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To Virginia and the Brass Knuckles Title
By John 'Living in the Past' Hitchcock

After our first card, it was time for Hitchcock and Cruise to hit the road. This was rare in that we were booked to wrestle somewhere in Virginia. I can't remember exactly where but it was another youth center type place right near the North Carolina border.

I wasn't going to drive very far for no pay but Chris Cruise really wanted to go, so off we went. Once we got into Virginia, we stopped off at a real dive for a Diet Pepsi. This place was an honest to God hellhole of a store and it made quite an impression on both of us. There was very little for sale except warm drinks and oatmeal cookies. This place also had an extra room built on the side of the building. This room was built for people to scratch off their lotto tickets. It had four cheap card tables and a few folding chairs and the floor was covered in ashes of lotto ticket scrapings.

When I walked into this cinder block room, I could hear this crunching as I looked at these very poor sad people. I ain't kidding, this was one of the saddest places I have ever seen in my life out side of a wrestling arena.

Thank God North Carolina doesn't have a lottery.

Cruise and I got the hell out of there and went on to the show.

There was a good turn out, maybe 225 paid I guess.
It was very interesting because I got my first taste of wrestling promoter paranoia. Cruise and I both figured that we would do the same thing we did the last show. It made sense because it worked so well and it got us both over as assholes with the crowd, Chris Plano and Rick Link said that we couldn't do that because of the Internet.

I couldn't believe it!

Who cares about that?

But they said we had to come up with something else quick.
So, Cruise and I just made something up.

Let me change that, I made something up. Cruise never made anything up. The guy never had one idea. He just told me to do it.

We went to the ring alone and said that last week, we kicked Rick Link's ass and he wasn't going to ever wrestle again. We owned this town and all you rednecks would have to live with it. I looked over at Plano who was sitting at ringside with a redhead and I just went off on her for being country. This girl turned out was one of Links ring rats and she sold all this heckling well. And trust me folks, when Chris Cruise starts giving fans heat, it ain't very pretty.

So after that, we just left the ring claiming that there wasn't anyone tough enough to deal with the Cruise World Order. We really couldn't walk back to the backroom, so we just walked out side to the back parking lot. I swear we didn't know where we were going, we just went. The next match was Link verses some jobber and he killed the poor guy in about two minutes. Then Link started yelling for us to come out and talk that trash to his face.

We both walked out to the ring and the fans were really giving us shit. It worked! Some how I was ordered by Cruise to get in the ring and face Link. Why I did that remains a great mystery because I usually am not that stupid.

I just went into the center of the ring and did the Karate Kid crane pose and Link knocked me out with one punch. I took a slow bump out of the ring and on to the floor. I sold it like I was dead. The referee Dave Routh ran down to check on me. He asked if I was OK and that his wife was worried about me. I said I was fine and Dave called me an asshole.

As I lay there a woman on the front row walked over to me and said these warm words of encouragement.

"Get up you dumb ass!"

Cruise then threaten to fight Link but we soon ran out of that place and went back to Greensboro laughing all the way home.

And we did not stop at that cinder block hell on the way home.

Score card, Cruise $50.00, Hitchcock zip.

Next Time:
I promise, The Match to the Brass Knuckles Title!

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