CAC 2018

[Chad Olson]

To the question about who is on the poster:

King of Hearts - Tony Storm, received a Men's Wrestling Award. Raised and trained in Iowa (yeah!), now living and wrestling out of Florida. Super nice guy.
Queen of Hearts - The shorter woman on the right side of the card is Madison Miles. I don't know the other one, but I believe they are both out of Canada.
Jack of Hearts & Queen of Clubs - Bobby Sharp & Kat Von Heez, recently married, they are out of Canada.
King of Clubs - Rik Luxury, I think he's a West Coast guy.

I don't know the other people on the cards. The sound system at the CAC shows is TERRIBLE, year after year, so it's very difficult to learn who people are.

Starting at the top of the poster, left to right...

Sean Casey, was Steven Casey in WCCW and WCW. Tall dude in the middle is Big John from Rock of Love, can't remember the third guy's name. They do a rock star gimmick, with Big John as their bodyguard. They wrestled on Monday night but we saw him at Sunday night's show and my friend James recognized Big John. We got our picture taken with him and he was very cool.

Next row is The Stro, formerly the Maestro in WCW. I don't what the hell his gimmick is supposed to be. Then there is the Ballard Brothers, who are West Coast guys doing a Canadian hockey gimmick. The guy in front of them with the painted face is Funnybone, followed by Kahagas.

Row three is Greg Anthony, who I believe runs shows in Tennessee, don't know the next two, and Sam Houston.

Row four is Kevin Sullivan, who managed on the show, and Matt Rivera, who wrestles and promotes out of Arkansas. I believe my buddy Travis built his first ring for him.

Row five is unknown, then Billy Blade, who promotes the CAC shows under his Vendetta Pro Wrestling group. He used to team with Sean Casey doing the rock star team. Next is Kitohara (sp?), who I find to be hilarious, because he's the only one trying to do a comedy gimmick. Person in the USA gimmick is Chaz Taylor.

Last row is unknown female, AJ Kirsch, who is a ring announcer, and finally Sinn Bodhi.

I'll have more comments/trip recap later today!

[Chad Olson]

Here's the rest of my 2018 CAC recap!

The Iowa crew got to Vegas around 3:30 Sunday afternoon. Got checked in, grabbed a beer, and headed to the Vendetta Pro Wrestling Casino Royale show. Met up with Tim and Zeke and watched the show, which was only about 2.5 hours, as opposed to some of the marathon four hour shows in the past. As I mentioned above, my friend James somehow identified Big John from Rock of Love, so we grabbed a picture with him.

Monday we got the booth set up for the Thesz/Tragos HOF Induction Weekend. The memorabilia room was a lot more empty than in past years. It's mostly people selling books now, as opposed to old programs and DVDs like in the past. Our table was next to historian Scott Teal, whom I've purchased many books from. I grabbed his MSG history book and Jeff Bowdren's Dinner with the Legends interview book. Scott is coming to Waterloo for the Thesz/Tragos HOF this year, so I knew I could get a lot more books from him in July, when I can drive my car instead of packing books into a suitcase in Vegas.

Met some new folks this year, including Count Grog (Virginia promoter and Pittsburgh wrestling historian) and Dale Speer. Dale and I bonded over both of us having boy/girl twins, Midwest indy wrestling and indy music, and wrestling games. Dale is aware of COTG/LOW but hasn't played it, as he's very devoted to the old Rampage Wrestling computer game. He told me about his 25 notebooks of wrestling results from his Rampage and Superstar Pro Wrestling games.

Monday night was night 2 of the VPW show. James Jeffries brought his gear from Iowa, so he was in the 40 man battle royale. He got the loudest pop of the battle royal, thanks to our beer fueled exuberance! We left at intermission, grabbed James, and headed down to Fremont Street. Watched some bands, had some beers, and made our way back to the Gold Coast.

Tuesday was more of hanging in the memorabilia room, where I got talked into competing in the cribbage tournament. I haven't played cribbage in probably 12 years, and I took on the defending champion Tim Pulkrabek in the first round. I put some fear into him by taking the first game, and then got stomped to lose the last two games. Tim Dalton and I went to the Fabulous Moolah round table. This was very well done and addressed some of the rumors that got her name removed from the Wrestlemania women's battle royale. (I will not comment on my opinion, please leave your opinions out of this thread!)

Tuesday night was the Bockwinkel Baloney Blowout. Awards went to Tony Storm, Princess Victoria, and Brickhouse Brown. Brown's speech about his battle with terminal cancer was very moving and was the best speech I've ever seen in this type of setting.

Wednesday I was running out of steam, after being out late the last few nights, but Tim and I met over breakfast to discuss NWF booking options, LOW future sets, and some booking ideas I have, but will never implement! We went to a great round table on the Pacific Northwest territory, which had Bobby Bass, Cuban Assassin, Ricky Santana, Ed Moretti, and Greg Lake. I picked up a Northwest history book after the round table.

Wednesday night was pretty cool, as Shawn Micheals, Sean Waltman, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash were sat at the table that was across the aisle from us! It was pretty cool to be 10-15 feet from them. Good speeches by Micheals, Baron Von Raschke, Steve Keirn, Harlem Heat and Santana Garrett, who all received awards. We went out for a few beers early, but I turned in early.

Thursday was breakfast at the Hash House, getting packed up and traveling home. The Iowa crew had a bumpy ride home, due to storms over the state. We had to approach and pull off three times before we were able to finally land. Took us an extra 45 minutes to land due to the ascent/descent silliness.

As for signings... Without a doubt, this was the most productive Tim and I have ever been at convention/HOF event. We had 7 signings, 4 follow ups, and established a couple more contacts for future signings.

All in all, it was another great CAC, which flew by faster than ever. I was happy to get home to see my kids and get some rest. Still working on the rest part today!

[TTX]

Sounds great, Chad, you deserve a rest.

[TDalton]

Always good to see Chad, Zeke and the Dan Gable Museum/Impact Pro Wrestling crew. We did our best to promote the HOF event in Waterloo, Iowa (July 26th through July 28th) and had some one of a kind memorabilia there.

Surprise guest at the Wednesday banquet was former Super Lightweight and Welterweight boxing champion "The Pride of Las Vegas" Jessie Vargas, who was at the table with Blue Demon Jr. I ran into Brian Logan, who wrestled as The Hornet in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. He remembered me from the ass whippings I took during the in-ring workouts at the SMW Fanweeks. Both the Moolah and PNW seminars were very informative and well done. Brickhouse Brown's speech (which was both moving and absolutely hilarious) was a big highlight. Nice to talk with Count Grog, who I've run into several times before, but never had a chance to sit down with. I spoke briefly to Don Luce, who won the historian award, and Steve Johnson, which made me realize how little I actually know about pro wrestling. When Dale Speer brought up Rampage Wrestling, I just said "the mongoose" which started a long conversation on the old text-based DOS game. (There was a rare random event where a mongoose was thrown in the ring)

Was a bumpy and delay-filled flight back to Buffalo as well, and I'll likely be turning in early tonight. A great time, and everyone who's a wrestling fan should try to make it there - but they should come to the Dan Gable Museum HOF first.