Even More Childhood Memories!!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

Shirley Terrace.

Renny Avenue. 

Sefton Drive.

That was the neighborhood.

That was where you'd find us, getting into mischief.

Back when "mischief" was still innocuous.

As I already stated in my previous post, I'd give anything to go back to those days!

But since I can't physically go back, taking a written journey down memory lane is the next best thing!

I barely scratched the surface on my last post.

But now it's time to peel back the next layer!

I guess we'll start with what I like to call "Nik's Deception".

I know that sounds nefarious, but just bear with me, it will all make sense soon!

You see, when we were running around outside as kids, playing every game imaginable, we always had to decide what the teams were going to be.

That's where Nik came in.

He made it very simple too.

Everyone against him!

Nik was older than the rest of us.

He was our De Facto Leader!

One second........De Facto? Nefarious? Innocuous?

I'M USING THESE WORDS?!

I watched a lot of Law & Order!

Anyway, as I was saying!

Since Nik was the oldest, naturally, he was the tallest and biggest as well.

That's just basic biology.

However, he also had a Silver Tongue when it came to convincing us that even though we were smaller than he was, there were more of us, so it would still be fair!

And we fell for it.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Needless to say, we never won ANY of these games.

It could be me, Chris, Josh, Chanze, Leah, Manoli, AND Niko.

SEVEN PEOPLE.

Against Nik.

Or maybe Nik & Craig.

But still, the odds should be in OUR FAVOR!!

HE ALWAYS CONVINCED US THAT WE STILL HAD THE UPPER HAND.

AND WE FELL FOR IT EVERY SINGLE TIME.

But I mean, of course we did.

We were young.

We were impressionable.

And at the end of the day, we just wanted to play!

Sometimes we'd luck out and get Jeff on our team.

That's the only time we ever had a fighting chance.

And by "we", I mean Jeff and his decoys.

That's what we were back then.

We were the perfect training partners.

And we were none the wiser!

Well played Nik, well played!

Now to be fair, this never took the fun out of anything we were doing.

As I said before, we all just wanted to PLAY!

And that's exactly what we did!

We ran just as hard after whatever ball/disc/object that we were using for whatever game we were playing at the time.

Wins and Losses never mattered anyway.

When you're a bunch of kids just looking to have fun, that's how it should be.

We were all getting grass stains.

And skinned knees.

And even skinned elbows sometimes.

The skinned elbows always hurt the worst, for me anyway.

But whether it was skinned knees or elbows, or any other "playground injury" we always had the same remedy.

Wash it with soap and water, pour some peroxide on it, grab a "one size fits all" Band Aid, and get back out there!

Rain never stopped us either.

We played some of our best games in the rain!

Sliding into second base, which was a tree stump, and getting COVERED with dirt and mud because it was a downpour was considered a badge of honor!

Sometimes Devin Myette would get in on the action.

He was just a few houses down.

He was the master of riding a wheelie on a bike.

I'm serious.

I watched him ride a nonstop wheelie for a full lap around the neighborhood.

A FULL LAP.

It's still just as insane to me now as I'm thinking about it as it was when I WITNESSED IT!

Devin used to call me "Jethro" all the time.

It's a nickname that I kept in mind when I made my first email address.

Jethroman85@juno.com.

Yes, JUNO.COM.

You read that correctly.

I still use that email address to this day!

Thanks Devin!

In between Devin's house, and Josh's grandparents house, was an elderly couple.

Frank and Viola.

Viola always told us to stay out of the woods behind her house.

It fell on deaf ears.

Those were OUR WOODS.

Not only that, the the portion of the woods that we always used was technically behind Josh's grandparents house.

Just saying!

Frank would always sit in his driveway.

He needed two canes to walk.

We would stop by and chat with him as we were riding our bikes up and down the street for hours on end.

He was soft spoken, he always had a smile on his face, and he was just a very kind human being.

I always enjoyed those chats.

Of course Video Games were always sprinkled in if it was severe weather outside, or if we we in between playing games, like one of those "we'll meet back here after lunch" type of scenarios.

One game that we used a play was Forgotten Worlds.

Think "Contra", but with jet packs.

If you still have no idea what I'm talking about, Google is your new best friend.

Now if Leah, Manoli, and Niko Karathanasopoulos were over, which happened just as many times as I was over myself, and we were all playing video games, or actually any games or any type whatsoever, Leah rarely got a turn.

Why? 

One word.

Cooties.

Boys said that Girls had them.

Girls said that Boys had them.

So obviously, that meant Girls actually had them.

None of us wanted to catch any Cooties.

You learned that ON DAY ONE of the Woodland Elementary School playground. 

It was a code.

A way of life.

It was the ETHOS!

I'm not even sure if I'm using that word correctly, but I've used a few "big words" in this post already, so I'm keeping it there.

But yeah, I mean it was COOTIES! There was nothing we could do!

Alright. 

You caught me.

If I'm going to be totally honest, we were just a bunch of selfish boys that didn't want to give the lone girl in our group a chance to play.

When it came to video games, no one wanted to give up that controller.

No one wanted to "share" or "take turns", which are two "concepts" that I've never understood to this day, in fact, I had to shudder before, during, AND after typing both of those "concepts".

Now to say that Leah was outnumbered would be the understatement of the century.

I mean let's put this into context here.

If we took everyone, all of the moving parts, and made one giant group, it would look like this - Myself, Nik, Chris, Jeff, Craig, Josh, Chanze, Devin, Manoli, Niko, and Leah.

THAT'S TEN TO ONE.

She was the lone female around a bunch of preteen boys who didn't feel like sharing ANYTHING.

That's a tall mountain to climb!

BUT, she would not be denied!

She just kept coming back!

And before you knew it, she WAS playing the group games.

She WAS playing the video games.

She WAS doing everything that we were doing.

With a few.......uhh......let's call them "Minor Tweaks".

Like for example, I mean, did she actually ENJOY playing Capture The Flag where we would keep the flag on ourselves, even though that was strictly forbidden, whenever it was her turn to look for the flag, so she would never find it?!

Or did she actually ENJOY when we'd play Marco Polo but the "Fish Out Of Water" rule magically never applied whenever she was Marco, which meant that she'd always be stuck as Marco?!

Or did she ENJOY when we would play hide and seek inside, but tell her that we were hiding outside (or vise versa)?!

Or did she ENJOY the fact that whenever it was her turn to play a video game, and someone would "accidentally" bump into the game console, which would freeze the game, and then we'd tell her that it still counted as her turn, just so that she'd have to give up the controller mere minutes (if not seconds) after finally getting it?!

Now, I can't answer those questions, you'd have to ask her.

HOWEVER, she was STILL a part of the game!!

And you can NEVER take that away from her!!

Although I still don't think she ever got to play Forgotten Worlds.......sorry Leah!

Now as far as Manoli is concerned, there's one "incident" that sticks out above all the rest..

The Brook Incident.

Like I said in my previous post, we had a sledding trail through our woods that put the High School Hill to shame.

But sometimes we just used the hill in Josh's grandparents backyard too.

Now at the bottom of these hills regardless of which side you're coming from, was "The Brook".

Not a very deep body of water by any means, and pretty narrow, maybe 6-8 feet wide.

However, it's still a running body of water.

In the Winter.

Now this isn't Florida, where "Winter" just means it might "only" be 70 degrees and sunny outside, which apparently is considered "cold" to them as well, such strange creatures down there.

This is NEW ENGLAND.

Where we have all four seasons as they were ACTUALLY meant to be.

An obscene amount of rain in the Spring.

A decent amount of nice weather and sunshine in the Summer.

ACTUAL "cold" temperatures outside (it's not cold if the bugs with zero body fat are still alive) in the Fall, along with the leaves changing color, which you won't find on a palm tree.

And then.....Winter.

Where things freeze.

And trees lose all of their leaves.

And all of the bugs that are barely hanging on go back to whatever pit they emerged from. 

So Manoli went down the path.

Which had a jump at the end of it.

Because of course we built a jump at the end of it so you could clear the brook and land on the other side.....

I mean after all, we were Engineers.

And Manoli may or may not have been the initial Guinea Pig, I mean uhhh, "Unwitting Volunteer" to see if you could get enough speed to actually hit the jump, clear the brook, and land on the other side.....

Except......Manoli decided to slow down right before hitting said jump.

So, instead of even coming CLOSE to landing on the other side, he went straight down into the brook.

In the middle of Winter.

Where the water may have been running, but it was still FREEZING.

All of Manoli's winter gear, drenched.

Needless to say, none of us ever hit that jump.

Actually we probably did, but with shovels, to hide the evidence.

The bottom line is, he had a life changing experience, and he came out stronger on the other side because of it!

He was also the youngest at the time.

When made him the lightest.

Which meant he got thrown around like a ragdoll when applicable.

For example, we'd be swimming, and Nik would be like "Hey Manoli, let me throw you into the pool".

Now at this point, it didn't matter what Manoli said.

He was getting thrown into the pool.

When you're the youngest, and the lightest, it just comes with the territory!

But that wouldn't last forever, because pretty soon, someone else came along!!

And of course, that's where Niko comes in!!

Now before I tell this next story, I must tell you, I think all children can have, let's just call them "Tendencies" at one point or another.

Also, I'm not talking about Niko when I say that.

I'm talking about me.

HEAR ME OUT!!

When Niko was a child, like, a small child, he had some toys that he used to play with.

One day, I took one of his toys.

He then proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs.

Naturally, someone came to check on him.

But before they did, I gave him the toy back, and he stopped screaming.

Problem solved!

Except......I decided to turn that into a little game.

Because I had some SMALL "Tendencies".

I'd wait like 5 minutes, take the toy away, he'd scream again.

Someone would come to check on him, I'd give the toy back before they got there, and he'd be normal again.

Now mind you, I had to be like seven, MAYBE eight years old.

Not exactly deep into the "Age Of Reason".

And this was just ONE occurrence......that lasted for like an hour or so.

THAT'S IT!!

I grew out of it in 60 minutes!!

That's remarkable progress!!

I mean who HASN'T made other kids cry when they were kids themselves at one point or another?!

Right?!

Let's just call it "A Learning Experience"!

I mean that's ultimately what your childhood is anyway right?!

But even through all of this, we all had some great times as kids!

I looked forward to each and every time I'd get on my bike, ride down the street, and see what we were going to do next!

Your neighborhoods friends are usually your first friends, even before school friends.

I always ask myself "If I never went down to Sefton on that first day, would I have still eventually became friends with Nik? Chris? Josh? Jeff? Craig? Devin? Chanze? Leah? Manoli? Niko? Their families?"

And even if we did still become friends at some point, would it be anywhere NEAR as close?

NO WAY!

I literally grew up with these people!

You can't replicate growing up with someone!

But luckily for me, I DID go down to Sefton on that day.

I DID become friends with that "core group".

I DO know all of their families.

And if I could go back and do it all again, I wouldn't change a single thing!

Well, maybe I'd change the Forgotten Worlds thing!

But that's it!

I still have so many layers to peel back of this childhood story of mine!

But for now, two layers have been fully peeled!

Until next time!

Shirley Terrace!! Sefton Drive!! My Childhood!!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

I was born on this very date, October 20th, all the way back in 1985.

I grew up in the little town of Southwick, Massachusetts, on Shirley Terrace.

However, most of my childhood would be spent two streets over.

At the other end of my neighborhood.

Sefton Drive.

If I wasn't at my house, I was roaming around on Sefton Drive somewhere.

Maybe I was at Nik & Chris Savva's house.

Maybe I was at Josh Gagnon's grandparents house.

Maybe I was at Jeff & Craig Whittaker's house.

Maybe we were in the woods behind Viola's house.

Maybe we were catching frog down by "The Brook".

Maybe we were running through the mini cornfield behind Chanze Facey's grandparents house.

It was a mixed bag of Awesome.

If would give anything to be able to relive my childhood.

It was fantastic.

I read a quote a while back that said "At some point, you and all of your friends all went outside to play for the last time, and no one knew it."

I had probably woken up a good 10-15 before I came across that quote.

I wasn't ready for something so deep and meaningful before I even had my morning oatmeal!

That quote stuck with me, and it lead me to make this very post, because it hit the nail on the head.

All good things must come to an end.

My childhood was one of those "good things".

But what a ride it was!

It all started with what I like to call "Nik's persistence".

One day he showed up in my front yard, on his bike, asking me if I wanted to come to his house and play.

I would always say "Maybe tomorrow", as if I had so much going on for me at 5 years old.

He showed up each and every day, and asked the same thing.

He would not be denied.

One day I finally said "Let's do it!"

And the rest, as they say, is history!

We did everything as kids.

We rode our bikes around the neighborhood.

We made our own jumps.

We probably had a 60% success rate on actually LANDING properly after hitting said jumps, with plenty of grass stains and skinned knees which quickly became badges of honor.

We played baseball, using a bush, a tree stump, a hole in the ground, and a stick as the four bases.

We played soccer, using two sets of trees as the goal posts for each side.

We played capture the flag, sometimes using two houses across the street from each other as the playing area.

We played football, no helmets, no pads, and sure, it may have been "Two Hand Touch" ON PAPER, but we all know what Two Hand Touch football becomes after roughly 30 seconds or so.

That's the first time I got the wind knocked out of me, but I still scored on the play, so yeah, worth it!

We played basketball in the driveway, which led to many cars almost getting hit, but that was just "part of the game".

We played Freeze Tag.

We played Ball Tag.

We played SPUD, a game with far too many complex (and most likely made up) rules for me to fully describe here, but it involved A LOT of running, and dodging a ball being thrown at you, but you couldn't move your feet......good times!

We played Flashlight Tag indoors if it was raining outside.

We played Frisbee.

We played Street Hockey, and let me tell you, a slapshot to the shin from Jeff Whittaker will make you rethink LIFE ITSELF. TRUST ME.

We would roller skate around the neighborhood, or roller blade, for me personally, I prefer roller skates, I like have more stability you know?

We played Four Square in the street, with "squares" being at least 2-3 times bigger than the normal size, and that was by design. Once we went to school and played on the regulation "squares", it was TOO EASY!!

I used to literally sacrifice my body for Four Square.

I scraped my knees on the asphalt from diving for a loose ball, if my skin had a mind of its own, it would have just stopped growing back on my knees.

Whatever it took. That was my motto. That's why I'm the two time, back to back, 1994, 1995, Woodland Elementary School FOUR SQUARE CHAMPION.

Sorry, I got caught up in the moment again.

Four Square was the first thing that brought out my true "Competitive Spirit", and I've had it to this day.

There was no better rush than sending someone to the back of the line, where the only thing they could think of was "Am I going to get back into this game before the bell rings to get my revenge on Jerome?!?!".

Look kid, I did you favor, the swings are over there.

We'd go trick or treating on Halloween.

I had this TERRIBLE pumpkin "mask" that was attached to a handle with a button, and when you pressed said button, some little green lights on the mask would light up and make a few noises.

Also know as "amateur hour".

It was enough to get the candy, and that what it was all about to begin with!

Overall my neighborhood was pretty good for Halloween candy.

Everyone knows that kids will always judge you based on what you have for Halloween candy.

If you gave you Smarties, Sweet Tarts, Necco Wafers, those little candy dots on the receipt paper, or even worse, CANDY CORN, you'd probably wake up the next day with quite a few rolls of toilet paper to clean all over your house and yard.

And you'd get absolutely no sympathy from us, you brought this on yourself!

But that was maybe one or two houses out of the 40-50 houses, so that's still a great percentage of respectable candy houses.

Mrs. Whittaker always did Caramel and Candy Apples for Halloween.

It was the only time you'd catch me eating fruit all year!

Other houses had the staple candy and candy bars, you know, the ones that any self respecting Halloween Candy Giving individual would give out, I'm talking about your Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, 100 Grand, Kit Kat, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Milk Duds, Whoppers, Twizzlers, Twix, Chunky, Good & Fruity (not to be confused with Good & Plenty, your house would get about 3 or 4 dozen "egg visitors" if you tried that).

In other words, THE GOOD CANDY. I DON'T WANT A PACK OF RAISINS AND A TOOTHBRUSH.

No disrespect to raisins, I love raisins, but I love them in other things, not by themselves, and definitely NOT on Halloween, unless we're talking about Raisinets!!

We swam in the Summer.

Disclaimer, I love Swimming.

Like, I'm obsessed with it.

They used to have to drag me out of the pool to do anything else.

If the pool was open, that's all I wanted to do.

Even VIDEO GAMES took a backseat to the pool.

If you know me, you know just how much I must have loved Swimming to give up Video Games for it.

That's where I learned to swim.

That's where I learned how to go under water without holding your nose, and still no get any water up your nose.

That's where I learned how to do a Front Flip.

That's where I learned how to to a Cannon Ball.

I learned the Watermelon too, but even when done properly, you'll get a MASSIVE headache, so I always advise against it!

Then I learned how to do a Jack Knife, and its twin, the Can Opener.

But the splash still wasn't big enough.

Then........I learned it.

The ultimate splash technique.

The one that I still use to this very day.

The splash that NO ONE HAS EVER BEATEN.

It's simply called "The Babysitter".

It's so beautiful.

So elegant.

So devastating.

Speaking of "Babysitters", occasionally Nik & Chris would have a Babysitter, and, well, Babysitters pretty much get treated like substitute teachers. I mean sure, they're the "authority figure" for the time being, but uhhh, that just meant you were going to be convinced that whatever we wanted to do/were going to do no matter what would have been okay with our ACTUAL teacher, so there's no need to question/try to stop it. I mean, they all "tried" I guess, and that was adorable! Sorry for the spoilers there!!

Anyway, as I was saying!

We also used to jump off the top of the water slide.

It was a potential recipe for disaster, but of course, that's why we did it!

We played Marco Polo. We always cheated too. No one wanted to be Marco.

Marco never got to have any fun!

Myself, Chris, and Josh, also played a super awesome game known simply as...."Drop-Pedo".

Think underwater Soccer/Hockey in the shallow end of an inground pool

It was probably the best game ever.

We played hide and seek, both indoors and outdoors.

We literally played IT ALL.

And I loved every second.

Whenever Winter came around, that always meant three things, Snow Forts, Snowball Fights, and Sledding!

Our High School had a decent hill that everyone in town would use.

It was.......adequate.

But Us?

Well, we had something much, MUCH bigger.

We would go up past the woods behind the house, and we would make a path all the way down to "The Brook".

Our path was easily at least 3 times longer in length than the High School hill.

It was also steeper, and you had to avoid trees that were on either side of the path.

It also had a body of water at the bottom, so the added risk of potential hypothermia was the added adrenaline rush that we all craved!

One year me and Chris made a snowman so large, I still can't believe how we actually pulled it off, and we didn't use any "tools" whatsoever, including any help from "the adults".

It's a feat that I still look back on to this day with the utmost pride!

Winter also provided the opportunity to play more video games than the Summer.

To this day, whenever I hear the song from the first stage of "Metroid" for NES, I'm instantly transported to Chris's house, on a cold winter snow day, eating grilled cheese and "star noodle soup".

I could go for that RIGHT NOW!

That's the mark of a great childhood!

I still remember riding my bike to Chris's house, locking my bike to the telephone pole, and waiting for the bus.

I remember having a sleepover pretty much every single weekend.

We drank green Kool Aid, and ate Donut Sticks, and Pecan Spinwheels.

Sometimes I'd sleep over his house, sometimes he'd sleep over mine.

We'd play video games, watch Surf Ninjas, and eat a bunch of junk food, and build forts, all while never actually, well, sleeping.

Also, there were a few times where we'd be able to stay up even later than usual.

And that was all thanks to one name......Adrian.

Don't ask me his last name, because I couldn't tell you.

Even if you told me what it was, I'd be lying if I said "Oh yeah, THAT'S what it was!"

Now why was this name so important? 

Good question, let me explain.

Whenever Adrian would sleep over Chris's house, (along with a brother and sister that both have names of course, just not names that I can actually remember at the moment, my front runners are "Randy" and "Adriana", but don't quote me on that) it was always "A Family Affair" of sorts.

Adrian's parents and Chris's parents (and probably other sets of parents) would be talking for hours in their kitchen, playing games, catching up, drinking coffee, perhaps some tea, well into the morning hours, and that meant we got to stay up and run around and do all of the other things kids love to do, like jumping on the mattresses and having pillow fights, you know, things of that nature.

Those sleepovers were the even more better sleepovers.

We would rent the hottest games that Blockbuster Video (RIP) would have at the time.

Street Fighter 2.

Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

What's the difference?

Ummm, how about being able to PLAY as Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison for the first time.

Game. Changer.

Super Mariokart.

Rocky Rodent.

F-Zero.

Final Fight.

Super Dodge Ball, which is still one of my favorite video games of all time.

Stone Protectors, Super Spike V'Ball, Nintendo World Cup Soccer, and Castlevania IV, all courtesy of Josh Gagnon.

Then N64 came out.

Which meant Goldeneye was now a thing.

Along with Mariokart 64, which I still think is the hardest Mariokart ever made to this day.

Waverace.

Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey.

Diddy Kong Racing.

You name it, we played it.

That's where I honed my craft.

That's where I perfected it.

That's where I MASTERED IT.

It's also where Chris and I would play Forgotten Worlds for Sega Genesis, and we wouldn't let Leah play.

Also, there was no "saving your game" back in the day.

I mean a few games had a password system so you could pick up from where you left off.

Other than that, you either had to beat the game in one shot, or you had to pause it, and make sure that NOTHING OR NO ONE TOUCHED THE CONSOLE.

Otherwise the console would freeze, and you'd have to start all over.

That was my first true taste of heartbreak.

We always had a nice core group to do pretty much any activity as kids.

Add in the random "friends of friends" that would come and go, and we always had plenty of people to do whatever we decided that we were going to do that day!

This barely scratches the surface of the awesomeness that was "My Childhood".

I'll make another post at some point that picks up from here, but I'd say this is a good start!

Why I Love Pro Wrestling!!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

I'm going to tell you the worst kept secret in human history.

I love Pro Wrestling.

I've loved it since the first day I saw it.

The over the top action.

The larger than life characters.

The compelling storylines.

And most importantly for me, the killer promos.

That's what I love about Pro Wrestling.

"But it's fake"

It's a scripted show, the winners and losers of every match are determined long before the two wrestlers go out there. 

That's by design. 

But fake?

Far from it.

Come take one bump.

Take one chop.

Hit the ropes once.

You'll never say it's fake again.

Other scripted shows have stunt doubles for their main stars.

They have multiple takes to get it "just right".

They have post production.

They have "seasons".

Professional Wrestling has none of those things.

It's live, and you get one shot to get it right.

It's two people going out there, and literally trusting the other person with their life in that ring for the duration of that match.

They are trained professionals, who have honed their craft after many years of hard work.

But they are still human.

Mistakes happen.

People have been seriously injured in that ring.

I've seen people get paralyzed in that ring.

I've seen people die in that ring.

There's nothing "fake" about that.

Are the wrestlers punching, kicking, and stomping each other as hard as they possibly can?

Of course not.

That's the beauty of it.

That's where "selling" comes in.

It's a craft.

When I was a kid it was like watching a magic show.

I kept asking myself "How do they DO that?!".

Well now I know how they do each and every one of those things without killing each other.

And that makes it even more impressive.

Calling spots in the ring, on the fly, but you can't even see it, even if you're looking for it.

That's the mark of a true pro.

Then you have my favorite pro wrestlers, the talkers.

The ones who can cut a promo off the cuff.

The ones who can have an arena of 30,000 people and the millions of people watching around the world hanging on to their every word.

To every mannerism.

Stone Cold Steve Austin.

The Rock.

C.M. Punk.

"Macho Man" Randy Savage.

"Rowdy" Roddy Piper.

Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

"The Nature Boy" Ric Flair.

Chris Jericho.

Great wrestlers, and great TALKERS.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

There are so many great talkers in pro wrestling that I could write a 700 page book, and it STILL wouldn't be able to cover just how great all of them are in their own unique way.

The talkers drive the narrative.

A live microphone in the hands of the right person has the potential for magic each and every time it happens.

Then there are wrestlers who are fantastic in the ring, but unfortunately, they don't have "The Gift Of Gab".

That's where managers come in.

Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.

Paul Heyman.

Jim Cornette.

Paul Bearer.

"The Mouth Of The South" Jimmy Hart.

J.J. Dillon.

"Classy" Freddie Blassie.

They all had the ability to TALK for those wrestlers who couldn't talk for themselves.

If you had Bobby "The Brain" Heenan as your manager, you never had to say a single word.

You were a superstar just by association.

Bobby's quick wit and comedic timing were second to none, and he was an absolute MASTER whenever he had the chance to speak.

Bobby could make you look like a million bucks, even if you were only worth two cents.

So as I said before, the talkers are what drive the narrative in professional wrestling.

There are also wrestlers that are much better talkers than actual in ring performers.

But since they can TALK, they'll always have a JOB in pro wrestling.

The actual "wrestling" part can always be learned and improved upon.

But if you can ad lib in pro wrestling, you've already got a leg up.

Imagine an iconic line that you'll always remember from a movie or TV show.

That's what a great wrestling promo does for me.

It stays in my mind forever.

I know every single word from C.M. Punk's infamous "Pipe Bomb" promo from June of 2011.

If you've never seen it, even if you're not a wrestling fan, do me a favor, look it up.

Watch it.

Listen to it.

Digest it.

I promise you that after you've heard it, you'll know exactly why I love talkers so much.

Even from the outside looking in, talent can always be appreciated by anyone.

C.M. Punk made magic on that night in Las Vegas, there's no other way to put it.

Pure. Magic.

The best wrestling promos are the ones that come straight from the heart.

The ones you can FEEL.

They just take everything to the next level.

If the promo if focused on an upcoming match, now you can wait to see that match even more.

If the promo is meant to draw out love or hate for a certain character, then that is exactly what happens, when it's done right.

If I was going to sum it up, this is the best way I can think of.

I come for the professional wrestling.

I stay for the talkers!