When Scott D’Amore considers his current schedule, he just has to laugh — otherwise he’d go insane.
Backstage at the Warrior 1 Wrestling show on Sunday, June 24th in Oshawa, Ontario, D’Amore was in a typical dual roll of booking/running the matches for the show promoted by his friend Nick Cvjetkovich (aka Sinn), as well as performing as the Head Coach for the Team Canada faction from TNA, who wrestled on the show.
“I didn’t feel I had enough on my plate, what with all the TNA business, the television negotiations, the pay-per-view and the four televisions we just did, and all the things with Border City Wrestling and doing the Hart Foundation reunion coming up July 22nd, and having three classes a week in the Can-Am Wrestling School. AND, just opening up a new restaurant and having to go through my taxes since I had filed for an extension for my taxes. It just seemed that I had an extra day with nothing to do,” D’Amore joked with SLAM! Wrestling.
Yet, the 30-year-old D’Amore considers himself one lucky guy.
“I’m passionate about what I do. If you get up in the morning and you love what you do, why would you not go into work?” D’Amore asked. “Whether it’s in Windsor at the restaurant, whether it’s going down to the wrestling school at night, whether it’s in Nashville in the office, or whether it’s in Orlando at Universal Studios. When I wake up, I’m excited to do what I have to do that day. So to me, it’s not work. I’m blessed to have a job — or many jobs, I guess, at this point — and each and every one of them I love doing.”
The restaurant is the newest venture for D’Amore, a partnership with a friend in the sports memorabilia game. It’s in Lasalle, Ontario, across the street from an outlet mall (just outside Windsor), and is called Stars of the Game.
“It’s a restaurant. It’s got a full-service menu, a lot of great Italian food. Plus we’ve got a good steak, a nice white fish, a good salmon, a good chicken breast dinner, great salads, fresh-made soup every day,” a proud D’Amore explained. “The place is decorated with over a half a million dollars in high-end sports memorabilia — Joe DiMaggio autographed baseball bat, Wayne Gretzky autographed jersey, a jersey autographed by Team Canada when they won the gold medal, including Gretzky. Everything on the walls is for sale, for the right price.”
He said that many people just wander around the restaurant looking at the walls. “It’s a great way to combine sport memorabilia, which my partner has been involved in for many, many years, and the food and beverage industry.”
Across the border, D’Amore is on TNA’s matchmaking committee, helping to steer the direction of the company to a degree. Though he’s now considered management, he doesn’t find that he knows any more than his wrestlers when it comes to a TNA TV deal.
“Everybody’s on a need to know basis, and I don’t need to know,” D’Amore said. “I know that things are going well. I know that everybody in the office is upbeat and I expect them to make an announcement real soon. But until it directly affects my job, I guess I probably won’t know. I know that we’ve prepared our television shows for the next four weeks to go out on the Sunshine Network, Empire Network, and Irvine Television, and as well, we do 118 different countries around the world.”
He’s still in front of the cameras too as the hated Coach of Team Canada (Petey Williams, Eric Young, Bobby Rude, Johnny Devine and A1) as well.
Always a proud Canadian — it’s not a work, folks — D’Amore is pleased that old broadcasts of TNA have been doing excellent numbers on the digital ESPN Classic Canada, and current TNA shows on RDS, the French-language sports station, are a hit. “We’re really hoping to have an English-language outlet here in Canada real soon,” he said. “I really think once our American stuff falls in order, and we have our new deal in place, the Canadian stuff will fall in place quite quickly. We’re excited. We’ve got a great roster, we’ve got an abundance of talent, and a lot of passionate people that are really trying to work hard to make something happen.”
But seriously, Coach, how do you keep going?
“Lots of coffee. There’s an energy drink really close to Red Bull and it tastes a lot better, it’s called the 180, and it’s got kind of an orange flavour. I’ve been known to suck back four or five of those.”
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