The chance to wrestle within Canada is always something I look forward to. It gives me the chance to see more of my country, see wrestlers I don’t often get to see, and wrestle opponents I rarely or never get to wrestle. So naturally, when I was contacted to take part in Ultimate Championship Wrestling’s five-day Maritime tour — the first shows of the new company — I jumped at the chance to return to Atlantic Canada.
My trip to Nova Scotia was much more leisurely than my previous one, as I flew in to Halifax on July 22nd, the day before our first show. I met a few members of the crew that day, many of whom I was meeting for the first time, and some who I had made the trek to Labrador with. We had a late dinner at a Halifax-area Boston Pizza, our sponsor, then got to bed for what was sure to be a busy tour.
After getting to bed somewhere around 2 a.m., we were up bright and early the next day for a lunch appearance at Boston Pizza. Despite our business manager’s scheduling attempts, wrestlers and free food are not easily parted, and we left late to begin our four-hour drive to our show in Barrington Passage, Nova Scotia.
We arrived in Barrington Passage in time for the show, although much later than the business mananger had hoped for. Despite our late arrival and a hiccup with the set up of the newly-built ring, we were ready for the show on time and everything seemed to be going smoothly as the main event was beginning.
I was sitting in the arena’s first aid room, where there was a window out to the arena, ready to watch the main event. As Mike Hughes and Titus circled the ring ready to lock up, a drunken elderly man approached the ring and grabbed Mike’s leg. Mike, somewhat to my surprise (but not really), turned and kicked the guy in the face, knocking him to the ground and out of my sight. The kick didn’t look particularly vicious, so I thought “ah, he’s probably fine,” and continued watching the match.
About a minute later, there was a knock on the door to the first aid room I was sitting in, and I opened it to find a panicked arena worker looking for blankets and gauze. I took a look out at the arena and saw that many of the fans were standing watching the ground where the man had fallen, not the match that was taking place in the ring. Several of the wrestlers were standing in the hallway, most both shocked and worried.
A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived to take the man, who was bleeding from his head considerably, to the hospital. The main event ended among the confusion, and we wrapped up a rather stressful first day at a barbecue, hosted by a local couple who had helped with the show’s advertising. In keeping with the theme of wrestlers and free food being difficultly parted, we stayed at the barbecue until sometime around 1 a.m., when we began the four-hour drive back to Halifax.
I climbed in to bed around 5:30 a.m., staring blankly at the alarm clock that would be going off in three-and-a-half hours. I fell asleep replaying UCW’s first show in my head, and wondering what was in store for us in the days to come.
Part two of UCW’s five-day, where with shows in Halifax, Berwick, and Prince Edward Island, will be covered in my next column.
