My Interview With California Championship Wrestling's Buddy Sotello Esquire

Courtesy of Oliver Newman:

BSE: Buddy Sotello Esquire

ON: For the readers who are unfamiliar with Buddy Sotello Esquire, could you tell them a little bit of background information on yourself?

BSE: I got my start in 2000 working for the All Pro Wrestling Federation in Hayward, CA. Because of issues with that particular fed and a lot of complicated issues involving the talent and the way APW was managed, Pro Wrestling Iron was formed and I moved over there to manage wrestlers in that fed. Several years later, PWI closed because the principals all went their separate ways, but in 2006 I helped form the successful new federation known as California Championship Wrestling, which I am now an active part of both managing and running the fed.

ON: Were you a Wrestling fan growing up, and if so who were some of your favourites to watch?

BSE: Absolutely. I was so into wrestling from the very beginning. It all started with Big Time Pro Wrestling broadcast on local cable TV here in the San Francisco Bay area where I grew up. I watched a lot of Peter Maivia, Pat Patterson, Pepper Gomez, Don Muraco, Jimmy Snuka and The Valiant Brothers. There was a lot of great wrestling but then it went away for a while in the late 70's to early 80's, then it came back on TV on Channel 20. It was the early days of Hulk Hogan and the whole Rock and Wrestling connection was getting started with the then-WWF. I went with my friends to the first Wrestlemania closed circuit broadcast and gave a report on it in history class in high school the next day. Then I went to see Wrestlemania II in person in LA, from that moment my brother and I was totally hooked. I loved the incredible spectacle and the characters that the WWF had back then, even more than NWA (WCW) at the time but for me, whenever there was wrestling on TV, no matter where or when it was, I seemed to have a way of finding it and back then it wasn't as easy to always find wrestling on TV like it is now!

ON: What was it about Pro Wrestling that appealed to you?

BSE: It was those character driven stories and the fact that guys were larger than life, also I enjoyed the antics of Andy Kaufman ringside he had a genius way of moving the crowd without being overly physical. Guys like Kaufman and the Grand Wizard were role models for me early, and also Jim Cornette and Jimmy Hart, because they were never wrestlers but they could annoy the crowd so well without being profane or obscene even though they were never physically imposing.

ON: Was there a defining moment or match when you said to yourself 'this is what I would like to do for a living'?

BSE: Well to be honest, I don't do this for a living, almost nobody in California that I know does, and I have had the fortune of working with the rare people who have made a full time living off of it-- for the 1-2-3 that I have known (John Morrison, Samoa Joe, Frankie Kazarian, Chris Daniels, Mark Smith, Sara Del Rey, The Ballard Brothers), I know 30-40 who don't do anything but earn $20-$50 dollars a show doing it. So if I was in this "for the money" I would have been done a long time ago, just a point of clarification here not to tear your question apart, because it's a valid one however, if anyone based their choice on becoming an indy wrestler in CA because of the $ they'd be sadly mistaken!

ON: How did you know Pro Wrestling was for you?

BSE: I knew I wanted to be involved in Pro Wrestling, when I first stepped into the ring and I didn't die! Also the first time that I held the microphone and was able to get my speech out despite all the boos and that I could interact with the crowd, as scary as they seemed, and even early on, manipulate them like putty in my hands...get them to boo or cheer almost like a light switch.

ON: Can you tell the readers more about the character Buddy Sotello Esquire?

BSE: What I love about being Buddy Sotello Esq. is that he is "me" but he's the evil opposite of me. I put into the character that is Buddy, all the things people have always assumed was part of me being a real life attorney, but I am not...people assume that I am since they want to define me by what job I have. That's how people are...trust me on this though, more people want to find out about what I do when I tell them that I am a pro wrestling manager than when I tell them that I am an attorney dealing in legal technology!

ON: How did you get your start in All Pro Wrestling?

BSE: I watched a program on a local news show talking about the APW wrestling school, and I looked online and saw that they advertised training managers. I called up Donovan Morgan and Michael Modest who thought it was a good idea for them to work with me to trade my services as a legal attorney by helping APW with contract matters, in exchange for training.

ON: Can you tell the readers what training to be a wrestling manager was like?

BSE: Well I wish it had a lot less bumps and bruises involved than it had! I can also say this; nobody should ever get involved around the wrestling ring at all unless they have had some serious training serious training...Even as a manager, I have suffered some pretty rough injuries-- ones that I never expected I would get! Before I had ever stepped into a wrestling ring, I had over 3 years of Ju Jitsu training (and I can't stress that enough) not the Brazilian stuff either which really doesn't do you much good in the ring despite its popularity. I am talking strict Okinawan Dan Zan Ryu Ju Jitsu, the whole martial arts thing.

ON: Your thoughts on Vinnie Massaro as a Trainer?

BSE: Working with Vinnie Massaro was tough because he was stiff and I think he wanted me to prove something in the ring if I was going to be there. I now realise there was a weird dynamic going on at APW at the time-- so I think everyone is different now than they were at the time. When Vinnie was training me, after about 3-4 months, we were notified that a new valet was coming in and training with us. That turned out to be Veronica, whom Vinnie would eventually fall in love with and now has his son with her. I think when he met Veronica she had a way of really helping him move towards greater maturity. When the core of all the wrestlers left APW in 2001 and formed PWI, Vinnie was not part of it for a long time and I think he felt left out and that may have sent a message to him. Since then we have made him a part of CCW from the very beginning and he has been a really great champion, even coming back early from a hand injury to regain his current title reign! Vinnie is a guy with very little patience and I think when he gets annoyed he can be very obnoxious-- but I also think he has very high standards for what goes on in the ring and he hates to see a substandard product, he is very critical about that, and in doing so, it has given CCW a really quality product when we do our shows live and on TV.

ON: How long were you training for before you managed your first wrestler?

BSE: I was told I needed a year but it really was more like about 5-6 months because they needed to move Vinnie out of his good guy character "the Gigolo" and move him towards a more sinister character with me. When he had the internet title on him, we were amongst the most hated people on the bay area wrestling scene at the time! I didn't get as much training in APW as you would think the one guy who did take the time out of his schedule to really take me aside and teach me stuff was Shane Dynasty. There weren't too many classes outside of the wrestling stuff that told me how to do stuff like cut a promo, etc. Shane would take me aside and make me think about what I was doing, why I was saying things, how to do things without over preparing them. APW was really into that especially with promos and Shane kind of "untaught" me that, and instead taught me to go more off the top of my head and gave me the encouragement and positive reinforcement to give it a try, and it's worked for 7 years now!

ON: Thoughts on Shane Dynasty as a Trainer?

BSE: I look to Shane the way a student looks at his sensei. Shane will probably forget more about wrestling than almost anyone who reads this article will ever know about it! Shane is great because of where his perspective is I have rarely met anyone in wrestling that takes storylines and character motivation (at all times), as the most important part of being a wrestler. Shane went from being a ref, to manager (where he was voted manager of the year almost every time), to wrestler in his mid 30's, very Diamond Dallas Page-esque. Shane has performed in front of 1,000's of people and crowds of 20-30 and he gives it his all every time. He'll never be in the WWE and I don't think that bothers him one little bit because of how much he loves what he does. Bringing him back into CCW was such a great honour, the way that a student inviting his sensei to come perform in his new dojo would have the same sort of martial arts honour.

ON: Thoughts on Ric Thompson?

BSE: When I was at Pro Wrestling Iron I had the fun of working with Ric Thompson who helped found the training part of APW, he really understood ring psychology better than anyone.

ON: Thoughts on your early APW career?

BSE: I started up right away with Vinnie Massaro, whom I am still working with today in CCW he wanted to transition from good guy to bad guy and become "the innovator" and I was going to help sue for gimmick infringement, a storyline we never took up on. I also worked with Mark "The Bison" Smith to put him in the role of Super Destroyer 2000 which was a big hit and something I have recreated with my wrestler Mr Massacre in CCW. My debut show was in August 2000 in Antoich CA where I was on the same card with the Honky Tonk man-- he won the Title off Frank Murdoch (whom I would work with later in PWI) and never returned it!

ON: Thoughts on working with Bison Smith?

BSE: One of the best things in APW in 2000 was working with Mark "Bison" Smith. When he was 'The Bison' he was doing all these great moves and getting no reaction from them. I thought it was such a tragedy because I saw what was an awesome guy just not getting the reaction he deserved. I have always loved the big scary masked guy, most people see masked guys and they think Lucha Libre but there was a time when masked guys meant 'The Spoiler' 'The Masked Superstar' and 'The Grappler' and with Mark, that was my idea, to transform him into one of those old school masked wrestlers. Mark totally took to it and he was perfect in the role he turned from a goofy guy that nobody cared about into a savage, scary, ominous and someone that everyone feared in the ring. He was the perfect compliment to Buddy Sotello Esq. Mark became one of my closest friends and we still keep in touch even though he's on the road wrestling full time in Europe, Japan and Puerto Rico. Mark is a man of complete and total nobility even though his background is humble from central California and Colorado. He is the kind of person they would have made into a knight back in ancient times. I have never met someone to whom the meaning of honour carried more weight, or worked harder at what he does and yet has remained as humble and down to earth now as he was when I first met him and told him I hoped I could manage him some day!

ON: Your thoughts on APW King of Indies 2001?

BSE: Well the first night which I was a part of, in fact I was part of the opening match, nobody was there, we performed in front of maybe 100 people. The second night was bigger but all the APW talent was pushed aside to make room for the outside talent which really pushed the APW guys the wrong way.

ON: Overall experience working for APW?

BSE: Well APW had some great moments, obviously in the 2000's-2001 (before 9/11), wrestling was probably at its highest point in CA in terms of indy popularity I met some of APW's most famous graduates, Sara Del Rey and Dalip Singh, right when they arrived at APW. I think I admired Sara's talent a little more than I just marvelled at Dalip's size. I felt more sorry for Dalip because he was (and is) a piece of meat that doesn't have much control in his own life or at least didn't when I saw him. I was able to manage in some great matches, including with/against Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Super Nova, and Barry Horowitz. However I never did get along that well with a couple of the production guys, and there was always a constant tension between myself and the owner. I also could see that the owner's attitude in APW changed a lot after APW held a really bad indy show in 2001 called King of the Indies which lost a lot of $$$ and alienated a lot of the talent that I was friends with after that, PWI was formed and I was more than ready to leave APW and the politics behind and go to a new fed where none of that stuff existed- and PWI was great until it closed up!

ON: The formation of Pro Wrestling Iron?

BSE: APW was experiencing a lot of problems in 2001 and going into 2002, things were really negative there... After the King of the Indies show in 2001 wrestlers were locked out for weeks and had nowhere to go and train....Morgan and Modest opened a new school in the same city to compete with APW they called me right up after they left APW and had me do some legal things for them including forming a legitimate company which APW never actually did. PWI's focus was to work with NOAH to generate students to go on trips to NOAH in Japan and get overseas work, and it did work for a number of those who worked for PWI, like Ryan Drago, Sara Del Rey and Mark "Bison" Smith.

ON: Why did you choose PWI?

BSE: I really liked the PWI locker room so much more than anything I had experienced in APW (nobody was yelling at anybody else) and nobody was trying to get leverage on anyone else so they could move up in the bookings or the card. PWI was a fed run by workers, not promoters. PWI was also another school, but this time the guys who were running it, Donovan Morgan, Mike Modest and Frank Murdock, were all wrestlers. Those 3 had total respect from the wrestlers, which I think helped them succeed longer than even the 2-3 years they were in existence. A lot of the wrestlers worked the PWI shows for free (I know I never got paid for any of those shows, but I never got paid at APW either). Still people came to PWI because it was an alternative to APW, a lot of the wrestlers in PWI had a strong following from the wrestlers performances back in APW so a lot of APW fans gravitated towards the PWI product naturally.

ON: Thoughts on PWI's No Manager policy when it started?

BSE: It was difficult for me to become a spectator again when all my friends were involved in the show, even my brother was there as an announcer, but it didn't take long for them to work Buddy into the show.

ON: The policy was waved and you were back managing again………….

BSE: I started working with Bart Blaxton, and soon we added Frank Murdock and even Big Time Wrestling's Hawkeye Shane Kody as a bunch of rough-and-tumble bad boy cowboys. Now my typical NY Persona was not going to work with a bunch of cowboy types, so I had to come up with something new I grabbed an old cowboy hat that I found at a Goodwill store, put a hay straw in my teeth and started calling myself "Good Ol' Cousin Buddy", and started pretending I was a hick, still dressed in my suit!

ON: It wasn't all plain sailing in PWI though………..

BSE: Unfortunately not, PWI made a big strategic mistake. With it being hard to have two promotions running in the same geographic area PWI thought that it would be a good idea to go to the outreaches of California as a place to generate interest so they picked Lathrop, Riverbank and Angel's Camp as places to perform. They did a bunch of shows in Lathrop, a tiny freeway town in the middle of CA but PWI was located over an hour away in Hayward, so they had no local connections PWI did work with a guy named Chicano Flame who lived in the area and for the first 2-3 shows he helped promote it so the crowds were ok but shortly after he stopped performing (and presumably inviting a ton of his own friends) the Lathrop crowds dropped off significantly.

ON: How and why did PWI close?

BSE: Morgan and Modest were too busy working NOAH shows in Japan, and Modest was even getting some attention from WCW before it went out of business (and did a couple of matches against Christopher Daniels) which was great for Modest but his lack of presence eroded the popularity of PWI as well. Murdoch was somewhat overwhelmed by trying to keep the fed running by himself with Morgan and Modest travelling so much and although I really respect Murdock as a wrestler and as a person, I don't think he was good at all at being a promoter. After a certain point, I think he lost the ability to care whether or not PWI would continue to be a success and how to utilize what PWI had to keep it afloat. However, I was having a great time when I was performing for PWI, we had some amazing people come through those doors and perform for us including Christopher Daniels, Nigel McGuiness, BJ Whitmer, Tony Kozina and the Tomaselli's. However as Modest and Morgan stepped back, Murdock also had a problem. He was in the ring with Modest and Morgan in a tag match and Modest dropped him on the back of his head with a powerbomb, causing Murdoch to break his sternum and get a concussion. He was never the same after that, he told me he suffered from dizzy spells for at least 3 months after the incident so he really retreated from the day-to-day management of PWI and PWI became somewhat rudderless.

ON: Mike Veloza…………….

BSE: The rudder completely fell off when Murdock turned to maybe one of the feeblest minds in the history of bay area wrestling in the 2000's, a mental midget by the name of Mike Veloza...He literally ran PWI into the ground in the space of 6 months! He was some sort of super fan that endeared himself to Morgan and Murdock when Modest was in Japan and WCW he started doing "story line" work for PWI but his stories were the worst pieces of dung ever written. I suddenly lost any sort of story lines. It was Veloza who decided to hold the Angels Camp and Riverbank shows which I mercifully missed, but they generated a total of 30-50 fans each show, even though they had the Ballard Brothers and Christopher Daniels on them! The final straw came when there was a show at a local high school which was looking like a promotional disaster, we knew that we weren't going to generate a good crowd that night and we should have just cancelled but Veloza was too filled with his own self worth as a promoter to cancel a show so he wrote a $900 check on a show that generated about $500 in tickets that combined with the costs for gas, ring truck and other related expenses meant he overdrew the PWI account by at least $1,000 and that was it for PWI. I think in the end PWI had about $10,000 in debt which Veloza was responsible for and even at the very end of PWI, even the last night of PWI, Veloza was promising to take over PWI, to keep it going, to pay off all of PWI's debts and start the school back up where he was going to become a major deal in the bay area wrestling's future, well that was 4-5 years ago and he hasn't been heard from since.

ON: The Malachi title win…….

BSE: One of my favourite memories, I was involved in a great storyline where I was managing every outside talent that came in to challenge Mark Smith for his championship for about 4-5 months in a row which finally culminated in me managing my first federation heavyweight champion, in Malachi, when we won the title in 2003 in Swiss Park against Mark Smith. Unfortunately, I was never even able to give a proper title defence back to Mark Smith as he decided to no longer work for PWI because of the terrible shows that PWI was putting on. Mark Smith now almost exclusively works full time in Puerto Rico, Japan and Europe-- I haven't seen the big guy now in years because he's been so busy!

ON: How did the idea of California Championship Wrestling come about?

BSE: One of the announcers, JJ Purdom, and I were friends from PWI and we were both bummed out that PWI failed without ever having a chance to give our own creative input on what could have been done with the wrestlers at PWI and the story lines and giving better characters with real motivations, but nobody ever asked us what we thought or how we could improve the PWI product, in fact Veloza went out of his way not to listen to any other constructive criticism on the PWI product. JJ managed to talk to a guy who was a former mayor of a tiny town in the middle of CA called Newman and we decided to create a new fed trying to throw back to the old days of Mid South, World Class and Georgia Championship Wrestling. JJ said he thought it would be great to make me the "center of evil" in this particular fed. In September of 2005, I met with JJ and the owner of CCW over in Sacramento at the Mel's Diner on Howe avenue...and history was made as we decided to make it work! Unfortunately only 6 weeks after we had this meeting I wound up in the hospital and almost died due to a rare onset of adult Type 1 diabetes, when my pancreas stopped making insulin and almost killed me. While I was in the hospital JJ called me every single day and my brother brought tapes of my wrestling performances from APW and PWI which I watched over and over again. I made it my mission that CCW was going to be a success.

ON: Thoughts on being a CCW promoter?

BSE: Being on the promoter side for the first time, I now understand how incredibly hard it is to put on a show. In CCW we even had a guy who was booked for a title shot, who had won a royal rumble the month before to become the 1 contender, tell us he couldn't make it the morning of the show! Injuries I can understand, we have had Vinnie Massaro break his hand the week before a show training, that sort of thing happens especially here in North California when guys work 2-3 shows on a weekend. A lot of times we have had wrestlers for CCW work another show at the beginning of a card, and then drive 1- 1 1/2 hours to our show to work the later part of the card! You have to live with that when you deal with the indies, where some wrestlers have so little invested in your promotion and even if you have a storyline worked with them that has taken months to form there is nothing to keep them from just blowing you off at the last minute. In the 1 year existence of CCW we have had to change every single card we have ever had because of this sort of thing fortunately we always have "spare wrestlers" show up in the back who are willing to step in, in order to get in the ring and work.

ON: The Alameda County Fairgrounds affair…………..

BSE: CCW almost didn't get off the ground, (even with me nearly dying) because of a screw-job by the Alameda County Fairgrounds we had to cancel our first show the day of the event! The incompetents at the Fairgrounds had told us we could use the Fairgrounds insurance, which we paid for prior to the event. Then the week of the event they tell us that their insurance carrier decided not to honour our payment and that we needed to get our own insurance. They said we could do it if I wrote a disclaimer which said we wouldn't sue them no matter what happened so we got all ready to perform and then they said the disclaimer wasn't enough, we had to have insurance and so our first set of matches had to be cancelled and I spent the rest of the night in front of the fairgrounds telling people to turn around and go home! We just looked at this as a temporary setback. Two months later we put together our first matches in July and we got a crowd of about 220, which was totally outdrawing any of the other established indies except for maybe BTW which still was only getting 350 with people like Kamala, Mick Foley and Rob Van Dam appearing for autograph sessions! We were getting good crowds at the Fairgrounds and being in Pleasanton was actually like being in a major city. After that first event, the guy at the Fairgrounds apologized and they actually treated us really well but that guy didn't stay there and when he left to manage a gym in the area.

ON: All's well that ends well……

BSE: Not quite, a new guy came in and was the biggest jerk in the universe he said "you guys are making too much money" and decided, again the week before we were going to have our matches, to charge us double everything we were getting "for free". Even though we had a contract, there were a number of items that were not covered by the contract that we were never being charged for. This guy wanted to charge for parking, for the benches (which were already in the building when we got there) and even for the porta potties which were in the area! He figured that by forcing us to pay right before a show we would never cancel again like we did before but we weren't going to play that game! The owner decided during the week to change venues and we moved out to Newman, the tiny town that he was the mayor for. As this was a home base for JJ Purdom and the owner so they could promote locally unlike what happened with PWI in Lathrop. That was the greatest thing for the future of CCW, moving to Newman, sure it's a tiny town on the freeway (nobody has heard of it) but the people there, they are dying for live entertainment. For them, to get to a major city like San Francisco or San Jose is a major effort and going to a WWE show will set back a family of 4 perhaps $200-$300 when all is said and done. Here we bring big city style live wrestling entertainment to them for $10 adults and $5 for kids. A family of 4 can go see us perform for 2 hours less expensively than a movie and we really have made our focus family style entertainment there is no sex, we have had a "little" blood as it's not a major focus of what we do. We have had no garbage matches; no lightbulbs, thumbtacks, barbed wire matches and our wrestlers aren't allowed to swear ringside. We have had a continuing story line between my Sotello Syndicate and the good guys of CCW since I came in a year ago. My situation with Vinnie, first facing him as my opponent for a year and now I am managing him as the heavyweight champion. After he lost his title due to the hand injury I mentioned earlier, his best friend Big Ugly won the title then Vinnie betrayed him. Is a story we've been working almost a year to accomplish! Tell me another indy out there that has a story line that goes a whole year to culminate?

ON: Managing your 1st tag team to CCW tag title glory………..

BSE: The current CCW tag team champions (they won it in the debut title tournament) are the twins DD and T-Rent, known as the Bad Apple Associates. CCW had a 4 team 1 night tournament for the newly created tag belts the tournament featured R-Cayde & Hammerhead Drake vs Reno Scum ("Rock Legend Scum" Adam Thornstowe & Luster the Legend managed by "Showtime" Shane Dynasty) and my Sotello Syndicate (The Bad Apple Associates, DD & Trent Badapple) vs The McTwists, Jason & Johnny from Portland, OR. The Bad Apple Associates and the Reno Scum (featuring wrestlers that I used to manage-- all 3 of them!) faced each other in the final round of the title tournament. Thanks to my interference, (I distracted Luster the Legend outside the ring to give an advantage to DD & Trent who double teamed Adam for he title victory!) It was the first tag championship that I have ever managed and really a lifelong accomplishment, as much as managing two feds heavyweight single's titles meant tag team action is the best.

ON: Can you tell the readers a little about the creative process involved in CCW?

BSE: Well JJ and I love doing this, creating a complicated story line and telling it over a number of shows, and letting it develop and having to change it sometimes because of talent restrictions or guys blowing us off.. Vinnie also helps a lot in the locker room in match-to-match booking and inner-match storylines, and all the workers respect the things he brings to the table. I work with JJ on coming up with new characters, "macro" story lines (not in match blow-by-blow booking), and I do all the "write-ups" for CCW (can you guess why that is?). Our ultra popular Hacksaw Jim Duggan type character, Mother Truckin Otis, actually came to me as an idea with all the driving I do back and forth to the shows and all the truck drivers I pass on my way. The mysterious masked man of mayhem, Mr. Massacre, was a character I developed while I was in high school for a wrestling game I wrote (it's awesome when you have these ideas as a kid and as an adult you can actually make them come to life!)

ON: Overall thoughts on California Championship Wrestling?

BSE: CCW is everything I had ever hoped for and dreamed for in a federation even with the hardships, tough times, and hard work, it's been the greatest experience of my life without a doubt! CCW really reflects the ultimate culmination of my creative efforts and what I have always thought I could do for a federation when we did our first TV program for Comcast On Demand and I got to do the commentary with JJ, it was the greatest thing of all (other than managing the tag champs and heavyweight champ!!!) he is the Gorilla Monsoon to my Bobby Heenan and we just ad lib it and it comes off like water off a ducks back people say it's entertaining but it's the easiest job I've ever had!

ON: Who would be a dream person to manage for Buddy Sotello Esquire?

BSE: I am not going to be glib here but I am managing my dream right now! The Sotello Syndicate is exactly the type of team I want to manage they remind me of this generations' Devastation Inc (one of the big influences on me). I have a masked giant in Mr Massacre, based on a character I created years ago, the "California Crippler" Ryan Drago, the CCW Tag Champions the Bad Apple Associates and the CCW Heavyweight Champion, my once mortal enemy, Vinnie "The Innovator" Massaro.

ON: Are there any websites where the readers can find out more about you?

BSE: Yes please visit my myspace page at www.myspace.com/buddysotelloesq or the CCW web page www.californiachampionshipwrestling.com!

ON: Any final words for the readers?

BSE: For every show, whether it has 50 people show up or 10,000 people show up, so few of the fans in the audience understand the thousands of hours that go into every production and how much of a contribution has to be made on every level to make even a poor indy fed show happen. The amount of work that goes into setting a ring up, the hours of street teaming and promoting, the late nights working on web pages and photo uploading and flyers and posters, sometimes I think the fans and the public in general takes that for granted and doesn't recognize that even on a small level what an amazing amount of work goes on to make those shows happen. I always stay late after every match and hang with the crews as they take everything apart and let them know how important it is that they gave a contribution to us with their labour because without that there wouldn't be a show for anyone to see! As for me, if what I do never goes beyond what I have done, I couldn't have been happier doing what I did the way I did it. I don't have any regrets about my time in wrestling yet I have seen stuff that I thought I would never see, both good and bad, from people in this industry. It's changed my life forever but I don't regret a single moment of it, and I will be in this business until CCW goes away, we get bought out by Vince (ha-ha) or until I shuffle off this mortal coil.

ON: Thanks once again for taking the time out for this interview Buddy!

Overall Thoughts: Buddy provided me with my most informative interview thus far! I want to thank him for that, his insight into the California independent scene was fascinating and I wish him and California Championship Wrestling the best of luck in the future.