I had landed in Manchester and was to take the train into Liverpool where the promoter’s daughter, Tish, would pick me up. She found me with no trouble, “You don’t look at all suspicious, do you then,” she had said (That’s how they talk over there, funny, eh?).

Tish had dropped me off at the house (A giant, three story gimmick made of stone with pillars and gargoyles an’ shit) where some of the boys were staying so that I could get settled. That is where I met my first co-worker-slash-loving roommate, Al Greenľ‘the Dog.’

He was sitting on his bed gingerly sorting out his suitcase. He was big and bald and had a bleach-blond goatee, not to mention wild, bulging eyes that looked like they were going to pop out at you at any moment. If he hadn’t been so damn happy and cheery he would have looked quite rabid.

“I’m your roommate, kid!” the Dog barked.

Al and I got along quite well. We worked out together. Constantly saving one another from getting run over by miniature cars driving on the wrong fuckin’ side of the road as we walked to the gym or wherever. We ate together, I’d make the coffee, he’d scramble the eggs, we’d even thoughtfully buy each other chocolate bars on the road since there wasn’t anything but fish n’ fuckin’ chips on that damn island! And every chance the Dog got, he dragged me to a pub with him. He was sort of like my Euro-Flesh Gordon. On the outside, they were loud monstrosities, but on the inside, teddy bears at heart.

“You’re a good kid,” Al always said to me. Then he’d tell me how shitty the wrestling business was. Another wrestler, Rip Morgan (a huge, burly worker from New Zealand) would always joke and pretend to argue with Al over me. Al would tell me that I was pretty and Rip would call me sweetheart, but no matter how much they’d sweet talk me I wasn’t going to put out! And in a weird way, when Joe Legend arrived on the tour a couple of weeks in, I think Al was almost jealous - that’s so cute, the big softy. I remember we were at a gas stop just outside of Warrington. It was our custom to buy each other chocolate bars for the bus rides and I had given Legend one. Al looked at the treat with contempt and betrayal then barked, “Hey kid, where’s my fuckin’ chocolate bar?”

“It’s in the bag, dick!” I snapped. Legend was amused at Al and myself because he laughed for the entire three-hour bus ride to Oxford.

There were a strange variety of wrestlers both baby face and heel (good guys and bad guys) brought in by Dixon. Well, really, the only baby face was Tatanka. There was Honky Tonk Man and the Bush Whackers too, but they were only there for a couple of days. The rest of us were what I called import heels. Bad guys from Canada, the U.S., Mexico and New Zealand taking on the British good guys! Legend and I were the evil Canadians, him in a priest’s robe and me in my devilish red fur. We joked and unofficially called our tag team ‘A Priest And A Devil Walk Into A Bar’. Rip Morgan was the bad guy from New Zealand and Al Green ‘The Dog’ was the main heel from the U.S. Cincinnati Red was also from the U.S. oddly enough hailing from L.A. And then there was ‘Mad Dog’ Joe Kimble, an American residing in Mexico.

‘Mad Dog’ Kimble was probably the funniest guy on the tour because he was so serious and intense. He was ripped and muscular, coming to the ring with chains and a giant dog bone. The way he trained and ate was really impressive. I never saw him cheat on his diet or slack off in the slightest - he was a machine. Al Green loved to taunt Mad Dog at every opportunity and especially loved listening to Mad Dog fall in the shower every morning. Al would giggle like a schoolgirl at the loud thud and angry grunting that followed. I do have to say that I learned a lot from Mad Dog, about wrestling and training even though I never actually got to work him.

I did, however wrestle my big, bad roommate, Al Green, just once in Reading. The match started off slow, Al kept to the outside, complaining to the ref about the audience and me. He was taking his sweet time on the concrete and I was getting impatient - a babyface (me, for one night only) can only clap so much to rally the fans… I think he got pretty hot when I called him ‘old man’.

“Old man!” he repeated. His eyes surprisingly stayed in his head. We finally locked up and the old prick wasted no time cheating. He pulled my hair, raked my eyes and barked at the audience. He leveled me with some stiff shots but I kept on coming back for more. We took it to the outside where the stairs and concrete were unforgiving. We whaled on each other - back and forth we went. Finally I got the Dog back into the ring and hit him with my finisher, the ‘Hell-bow’! This was a move that I created on my very first day in England against Steve Strong (a local British babyface) in Bristol (the Detroit of England) and had been having a lot of success with. I stood on Al’s back as he kneeled painfully on all-fours, and then I jumped in the air and dropped the big Thunder Lips-Rocky Balboa-style elbow across the back of his bald, aging neck. I thought I had him but the bastard put his foot on the rope at the last second. I turned my back thinking that I had one. Al then hit me from behind and went over with a Rikishi Driver, 1,2,3! What a fuckin’ old prick. Incidentally, I’ve never made the mistake of turning my back on an opponent again.

There was a tone of different local British wrestlers of all shapes and sizes. Some were veteran wrestlers like Marty Jones, Johnny South and Ricky Knight. Then, there were the young highflying technical wrestlers: James Mason, Robbie Dynamite and Kid Cool. One young highflier that sands out in my mind is Sex Bomb, a veteran at the age of 21. He had been wrestling since he was barely a teenager - taught by his father, Ricky Knight.

Sex Bomb and I wrestled on several occasions. He was smaller and quicker then me and aside from being well ad versed at chain wrestling and highflying - he was a dirty little tosser! In one battle royal Sex Bomb deliberately head butted me in the nuts and then blatantly threw himself over the top rope before I could grab him, “Ta ta, guvna!” I heard the little wanker yell as he palanched his way to safety. But that’s okay because that little Artful Dodger fell to many a Hell-bow! (He hated it when I’d call him that, the ‘Artful Dodger’, but I swear, that’s what he reminded me of. And besides, I couldn’t stand the name ‘Sex Bomb’!)

There were ‘tribute gimmick’ wrestlers, wrestlers who looked and moved sort of like famous WWF workers. I hated this idea, but I wasn’t the promoter! At one point I wrestled a very serious urn carrying, round brim hat wearing, ‘early years’ looking Undertaker rip off. He was a nice guy back stage but very serious in the ring. So when I found out that I was going to wrestle him I told him that I was going to make him laugh in the ring. He begged me not to, but I showed no mercy. His real life brother (who ironically was the Kane rip off gimmick, told me how to get the job done.) “Just touch his ears mate, he’ll squeal like a little fuckin’ pig, then!” What a nice, helpful younger brother the Kane rip off was!

So, during the match I had the Undertaker rip off in the turnbuckle. I was vicious with my chops and punches. Then… as his head was spinning, I tickled his ear and sure enough he did squeal like a little fuckin’ pig!

“You bastard!” he muttered under his breath in a thick Scottish accent. Oh yeah, incase you didn’t know, Undertaker and Kane are Scottish?!? And I’m just as tall as both of them, too!?!

The Dog and I continued to hang and wreak havoc at All Star Wrestling. Often Al, Red and I (and sometimes Legend) would ride with Tish (the promoter’s freakishly tall, yet ultra mild mannered daughter) in her little dinky car to the shows. She was very posh and proper so we would try to get her to repeat vulgar sentences as a way for us to amuse ourselves. Some colorful examples (boy-oh-boy, Brian Dixon would be super fuckin’ hot if he read this, so no fat marks from the new world had better stooge me out! That means you, Vijay!): “My snapper needs a good fisting!”… “I need load all over mee teeth, guvna!” But my favorite and most gratuitous line was Legend’s: “Hey bitch, you got some fuckin’ shit in your cunt!”

Now that I’m finished laughing…

Tish was the ring announcer at the shows. So every time Legend and I would get into the ring while she was announcing, we would jump up and down so the canvas would bounce resulting in very buoyant cleavage! Al and Red often participated in this pre match ritual as well. I don’t think Dixon appreciated that either!