The Vanderhoff Chronicles Part 1

I was a pro wrestling fan pretty much from the age of 8. The first time I saw Dusty Rhodes cut a promo I was hooked. I love Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. I used to come on every Sat. morning at 11 right after the Smurfs went off.

When I was 13 I had a friend name Mike. Mike knew a guy by the name of Danny who was a DJ for a local radio station but had also been a referee for Southern Championship Wrestling. Danny being a pretty cool guy hooked Mike and I up with Henry Marcus and the guys that worked for him and got us jobs as ring boys for the wrestlers. Our reward: free admission. But hey I was such a mark I was thrilled to get hot dogs for Ole Anderson and ride with Danny to pick up Wahoo at the airport. I did this every summer for about the next three years. In late 88, Turner bought out Crockett so the local promoters eventually got muscled out and I didn't get to be a ring boy anymore. My last gig was at my high school in 89 when one of Marcus' guys recognized me in the crowd and asked if I wanted to work that night. So I got my ticket money back and got to work security along with a couple of other friends who were much bigger (they were defensive linemen for the football team).

I didn't think much about being involved in pro wrestling after that. Just to mention it to someone they would tell me I was crazy or I was too small, etc. Before I knew it 11 years had passed, I had a steady girlfriend I was living with and my sculpted 175 lb frame became a bloated 220 lbs frame. Any type of career in pro wrestling was the last thing on my mind.

In 2000 I met a guy named Kevin Moon who was the son of a radio announcer in town and in fact announced for the local speedway on weekends. But he also had another gig: he was the ring announcer for American Classic Wrestling. I didn't know what that was. I wasn't aware that indy feds existed since the territories were gone.

Kevin introduced me to Jess Bradley who was booking for ACW which was in the process of being phased out and shortly thereafter became the Eastern Wrestling Federation after ACW's backers pulled out. I met the promoter and thought I would end up as security or something like that. But two weeks before the show we had a meeting and said congratulations you're our new referee. Mind you, I had no training nor had any idea what a referee did outside of watching it on TV. Some of the guys worked with me before the show but that was it. So with about an hour of "training" I refereed three matches in Aug. 2000. Needless to say I was marginal at best. I put in the old tape sometimes and shudder at how horrible I was. I expressed my concerns to the promoter but she told me I was great. Uh, ok I thought. She had another guy named Blake that was ten times better than me but she got rid of him (because Blake cost more money) and wanted to make me the sole referee.

The next month I took my first bump even though I wasn't really trained to do so. Jess gave me a DDT during the match. Everyone thought I got a concussion but Jess protected me. They pulled me after match three thinking I was hurt but in reality I was blown up. The ring we were using was an 18 ft. ring which was bigger than the previous month so while I had more room to move, I was struggling to keep up. The first three matches featured cruiserweights who could really move and they were everywhere! Dave Duece ended up reffing in his gimmick for the rest of the night.

I had met Bob Keller at the first show. He had offered to train me then. But I didn't know him and the promoter kept saying he would rip me off. So I believed it was true. Hey the promoter wouldn't lie, right?

After a terrible night in Columbia working for Bob I really felt like I needed training. I went to the promoter with this and she blew a gasket. She had been sitting ringside and said Bob and his guys had set me up to make me look bad and make me THINK I needed training. But now I knew it wasn't true. I had felt claustrophobic in the ring there at Merlins, maybe it was the spotlight over the ring. I'm not sure but I really felt closed in that night. So I knew it was me not what anyone else was doing. In fact everytime I worked at Merlins (later for CCW and Jason Hutto) I would get this feeling even though I was trained.

Let me say something about the promotion I was working for. I can never say promoter treated me bad. In fact she paid me for every show. But that was better than other guys got. They paid for "training" even though there was no ring and training commenced on pads and a trampoline in the promoter's backyard. She let me "train" for free and I got paid for shows on top of that. But I began to learn that there was a right way and a wrong way in this business and I could clearly see I was on the wrong path. I worked my last show for the EWF in Dec. 2000 and I gave Bob a call in January ready to start my training.

It was a wake up call I've never forgotten.