The Bro Remembers The Fairgrounds.....

Wildcat Chris Harris….

I enjoyed Chris Harris a lot watching him wrestle at the Fairgrounds Sports Arena through the years…. He was a subject of much ridicule on several blogs from my old site, but he always took them with a grain of salt and enjoyed making fun of himself as much as I enjoyed making fun of him, which is more than I can say for his ex tag team partner, James Storm, who would gladly choke the last breaths out of me as he banged some underage ringrat.....

AT THE SAME TIME….

But, I digress, this is about The Wildcat….. The Babyface of the Mecca

The man who was a trendsetter on the fashion scene, wearing his bedazzled ‘ Wildcat ‘ ring jacket to the ring and his Bret Hart inspired oakley sunglasses…. I often wondered how someone could be THAT over with the local crowd, then I started thinking ‘ all these people ( and I use that term very loosely ) crawl out from the sewers around the fairgrounds for two things ‘….

- Flea Markets – where bedazzled apparel is a hot seller along with 90’s-era Oakley glasses and jean jackets and fanny packs – all Chris Harris fashion favorites

- Wrestling – The sport Chris Harris engages in

As much as I rag on the guy, nothing could prepare me for the total hilarity that eventually became his WWE career…. Chris Harris went from a svelte, muscular, Greek God like wrestling body to the appearance of Chris Harris going on a Bert Prentice/Faron Foxx inspired diet and accidentally sitting on a balloon inflator tank….. The dude BLEW UP!!!!!

That and He was quite horrible…. His name was Braden Walker in the WWE, you might remember him, if you were part of his immediate family, otherwise his stay there was about as long as the time it takes you to say ‘ Braden Walker ‘ …. Actually, it was shorter than that….

Like James Storm’s peen size short….. Scary, huh?!

Wildcat was a good dude though…. He always gave it his all in the ring and seemed to genuinely love his fans…. I say that, because trust me, the last thing I’d want to do is hug on that crowd of mud people that come out to watch wrestling…. So, it takes a genuine type guy to risk, probably over 5,678 communicable diseases, to get that close to their fans…..

The man loved his fanny packs…. He was probably the Southeast’s finest purveyor of them… Like a game hunter that goes out with his rucksack collecting mink skins, I could see Harris scouring the flea market table searching for rare and hard to find fanny packs….

“ do you have the leather albino porcupine fanny pack?! “

“ dude…… “

“ ahhhh forget it! “

He’s one of those fanny pack wearers who thinks it’s tacky and in bad taste to not match your clothing to your fanny packs…. You know, as if wearing the human version of a kangaroo pouch wasn’t TACKY and TRASHY enough as it is….

What did he keep in that fanny pack?! Who knows…. I have dibs on the matchbook sized booklet that denotes his WWE career…. But hey, at least he made it to the show, however fleeting that moment was…. I always thought he was the more talented out of He and Storm, so it kind of upsets me that Storm is still around and Harris is out arm wrestling geriatrics at retirement homes for bedazzled hats and coats and fanny packs…..

He wasn’t the greatest on the mic, but his look and in-ring ability I thought were way better than Storm’s….

If you were ever abducted by Space Aliens and they asked you for a picture to encapsulate what Nashville fairgrounds wrestling was all about…. It would be the one at the top of this article….

Joel Gertner – Yes… THAT Joel Gertner…..

As some of you know, and the others should, I used to run a website covering TNA…. I had his official site linked on my blog with a little ‘ Gertner-Like ‘ promo that I had written myself…. He had contacted me to just talk about TNA and the like….

One thing led to another and he asked for a ride to the Madison wrestling show ran by Tony Falk….

So, being the true Mark that I was, I gladly accepted… I mean, here was the man who used to make me laugh uncontrollably with his promos in ECW and I was going to have alone time with him to talk wrestling?! I know, I know, you’re all like “ talk wrestling is code for sucking dick “ ….. That was a very gay sounding sentence to write in hindsight….. Moving along, nothing to see here!!!!

GAS MONEY BE DAMNED!!!!! I was gonna give one of my ECW heroes a ride!!!!

I picked him up and he seemed cool, we talked ECW, he was impressed with my gertner like promos I wrote and then that’s when it all came crashing down for me….

I had heard before that Heyman had wrote all his promos, but never believed it, until it came from his own lips….

I was stunned….

It reminded me of the time I met one of the American Gladiators at the mall, and he was a total dickhead …. I was so excited to meet them. I had a nervous stomach standing in line and I get up there to get his autograph and he sighs and rolls his eyes when I tell him about my love for the show….. I just shrugged it off…. He asked my name, I gave it to him and then I get my glossy pic back that he just autographed with ‘ Thanks, Mark ‘ ….. First off, my name is ‘ Matt ‘ …. Secondly, who the fuck signs anything to anyone with ‘ Thanks, Mark ‘ ….. It’s like he was writing a letter for me on his glossy pic under a fake name that somewhat resembled my own…..

That’s what the news of Gertner not doing his own promos did to me… A gut punch….. To his credit, he said he wrote some that were his, but overall, it was all Heyman….

But, he was a nice guy, and he didn’t seem like he was like other wrestlers * ahem ahem * shark boy * ahem ahem * who made certain people drive them around to find hookers …. So, that was good….

It was also that night that a certain local independent valet that shall remain nameless asked me to go to Sir Pizza with her and when I told her I was already full from a previous meal, she informed me that – “ I never get enough meat in my mouth “ and then made a suggestive movement with her hand…..

All that did was make me imagine her eating a big pepperoni log from a Christmas Platter from Pepperidge Farms and then her breath smelling like the inside of a Pizza Hut…. It wasn’t very sexy ……

But, I digress…. I do love me some Sir Pizza, but not when it’s compared to the male genitalia