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Doink The Clown, Rick Martel, and Chris "The Nightstalker" Kane: A Scottish Wrestling Fan's Journey
By Jamie Kennedy
Apr 25, 2009 - 4:01 PM

I’m a lot of things. I’m a percussion player and rock drummer, a try-hard singer and an avid geek when it comes to video games. I’m a drum circle coordinator in my local community and sometimes even a drum tutor. One thing I have always been however is a huge fan of professional wrestling.

My name is Jamie Kennedy. I live in a small seaside town on the west coast of Scotland, in the United Kingdom. I’ve been into wrestling for as long as I can remember. It pretty much all started by accident. Boredom when being babysat as a young kid at a friend’s house led to me routing through his vast collection of VHS tapes. At first, the familiar stuff - Tom & Jerry, Popeye, Bugs Bunny etc. Then there it was: WWF Summerslam 1993. Having never even heard of wrestling, I didn’t really know what to expect. One thing’s for sure, I was captivated by the wild images on-screen. These huge men (for lack of a better word) body slamming, suplexing, throwing punches.. It was just awesome. The wacky commentary which accompanied the action, the roaring crowd, the sheer drama of it all. Yep, I had just fallen in love. Not with a beautiful girl, but with a locker room full of guys covered in baby oil rolling around a mat in front of thousands of onlookers. I have never looked back since.

I used to get shy at school when kids would ask me if I liked wrestling, I always just really figured it’d lead to me getting my head flushed down the toilet and my dinner money being bounced off my head on a daily basis. That was then. Now, at 21 years old, I couldn’t care less. Besides - if you listen to my mother -   my head is too big to fit down your average toilet nowadays anyway. You could say I’ve grown out of that awkward “I care what other people think!” phase that comes with childhood and a liking of not getting beat up by the cool kids. The truth is, they can beat on me all they want - so long as it’s under Royal Rumble rules..

There came a point in my couch sitting, Hitman-watching career when I realised I cared more about wrestling than simply what happened on the camera. I wanted to find out more about the people playing these larger-than-life characters and even wanted to explore the people who help create them! This happened at a rather young age and led me seeking out as much information as I could. I had a friend who was a few years older than me, his parents had recently bought a PC and set-up an internet connection. In truth, he was less of a friend and just someone who had a smoking hot, single mother…WOAH! Yeah, I am kidding. This kid was indeed a good friend. Fantastic as he was though, it was the lure of potential knowledge that drew me to his house that particular Saturday. I wanted more dammit! I wanted to know exactly who it was behind the greasepaint as “Doink The Clown” who entertained me every week on WWF television. I wanted to know how these guys could seemingly (and sometimes really) knock lumps out of each other without any visible blood or injury. That first foray into the land of online was when I stumbled across a website which let me know that professional wrestling was all a hoax. Yep, it wasn’t actually real. Shawn Michaels and Rick “The Model” Martel didn’t really hate each other, it was all an act. An act which was put together to tempt fans to stump up the cash for a ticket. I was stunned, momentarily. Much like many fans of the grap-game though, this actually made me LIKE IT MORE. Hey if it wasn’t really real, think of the excitement that could be created if epic matches were pieced together! This, my friends, only made my love stronger.

I realise at this point that I’m telling most of you things you really already know. For this, I do apologise, but I can only hope this column will lead to some of you reaching far back into your past and remembering the first time you fell in love with watching wrestling. Was it the WWF with their wild characters such as Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior and the vile Earthquake? Was it the NWA and soon to be WCW with their focus primarily on in-ring action and stars such as Ric Flair, a young Sting and Ricky Steamboat? Perhaps it was even the AWA with Sgt. Slaughter, Larry Zbyszko and erm…Greg Gagne?   Maybe it wasn’t even as far back as the above examples. One of my very good friends only began watching wrestling in the glory days of the WWF’s “Attitude era”. Nothing wrong with that in these eyes, those were fantastic times. God bless you Mick Foley.

Going to an actual wrestling show was a big moment for me. My first show wasn’t the World Wrestling Federation, nor was it even Extreme Championship Wrestling. My first ever wrestling show was at the ripe young age of 13. The venue? My local town hall. The company? Scottish Championship Wrestling. I remember being so excited about it all - even if there were around 50 people there (and that’s probably being generous) and most of the guys were dressed up as wrestling superstars of the day such as Stone Cold and Goldberg. Some of the guys even had more than one match, under the guise of a different “star” each time. I remember wondering if it was all worth it for the one guy who competed as Chris Jericho in the opening match, battled valiantly as “The Nightstalker” in a hardcore match and came out with his leg bandaged and clearly in some discomfort as Kane (in a take on the Royal Rumble bout) in the main event of the evening. This dude was likely getting a little under £75 for his efforts yet he busted his ass like there was no tomorrow. Despite all the hokey-ness of it all - I loved it. I have fond memories of excitedly babbling away about all the matches to my bemused mother, then chuckling like hell when she thought I’d been drinking all because “Stone Cold” had drenched the entire front row with a beer to cap off the night. A great show, one which I’d probably still enjoy now. Even just for the real crappiness of it all. I wonder what did happen to Chris “The Nightstalker” Kane..

I could type all night as it’s really rather cool finally getting to write about wrestling. I’ve done internet writing work for several music publications and webzines. NME, Metal Pigeon, even one small (insignificantly so..) review for KERRANG! magazine. I’ve even tried my hand at humorous “internet comedy”. All with about as much success and audience adulation as a Vince Russo vs. David Arquette “Former World Champions” match. Seriously though, thank you very much for reading and I really do hope I get the pleasure of getting to rant to you all again. TAKE IT HOME!