Wrestling Tip #374: Click on the pictures to see different or at least larger pictures.
| I have fought some pretty vicious battles up in northern Vermont for Main Event Wrestling in the past. I was their cruiserweight champion for a short time, and have mixed it up with guys who looked more at home in a biker bar than a wrestling ring, but this turned out to be a tough match indeed. Yes, little Amanda was facing an opponent with four arms, two heads and four legs who was over six hundred pounds. And no, it wasn't the Evil King of the Pod People from Terra Nova-III again. Trust me, read on and all will be revealed. |
| I was scheduled to wrestle Don Juan DeSanto. This is a match I would have turned down cold under normal circumstances. He and I are very good friends both in and out of wrestling, and usually I wouldn't have the heart to punch, kick, and in general beat a sweetheart like D.J. basically to death. (I'm pretty sure he feels the same way about me.) But this day was a little different. Lord John and I had a little falling out on the way to the show. We independent wrestlers often carpool to events in order to save as much of the incredibly lavish pay we receive for wrestling as possible, so we can spend it on our Porsches, mansions and in my case longevity potions. | |
| Well, I made the five hour drive up from Massachusetts with D.J., Steve Ricard, in his usual role as the evil, freelance cameraman, and couple of other guys. We pulled into a store about two hours from our destination for one of our many pit stops. When I came back out to the car with my arms full of wrestling necessities like Diet Pepsi and protein bars, who had stolen the front seat - my front seat - but Don Juan DeSanto! And that bastard wouldn't move for love or money. I tried everything I could think of. Flattery, threats, appeals to authority, my womanhood and fair play - nothing worked. I was rummaging through the trunk for a tire iron when Ricard wandered over. |
| "Hey, Storm, why don't you two settle this in the ring tonight? I'll talk to the promoter," Steve said. "You guys can have a match and the winner gets the front seat home." |
| "Shut the hell up, Ricard. When you look at Don Juan DeSanto, you're looking at a dead man!" |
| "No, I'm serious, Storm. We can't give away what we can sell," Steve said. "Oh, and Don Juan, you can unlock the doors now." |
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I put the tire iron back in the trunk and decided that passive aggressive malevolence was the better part of valor and swallowed my indignity. At least for the moment. Ricard is a driving machine and I didn't want to get myself banished from his tan Nova. So I crawled into the back seat, bided my time and spent the rest of the trip to Vermont poking Don Juan in the back of the head with an empty Pepsi can. Believe me, by the time we arrived in St. Albans, Don Juan DeSanto wanted to get in the ring with little Amanda in a big way. I think the bruises on the back of his skull had something to do with it. |
| The match started out in a fairly positive way. We locked up and Don Juan muscled me to the ropes in about two seconds. At over 360 pounds he literally is more than two of me, so trying to match his, um, bulk was useless. He shot me off and I ducked a clothesline that probably would have taken my head off and came back with a face buster. Then I started throwing rights, lefts, uppercuts, and a few well placed kicks for dramatic effect. I drove him back to the ropes and shot him off, but he easily reversed it, sending me into the ropes instead. He bent over at the last moment as I came running at him. Lord John was apparently thinking back body drop, but I was thinking a little faster and hit him with a sunset flip instead. Only DeSanto didn't go down. Instead he tried to literally kill me. Yes, kill me. DJD actually tried to sit on my head and if I hadn't moved at the last moment that would have been the end of little Amanda Storm. |
| Now I was pissed. Before the stakes were just who got the choice seat in Steve Ricard's car and which one of us was the Alpha Female. Now I was in the ring with someone who was trying to maim me. Before I just wanted D.J. dead. Now I wanted to kill him. At that moment it became my personal mission to punish Don Juan DeSanto and the crowd was most definitely behind me. He bailed out of the ring but I came out right behind DJ, hitting him with a hard baseball slide. From there I followed Don Juan around the ring, hitting him pretty much at will with more punches. I planted his face into the apron a couple of times and was about to introduce him to the ring post when the unthinkable happened. At that point his running partner, Dr. Heresy came out from the back and attacked me from behind. So now it was two guys against one woman and of course I had no chance at all. Nice, huh? |
| Heresy and DeSanto worked me over pretty good and then tossed me back into the ring. Then each of them draped one of my arms over their shoulder and gave me a double vertical suplex which I really could have done without. I hate to admit it, but at that point I was totally at their mercy and my back hurt so much I could barely move. The fans were booing and yelling and in general expressing their disapprobation as I lay helpless in the middle of the ring. Don Juan hit me with an elbow that took away whatever fight I might have had left. Things were looking bad indeed for the forces of Fan Favoritedom. |
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Suddenly the crowd started cheering. There was an instant of surprise and electricity in the air, and it wasn't because Don Juan was about to bury me with a second elbow. Yes, Mike Pavia came running into the ring and attacked both of my assailants from behind. Mikey did pretty well at first because he had the element of surprise, but it wasn't long before Don Juan and Hersey put him basically in the same position I had been in - looking up at the lights. The silver lining in all of this was that he had given me precious time to recover, and instead of disqualifying DeSanto, the referee just turned the whole sorry mess into a tag match. It was shades of ECW on the budget plan. |
| Unfortunately my new tag partner wasn't able to keep the momentum going for very long. Pavia is a good little high flyer but he isn't exactly the biggest guy in wrestling at around, oh, 130 pounds. Once DeSanto was able to get his hands on Mike and clip his wings, things pretty much turned around completely and I was forced to stand and watch Don Juan and Hersey take turns demolishing my friend. I wasn't pleased and a couple of times I tried to get into the ring when they got a little too outrageous with their double teaming "tactics". |
| Mikey wiggled his way out of several pinning attempts, and a couple of times he kicked out just as I was on my way into the ring to break up what I thought was a sure three count. DeSanto and Hersey were vicious, but Mike showed a lot of resilience and heart. Let me tell you, with every punch, kick, suplex and slam that Mike Pavia absorbed I wanted in that ring a little more desperately. The fans were rooting for us and I was itching to extract a little revenge and maybe a body part or two. |
| Finally things swung Pavia's way and he surprised Hersey with a quick DDT before collapsing to the mat himself. The referee began his count as Doctor Heresy tried to clear the cobwebs while Mike slowly crawled toward his corner and my outstretched hand. Closer he inched. Closer ... closer.... He made the tag just as Heresy was getting to his feet. The crowd came alive as I jumped into the ring. My blood was up and as far as I was concerned, Amanda Storm wasn't going to be the only person making an appointment with her chiropractor after the match. |
| I launched myself at the good doctor and buried him with a hard clothesline. He staggered to his feet, only to find little Amanda waiting to give him another taste of the mat with yet another hard clothesline. I hit him with a flying clothesline the third time that I knew must have hurt because instead of getting up again he started crawling towards his corner. I was having a great time showing this goofy schacher-macher in blue spandex what came of trying to cause grief for little Amanda. I grabbed him by the hair just as he was able to make the tag, and pulled him back into the center of the ring, where I gave him a scoop slam, hit him with a leg drop and went for the pin. He kicked out, raked my eyes, and bailed out of the ring. Naturally DeSanto ran over to "comfort" his partner and undoubtedly have a little impromptu conference. But Mikey and I were having none of that. Pavia quickly jumped up to the top rope, where I plucked him off the top rope over my head and heaved him outside the ring and into the arms of both Don Juan and the good doctor, putting them both on the floor. The crowd loved it and so did we. Things were really starting to go our way! |
| Doctor Heresy poked his fingers three inches into my eye sockets and then apparently tagged in DeSanto who immediately started putting the boots to me. Don Juan whipped me into a neutral corner, and hit me with a hip toss as I staggered out, and started kicking me again. Once he had me down he bounced off the ropes screaming, "Oh my God, this is gonna hurt!" and dropped one of his legs on my head. He was right, it did hurt. A lot. DJD probably could have pinned me right then and there, but I knew he wouldn't. I have wrestled on a lot of shows as his partner so I knew he would go for a big move after the leg drop. As they say, knowledge can indeed be power. So I just lay there, gathering my strength while he climbed the ropes. |  |
| Don Juan leaped off the top rope, with the obvious objective of turning me into mashed Amanda but I rolled out of the way at the last moment, leaving him with only the cold, hard mat. I knew I had to act quickly so I got him to his feet, punched him in the face a couple of times and inflicted some other quick unpleasantness on his carcass. Then I booted DJ in the stomach and hit a quick double underhook face buster for the pin. Credit goes to Mike for keeping Doctor Heresy from jumping into the ring and interfering as the referee counted out the one, two, three. |
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We raised our hands in victory, while our opponents argued about whose fault it was they lost the match. Mike and I were thoroughly tired of the pair of them and their vaudevillesque antics, so my partner jumped up to the top rope. I hauled him off, held him over my head for a moment and then tossed him over the top to the outside where Mike landed squarely on Doctor Heresy and Don Juan DeSanto, knocking both men to the floor. From there I joined the festivities on the outside and proceeded to extract a sweet measure of revenge all the way into the locker room. And yes, I did give Mike Pavia the front seat on the way home. |
| Send any comments or feedback to storm@blakwidow.com. |