Flashback: Hosting Midget Mania

Yes, more midget wrestling.

It's early 1992. Phil Watson, aka Whipper Watson Junior, has come off a heart attack and put together an ambitious plan to tour an all-midget professional wrestling show with Teen Pro Wrestling as an added attraction.

Me, I'm in my last year of high school and a dedicated volunteer at the local Rogers Cable community television station. Between us, we arrange to have the debut performance of Midget Mania taped for TV.

The setting is the Village Inn in Bradford, Ontario. It's a bar. It's ... it's not a nice bar. The ring barely fits. The crowd is intoxicated. But they're into the action.

I'm calling the matches by myself, and it's the first time I'm hosting a TV program. In hindsight, it's not great. It could be worse.

There are five videos here, but I'll embed just the first one. You can find the rest on my youtube channel.

In this show, you'll see the biggest midget wrestling stars of the day, including:

Little Farmer Pete
The Irish Leprechaun
Tiger Jackson
Little Mr. T
Little John Adams
Rebel Joe Kidd

Plus, the first ever over-the-middle-rope Midget Mania Battle Royal.

Comments

Today was my last day at work, and I'm okay with that

Today marks a weird spot on the calendar for me. It’s one of those landmarks that really doesn’t mean anything, other than to illustrate the weirdness of time and how we feel it. As of today, my son Gordon has been without his mother longer than he was with her. The length of time Amanda has been gone is now longer than the length of time we were a family of three. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, but that dangblasted calendar tells me it’s almost three years. I have not said a word about it to G, but tonight, for the first time in a long time, he pulled out the Missing Mummy book for bedtime. Today was my last day in broadcasting for a while, as far as I can tell. I spent the past five years as Program Director at Newstalk 1290 CJBK in London, Ontario. And in recent years, I was also the noon-hour show host, afternoon news anchor, a commercial voice guy, TV news promo voice guy, and more. Also in the past five years, I’ve bought a house, endured renovation

A request, as we reach two years

Wow, long time no write. I didn't enjoy this past winter. I was certainly in a long slump. Things were very challenging at work. Gordon was awesome, as always, but I was just in a sustained funk from last summer on. And I'm not sure I'm all the way out of it yet. I'm still largely in quiet hermit mode, but have been making progress at resuming social contact. Little dude and I have a very busy summer that will go by in a flash. This Thursday will mark two years since Amanda died. I still replay the events of that night in my head almost every day. I'd like to not. Sometimes it feels like forever ago, but sometimes I'm right there all over again. Hey, can I ask for your help with something? Two years ago, so many wonderful people told me that if there was anything they could do to help .... Well, I don't ask often. And I should've asked more. And I should ask more even now. I'm still not comfortable asking. But I'm asking for this. I put

Hard to believe it's been a year - but it has

One year ago today, we lost Amanda. Time plays tricks on all of us. We can think "that was so long ago" at the same time as "it feels like yesterday." I run into this all the time with Amanda's death. Yes, it feels like just yesterday, or last night, or later today, that Amanda collapsed in the kitchen and died after that long, brutal battle with ovarian cancer. But every day has ticked by at a pace like any other, and it's been a whole year of those days, with incremental and sometimes revolutionary change. As I move about our home, it's hard to fathom that she's been gone a whole year. Amanda's garden awakens, early Spring 2017. Many of the decorative items she carefully arranged throughout the house are in the exact same place as the last time she touched them. She had the vision, not me, so I've been reluctant to disturb her decisions on what looks good and works. In other places, I'm reminded that it's been at least

The Simpson Blog

Search This Blog