Trenton we headed to Morristown to see our good friend Cousin Luke who is in a rehab facility due to his back injury. As I stated in a previous column Luke has lost a lot of weight. Both AX and I stayed with Luke for about 90 minutes and had a good conversation. He was very happy to see AX as they are old friends. As luck would have it we just missed the Missing Link who was there just before we got there to see Luke. After our visit we headed to get a bite to eat. We found this good diner near the building for the show. After lunch it was getting close to show time and the hotel was to far to go to so we decided to go to the building. Once there we were told that the building was rented until 630 and couldn't set up. I now had 2 and half hours to kill. By this time my helper came and we all left. I was thinking we could catch a movie as the theater was about 2 miles away. We got there but couldn't coordinate movie times as either it started already or was starting to late so my helper suggested that we go to the mall which was near by. So here I am with a legend and my helpers going to the mall just to kill time. AX was a good sport. He found a bench on the lower level near the escalators so he had a good view while I walked around with my helpers. After about an hour I got bored and we headed back to the building. By this time some of the local talent was or had arrived so we just chilled in the cafe area. Ricky soon arrived with the ring and we decided to put the ring in field section instead of the big rink. Time was an issue so that ring went up very quickly. There was a dynamic and enthusiastic crowd that came out to see JCW. AX soon came out for polaroid's. Thank you to the all the multitude of fans that came over to meet and greet WWE legend Demolition AX. I also was put in charge of being the booker for AX's match later that night. Ricky wanted to do a quick show as the building put a time frame on the show. By the time I came out of the lockerroom half the show was over already. We did a brief intermission and again I want to thank the all the remaining fans for coming over to meet and greet WWE legend AX. I also want to thank my good friend Ralph Soto " Mr. Peurto Rico " for going along with the program. As it turned out AX's match went off without a hitch and everyone involved was happy. I then took AX to the hotel as he was tired and did not want to go eat dinner. After getting checked in he thanked me for a good day and I left to go home.

My good friends Fat Frank from JAPW and Ricky O from JCW have recently did articles about food so continuing the tradition of good eating I want to do a review of 2 eateries. I recently had the displeasure of eating at Ruby Tuesday's. Ruby's recently changed there menu and they now have a lot of low carb and atkins stuff on it. On my weekly travels I happened upon Ruby Tuesdays. I decided to order a healthy wrap. They screwed up my order very bad and my wrap wasn't wrapped very well. I ordered it a special way as I do not like certain ingredients and wouldn't you know it they put it in. I had an interesting conversation with the manager who apologized repeadelty and gave me $25 in gift certificates to make up for it. A few days later I decided to try it again and ordered normal food as I had the triple play ( fried shrimp, chicken tenders, and half a rack of ribs ). I didn't care for it as it was sort of spicy which I don't like. Outside of the salad bar which was good I would not recommend this place at all. Of all the chain restaurants ( Fridays, Applebees, Ruby Tuesday's, Houlihans etc ) my favorite is Friday's. I just love those pot stickers's. I also had the displeasure of sampling Wendy's this week. Man have they gone down hill. There french fries really suck. Of the major fast good chains I prefer McDonald's. The Angus burger at Burger King sucks as well. I like the whopper better.

I was also asked about the Bradshaw ( JBL ) incident that happened in Germany as I am Jewish. I have a few thoughts on that as well. I look at it in 2 ways. First, if you do not follow wrestling or think outside of wrestling logic then what Bradshaw did was completly wrong. It was distasteful, disrespectful, and insensitive to Jewish people not to mention anyone else that was hurt by it. Should he have lost his job at CNBC? I do not think so. Should he be reprimanded, I think so. The worst punishment is being shunned by your peers. The second way of looking at it is with wrestling logic. Wrestling logic goes against anything in the norm. It is a heels job to get heat and have fans boo them. This is the wrestling business and things like this go on. While it is not right it is accepted. I can think of just as bad or worse things that have been done such as HHH have sex with a dead body ( Katie Vick ) or the Undertaker crucifixion angle in WWE or Raven's Crucifixion angle in ECW could offend the religious folks out there. Or handicapped people could be offended by the Eugene character. Not that it hasn't been done before in the 70's with the Mighty Igor or in the 80-90's with Norman the Lunatic. Or how about on the local level my friend Crazy Ivan doing a German gimmick that can be deemed racist or degrading for Jewish people. I don't like it but I know it's good for business. So my final thought on the Bradshaw issue is that I think it was wrong but it is accepted in the norm of wrestling.

In the upcoming weeks I will be doing my Snapshot Awards called the Snappy's. A few years ago some folks remember my short lived newsletter called the Shockwave and I had a few awards I did in there that was sort of out of the norm and I will be doing that probably next week.

Finally, I just updated my website which is www.esspromotions.com with all the Wrestling Reunion pictures which include Stan Hansen, Ivan & Nikita Koloff, The Killer Bees, Ivan Putski and more. I also have a new pic of the week which is a real classic.

Eric Simms
www.esspromotions.com
ESS316@aol.com