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June 18th
On this day in history in ....
1950 - Arjan Singh defeats Sandor Szabo to win the NWA Hawaii Heavyweight Title in Honolulu, Hawaii.
1951 - Salvatore Bellomo is born in Hornu, Belgium.
1951 - Miguel Guzman defeats Wayne Martin for the NWA Texas Heavyweight Title in Fort Worth, Texas, beginning his eighth reign.
1968 - Dory Funk, Jr. & Terry Funk defeat Kurt & Karl Von Brauner to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Title in San Angelo, Texas, ending the Von Brauner's third reign.
1971 - Bruno Sammartino and Dominic DeNucci defeat The Mongols (Geeto and Bepo) for the WWF International Tag Team Title in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1971 - The Fabulous Kangaroos (Al Colstello & Don Kent) win their second WWA World Tag Team Title, ending the second reign of Wilbur Snyder and Moose Cholak in Indianapolis, Indiana.
1972 - Enrique Vera defeats Raul Mata for the Mexico National Light Heavyweight Title.
1977 - Jimmy & Johnny Valiant defeat Moose Cholak & Paul Christy for the WWA World Tag Team Title in Indianapolis, Indiana, beginning their third reign.
1977 - Hercules Ayala defeats Huracan Castillo to win the WWC Puerto Rico Heavyweight Title in Caguas, Puerto Rico, beginning his second reign.
1978 - Dusty Rhodes defeats Dick Slater to win the NWA Florida Southern Heavyweight Title in Miami, Florida, beginning his fifth reign.
1980 - Bob Brown & Pat O'Connor defeat Takachiho (The Great Kabuki) & Pak Song for the NWA Central States Tag Team Title in Des Moines, Iowa.
1981 - Bob Sweetan & Terry Gibbs defeat The Fabulous Freebirds (Terry Gordy & Michael Hayes) to win the vacant NWA Central States Tag Team Title in Kansas City, Kansas. The title was vacated earlier in the year when Terry Taylor, who held the title with Bob Sweetan, left the area.
1982 - Ringo Mendoza & Cachorro Mendoza defeat Satanico & Espectro, Jr. for the Mexico National Tag Team Title.
1983 - Jack and Jerry Brisco defeat Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood to win the Mid-Atlantic version of the NWA World Tag Team Title in Greenville, South Carolina, ending Steamboat and Youngblood's third reign.
1984 - Davey Boy Smith defeats Bad News Allen in Vancouver, British Columbia for the Stampede North American Heavyweight Title, ending Allen's third reign.
1984 - Phil Hickerson & The Spoiler (Frank Morrell) defeat Tommy Rich & Eddie Gilbert to win the AWA Southern Tag Team Title in Memphis, Tennessee.
1989 - The Marine Wolves (Suzuka Minami & Akira Hokuto) defeat Grizzly Iwamoto & Bison Kimura for the vacant WWWA World Tag Team Title in Tokyo, Japan. The title was vacated on May 6, when The Crush Gals (Lioness Asuka & Chigusa Nagayo) gave up the belts when Nagayo retired.
1995 - WCW holds the ninth Great American Bash at Dayton, Ohio's Hara Arena. The show received a 0.51 buyrate.
In matches airing on WCW's Main Event.
- Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray) defeated The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers), when Booker pinned Rogers.
- Sgt. Craig Pittman defeated Scott D'Amore by submission with the Code Red.
- Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater defeated Frankie Lancaster and Barry Houston.
Pay-per-view matches:
- Alex Wright pinned Brian Pillman
- Dave Sullivan defeated Diamond Dallas Page in an Arm Wrestling match to win a date with the Diamond Doll.
- Jim Duggan defeated Craig Pittman by disqualification.
- Harlem Heat defeated Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater, when Booker pinned Buck.
- The Renegade pinned Arn Anderson to win the WCW World Television Title.
- The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags) defeated The Blue Bloods (Earl Robert Eaton and Lord Steven Regal), when Knobbs pinned Eaton, to retain the WCW World Tag Team Title.
- Sting pinned Meng to win the vacant WCW United States Heavyweight Title, beginning his second reign.
- Ric Flair pinned Randy Savage.
1997 - Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita defeat Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa in Sapporo, Japan to win the WWWA World Tag Team Title.
2002 - Doug Williams defeats Justin Starr for the British Heavyweight Title in Southampton, England, beginning Williams' second reign and ending Starr's third.
2004 - Dr. Wagner, Jr. defeats Canek to win the UWA World Heavyweight Title in Mexico City, Mexico, ending Canek's 15th reign.
2005 - Ring of Honor holds "Death Before Dishonor III" at Mennan Sports Arena in Morristown, New Jersey. The results:
- BJ Whitmer and Jimmy Jacobs defeated Jimmy Rave and Eddie Vegas to retain the ROH Tag Team Title.
- Lacey defeated Cindy Rogers.
- The Carnage Crew (Loc and DeVito) defeated The Ring Crew Express (Dunn and Marcos) in an Anything Goes Street Fight.
- Samoa Joe defeated Colt Cabana to retain the ROH Pure Title.
- NWA World Heavyweight Champion A.J. Styles defeated Petey Williams.
- Lacey's Angels (Izzy and Deranged )defeated Generation Next (Roderick Strong and Jack Evans).
- Nigel McGuiness defeated James Gibson, Homicide and Azrieal in a Four Corners Survival match.
- Low Ki and Jay Lethal fought to a no contest.
- CM Punk defeated Austin Aries to win the ROH Heavyweight Title in what was announced as his farewell match from the company. After winning the belt, Punk turned heel and walked out of the venue with the belt, spending the remainder of the summer "holding the belt hostage" as Punk teased he was taking the belt with him to WWE.
2005 - Hiroshi Tanahashi defeats Toru Yano for the IWGP U-30 Title in Kyoto, Japan, beginning his second reign.
2005 - Georgia Championship Wrestling United States Television Champion Damien Steele defeats GCW United States Junior Heavyweight Champion Elix Skipper in Columbus, Georgia to unify the two titles.
2005 - Stixx & Stone (Stixx and Martin Stone) defeat Hampton Court (The Duke of Danger and Simmons) to win the Frontier Wrestling Alliance Tag Team Title in Morecambe, England.
2005 - Daniels and Xander Graves defeat Kato and Honey for the Keystone Championship Wrestling Tag Team Title in Altoona, Pennsylvania, beginning their fourth reign.
2006 - TNA holds the second-annual Slammiversary pay-per-view, at the iMPACT! Zone in Orlando, Florida. During which Jim Cornette was introduced as the new head of TNA Management. The results:
- In the pre-show match, Team Canada (Eric Young and A-1) defeated The Naturals (Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens), when Young pinned Douglas after a flying elbow.
- Team 3D (Brother Ray and Brother Devon) defeated The James Gang ( B.G. and Kip James) in a "Bingo Hall Brawl", when Devon pinned Kip after a 3D through a table.
- Rhino defeated Team Canada (Bobby Roode and Scott D'Amore) in a Handicap match, by pinning D'Amore after a Gore
- Senshi defeated Sonjay Dutt, Alex Shelley, Shark Boy, Petey Williams and Jay Lethal in an Elimination match, last eliminating Dutt by pinfall after a Warrior's Way, to become #1 contender to the TNA X Division Title.
- Kevin Nash pinned Chris Sabin after a Jackknife Powerbomb following interference from Alex Shelley.
- A.J. Styles and Christopher Daniels defeated America's Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm) to win the NWA World Tag Team Title, ending AMW's sixth reign.
- Samoa Joe pinned Scott Steiner after a Snap Scoop Powerslam.
- Jeff Jarrett defeated champion Christian Cage, Abyss, Ron Killings and Sting in a King of the Mountain match to win the NWA World Heavyweight Title, beginning his sixth reign.
2010 - Former Combat Zone Wrestling and Ring of Honor headliner Michael Verdi, who wrestled professionally as Trent Acid, passes away due an accidental overdose, Verdi, who had been fighting personal demons for several years, was best known as one half of the Backstreet Boyz tag team before breaking out on his own. Mike Johnson wrote the following column remembering Verdi:
The independent world of professional wrestling is a strange world. It's where hobbyists pretend to be wrestlers. It's where young legitimate wrestlers go to become stars. It's where old stars go to eek out that last paycheck. There are scammers and carnies and there are talented stars, although it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer masses and the alphabet soup of promotions, but sometimes, there's a diamond in the rough.
We all know that diamond the second we see it. The performer who just knows how to exude the right attitude without overacting. The performer who doesn't act like a wrestler, but becomes one the second they come down the aisle. The performer who has the timing, the showmanship, the cocky walk, the..it. You don't know how to describe it, but you know they have it the second you lay eyes on them.
Michael Verdi, known to the masses as Trent Acid, had it.
While most of the accounts of his death this past Friday have focused on the latter end of his life, to truly understand what a loss this is to the local wrestling community in Philadelphia, one has to go back well over a decade.
It's 1994 and in a stifling, packed Bingo Hall, the original ECW is holding itself up as the architect of a new revolution for professional wrestling. It was hardcore wrestling for hardcore fans, before that term became a joke. It was wrestling for the sheet reading, tape traders. We all know that story.
However, it was also wrestling for South Philadelphia. South Philly is a pretty rough place. To me, it's always reminded me of the rougher areas of Brooklyn. If you had nowhere to hang out, you walked the streets with your boys, you talked to the local girls and you got into fights. It was working class, broken glass in the streets and everyone had some sort of story, good or bad, about the hardships of their working class family.
When ECW moved into a dilapidated Bingo Hall that was so beat up, it's good days were never behind it - it just never had them, it became a haven for the local kids to go. It's not hard to see why - blood, violence and boobs. What teenaged kid didn't want to see that?
Within that realm, there were probably no more infamous teenage denizens than the Psycho Kids, as they eventually were dubbed, Mikey and Billy. They were immediately part of the bleacher bums, a group of fans that raised hell at the shows with their chants - sometimes crude, often inside, always funny - and during intermission, to pop those same fans, they would end up doing spots and wrestling amongst themselves, right down to moonsaults and dives off the back of creaking wooden bleachers to the hard concrete floor below.
Those kids loved their pro wrestling and their ECW, so it's not a shock to see they both ended up becoming wrestlers, especially since ECW broke the barriers for smaller performers to make their mark. Billy went on to become Billy Reil, who had a good knack for psychology and once had the chance to blow the crowd in that same venue away in a Three-Way against Crowbar and Roadkill. Today, he's more infamous for having the knack of being in the right place at the right time and assisting in stopping several Philadelphia crimes and maybe one day, he'll use that knack to find himself back in the thick of professional wrestling again.
Psycho Kid Mikey, however, morphed into Trent Acid. He, like so many other independent wrestlers, made his way around the Northeast indy scene, immediately standing out. There was an innate charisma to him as a person, much less a performer. He had this wide-grinned smile that just made you love the guy the second you met him. He loved to talk professional wrestling and he loved, loved, loved Pearljam. Trent Acid wasn't the biggest wrestler you'd come across, but when he walked into the room, you knew he was someone by the way he carried himself.
He was the first generation of talents to grow up watching names like Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Sean Waltman and a host of others become top stars by being athletically talented. Then pepper in first-hand exposure to the world of ECW and the tape-trading that was all the rage and you had the melting pot that created Trent Acid. That's one of the tragedies here. Trent should have been the talent we all pointed to that came up the ranks and went on to make a mint in a national company.
As a performer in CZW, Acid found himself in a position he probably never realized. As CZW grew from a promotion that ran some of the best shows in 2001 (I'll put their tapes up against anything from that time period) in a converted Soccer Arena that was impossible to find in Sewell, New Jersey to a promotion running weekly television on TV-48 in Philadelphia and monthly shows at that same ECW Arena, Acid had morphed into the performer that was now inspiring others the way he had been inspired by that ECW time period.
Trent Acid was the local guy made good. He was the kid you'd see on South Street one day and the next he was tearing down the house with Johnny Kashmere against the likes of Ric Blade and Nick Mondo. One day, he'd be partying in the bar with you and on the TV, there he was drilling people with the most beautiful Yakuza Kick this side of Masa Chono. He was the local star that the other up and coming independent guys wanted to be - he was a good looking guy with a great knack for the business, who had tons of girls wanting to cozy up to him and lots more great matches than he should have been having for a guy his age and experience level. Whatever it was, Trent had it, and he inspired a lot of local fans to try their own hand in becoming wrestlers.
You'd be remiss to talk about Trent Acid without looking at the Backseat Boyz, the perfect tag team for that moment in time. When they were babyfaces working for Don Bucci's Phoenix Wrestling, out they would come to a sappy boy band song with their long trenchcoats, kissing and hugging every teeny bopper girl. Once they got into the ring, they were the local equivalent of Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, only working a 2001 style. As heels, those same Backseats were now devious male strippers out for blood and power. Kashmere had a good gift of gab, Acid had the pizzazz and together they had the best series of double-team synchronized maneuvers since, well, the team they took their theme music from, The Midnight Express.
When CZW ran the ECW Arena for the first time in December 2001, they turned away at least 150-200 fans and a good part of that was the Backseats. While CZW was populated by insanely crazy talented brawlers with a willingness to destroy themselves for the good of the show and the company, the Backseats added a different dimension to the live gate - they brought in the women. In the early part of this decade, there was a time period where I'd go to 5-7 independent shows a month, because I was cutting my teeth writing and trying to make it my profession. There would always, without fail, be more pretty girls and more groups of pretty girls at CZW, drinking and having a good time, out to see the guys, specifically the Backseats.
Trent was a local star for CZW and with that came attention from other companies. XPW wanted them Backseats to jump just so they could take away from CZW. That spurred CZW to begin working with Ring of Honor, their prime competition in the war for Philadelphia that arose out of the ashes of ECW's death. The Backseats now had CZW's blessing to work ROH and Acid immediately began a feud with Homicide, culminating in some of the most overlooked matches in the company's history. Again, like CZW's 2001 tapes, I'll put Acid vs. Homicide up against anything on the independent scene today and guarantee it will stand out. It was that good and beyond that, The Backseats coming to ROH at the time was huge and helped bring a different dimension into the Murphy Rec center - some of those same girls that came to see CZW. While I wouldn't say the act was more important than Samoa Joe or Ki in building ROH, the Backseats certainly had a part in that early era.
The Backseats should have been the next big thing in professional wrestling. I don't know that they would have made it to WWE, although I'm sure someone might have tried to get them looked at. It seems more likely that eventually they would have landed in TNA, where they would have fit in perfectly with the likes of the Motor City Machineguns, Beer Money, the British Invasion and other teams that have populated the company over the years.
It never happened.
It's been covered elsewhere, so everyone knows the stories. There were falling outs with companies. There were issues with the partnership. There were personal issues and suddenly the crisp Trent Acid everyone was wowing over was suddenly just another guy on the independent scene. He still commanded a position based on who he was, but more and more, fans were seeing through his performances and knowing something wasn't right. It's not even that, in the beginning at least, his matches were awful. It was that one or two steps he was off, that speed that just wasn't as fast, that crisp kick that just wasn't as crisp. Where before he was a diamond in the rough, now he was just another wrestler..and the fans, those same fans that were weaned on the same smart wrestling culture that weaned Trent Acid, knew better - they saw right through it.
We all know the stories of those who get lost in their demons. We've all mourned for those souls and we've cheered for them to find themselves. Michael Verdi was no different. There were fights with friends. There were friends who begged him to take care of himself. There were jail sentences and heart-breaking moments with family members. There were attempts to get clean and moments of weakness. There were friends who tried tough love and friends who asked others to help him. There were offers, many offers, from people who were willing to be there for him, to help him anyway they could, but in the end, the responsibility fell on Michael Verdi's shoulders and it wasn't something he was able, or willing, or sound enough to deal with.
He could hold an audience in the palm of his hand, as a heel or babyface, and make magic. He could look like he was going to be the next great thing. He could make you take notice with that grin or with a smart-ass comment, but he wasn't able to steer himself clear of his problems.
To me, that's the most heart-breaking thing of all and the thing that has haunted me the last few days. It's not that he squandered his talent. It's not that the can't miss star of the future flamed out. It's not that he's not going to deliver another classic match. It's that at 29, he's missed his chance to really grow up and have a life. Sure, he got to travel the world and be a "star", but in the grand scheme of life, these are small things. They are of no condolence to his family or to the friends who will forever wonder "What could I have done to save Trent?" for the rest of their lives.
It's a question that's bothered me the last few days.
I'll never state I was the guy's best friend or we spent great amounts of time together outside of wrestling shows we were both at, but I knew him for well over a decade. He was a constant fixture in the wrestling scene I loved. I watched him grow up and cross the rail from fan to wrestling star in that unique indy universe I wrote about earlier. He helped my writing career when he (along with CZW star of the time Z-Barr and then-announcer Eric Gargiulo) pushed me to come to CZW for the first time, cornering me at an indy show so obscure I can't remember where the hell it was. By doing so, he helped place me at the epicenter of the Philadelphia indy explosion that was to come.
When I was promoting bus trips to shows all over the Northeast, if the Backseats were booked on those shows, guaranteed they were on the bus doing Q&As or just showing up to hang out and talk to the fans, getting them to harass CZW referee Brian Logan with goofy chants or just doing what people who loved wrestling did - talked wrestling with other fans. Half the time I had to throw them off the bus so we could leave and get back to NYC at a Godly hour. I have serious doubts that the bus trips would have lasted as long as they did for me had the Backseats not done that of their own accord and when they started to falter, so did the trips. Yet another dimension of how Acid touched people, same way he inspired a number of indy talents today to try and make their mark - and another dimension he himself probably wasn't aware of.
When Acid ended up sent to jail, I did my best to stay in touch with him and when he got out, I'll always be thankful we ran into each other backstage at a Jersey All Pro show where we talked more about life and the future than anything wrestling related. I never, ever thought it would be the last time I saw him alive, although like most of his friends, I had my fears and I'm really saddened those fears became a reality.
There are going to be people who look at the life and death of Trent Acid and say he was a druggie and tossed his life away. I can certainly see why they will say that. There are going to be people who don't have sympathy for him. From a sterile, logical standpoint, I can understand that point of view. As someone who knew him, I see that point of view as unfortunate.
To me, Michael Verdi was a guy who found his unique talent in the world. He helped pave the way for a lot of people, he entertained a lot of people and he helped a lot of people, but the one person who needed that help the most - himself - was the one person he wasn't able to help in the end. That breaks my heart.
So, if you can't have sympathy for him because of the way he died or the circumstances of the last few years - don't - but have it for his family, have it for his friends, have it for those who wanted to help and were unable, have it for the unfulfilled dreams, have it for those who are going to never fill the void left by his loss, and have it for that kid who walked into the ECW Arena and found his life forever changed.
Michael Verdi, Trent Acid, was not an innocent person. He wasn't perfect. None of us are, but in that crazy, unique independent wrestling world - he was a standout, he was a hell of a hand, he was a star. It's just a damn shame no one will ever get to see how bright that star may have shined, and that his family is robbed of seeing where the rest of his life might have taken him.
Goodbye Trent. Goodbye, Michael.
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