Dan Crocker
Dan's Personal Homecoming
By Dan Crocker
Oct 4, 2005, 16:35

It was August twelve, nineteen eighty and nine. It was the height of popularity for the Leadwood World Wrestling Federation, or LWWWF. Since Leadwood only had a population of about 1000, there were only three top tiered main-eventers in the fed. There was the behemoth and perpetual champion, Bob Bingaman, his brother Jay and myself. Jay was my best friend and tag team partner. We had held the tag team straps for nearly two years. However, it was Bobby who ruled the roost. Although Bobby brought in a new “special” tag team partner every week, he never had any luck. There was Ron Bridgeman who had submitted during an “anything goes” match when I stuck his fingers into a metal fan. There was Tommy White, all the way from Irondale, Missouri, who had given into the might of Jay’s stomach claw. Even Henry Mills, six years our senior at 22, had been pinned after a leg drop at two hours and thirty one minutes into that epic battle.

Despite never getting his hands on the tag belts, Bob had won the heavyweight belt on the opening day of the fed and had never even come close to dropping the strap. Well, two weeks before that fateful August day, Jay and I hatched a plan. See, Bobby had a title defense coming up against Jay on 6/12—a day when their parents would be out of town. It was to be a cage match (basically, we’d take all of the furniture out of a room and the first person to escape was the winner). It can be a very dangerous match, so Jay and I figured we should soften Bobby up the first chance we got.
I got a call from Jay. “Man, my parents just went grocery shopping, put on your gear and get over here!’

My gear consisted of a pair of sweat pants. I was at Jay’s house in no time. Bobby was in the shower so while we waited we did squat thrusts to warm up and then we hid in a big walk-in closet in Jay’s living room. The shower stopped running. All was silent. The bathroom door squeaked open and suddenly the house was shaking underneath Bob’s thunderous footsteps. When he finally made it to the living room, Jay and I pounced like cougars. Surprised, Bob was on the ground in no time.
“It’s time to go to school, Daddy! Whoooooo!” I managed to get Bob’s tree-trunk legs wrapped into my most deadly offensive move—the figure four. Bob writhed and screamed in pain. Jay took to the top of the couch and extended his arms, both hands flaring the oh too familiar Elvis/Snuka “I love you” sign. Again and Again, Jay rained hard elbows down on Bobby from the top of the couch. Bob, once immortal, lay lifeless, his shoulders flat against the floor. Still I applied more pressure. Still the elbows fell from the sky like birds shot dead in flight.

“Are you boys crazy!”

Jay and Bob’s mom had come home.

Of course, Bob would get his revenge. About a week later, I went to see Jay. What I found was shocking, if not unexpected. Jay was down--face first in a bowl of Purina puppy chow. Bobby had jumped him outside of his parent’s bedroom, Pile-drived him, and left him face first in a pile of bloody dog food. (a pile driver went a long ways back then).

“Jay?” I shook his lifeless body, “Jay, are you OK?”

Finally, Jay came around. He looked at me, eyes glassy and wet. “I’m hurt,” he said. “You’re going to have to take the title shot.”

I knew what I had to do. Those next few days I trained harder than I’d ever trained in my life. I rode my bike to school and back. I ate Grape Nuts for breakfast. And, of course, I did squat thrusts.

The day arrived. We cleared Jay’s bedroom of all furniture. His parents were in St. Louis for the night. There was no way we were going to be interrupted. This match had no rules and no time-limit. There was going to be a winner. Two men were going to step into the cage and only one man was going to step out. And that man would be Leadwood World Wrestling Federation Champion of the World! Whoooo!

Bobby and I circled each other. He was four feet tall, 560 pounds of pure meanness. His fingers were like polish sausages. His head a mutated pumpkin. We locked up. With the force of a bulldozer, Bobby threw me to the ground. He didn’t even go for the door. He was toying with me. We locked up again. Same results. He smirked as he imitated my imitation Ric Flair strut.

“Not so tough without your partner, are ya big guy?’

The next time around, I summoned by best Kamala and delivered a sound karate chop to the top of Bobby’s head. Unfortunately, Bobby had a head like Crusher Blackwell; it could hammer nails. And it was at least the size of an old pick up truck tire. My pinky snapped like a twig. My hand throbbed with pain.

I realized I’d have to work smarter, not harder. This time as Bob tried to lock up with, I ducked underneath him and dropped kicked him from behind. As I had planned, his bulk carried him forward and propelled him into the far wall. Whooooo! I opened up the bedroom door. There stood Jay with a look of hope in his eyes. Finally, our revenge. But, although Bobby was big, at least 650 pounds, he was quick as cat poop on a hot July day. He grabbed me from behind and spun me around. The next thing I knew, Jay was closing the door again (part of the official LWWWF rules) and I was being lifted into the air for the big body slam. I felt my back practically snap as I was thrown into the unforgiving carpeted floor. But it wasn’t over yet. Bobby cackled. Pure evil. I knew what was coming, THE BIG SPLASH, but I was helpless to prevent it.

Seven hundred and ninety five pounds of pure diabolical genius came crashing down on top of me. Every rib in my body cracked. I couldn’t breath. Bob played his own referee and gave me a ten count, slapping his meaty, Frisbee sized hands onto the floor. He was only proving a point. He knew he couldn’t win that way. He had to walk out of cage to keep his belt.

Bob slowly peeled himself off of me. He chuckled lightly to himself as he gave me a sharp kick in the ribs. “Neither one of you punks will ever beat me,” he said as he began to make his way toward the door.

Now, up until this point, I had never believed in Hulking up before. I considered it, even then, a cheap gimmick. But something came over me as I lay there thinking of Jay, in his neck brace, standing outside the door ready to raise someone’s hand in victory. My body, independent of my brain, began to convulse. My ribs and pinky seemed to be healed. I felt no pain. Bobby looked on in horror before turning back toward the door and running for it as fast as his stubby, powerful legs could take him. But he was too late, I was on my feet. Bobby’s baseball bat like fingers had just touched the door handle when I made it to him.

Now, the door had a hook to hang coats on, although I’d never once seen a coat hung there. The hook itself was made of titanium and as sharp as a razor blade. I grabbed Bobby by the hair on the back of his head, pulled back like cocking the hammer of a gun, and let go slamming Bob’s head into the coat hook with every bit of force I could muster . . .

Some say an old lady down the street went blind that day. Some say at least three bitches in town gave birth to two-headed pups. Still, others remember it as the great August blizzard of Leadwood, Missouri that dropped three feet of strangely pink-tinted snow onto the ground. I remember Bobby’s eyes opening wide, like a guppy brought shockingly out of the water. I remember his arms flailed out to his side like Jesus on the cross. I remember Bobby falling backwards, in what seemed like slow motion, in one, final, Nestle plunge. When he landed every window on the block broke with the force of their own rattle. I said, pointing to the dump of flesh before me, “There he is! There he is!” And I walked on out of the joint, Leadwood World Wrestling Federation champion of the world. Jay couldn’t have been prouder as he strapped the cardboard belt around my waist.

………

Epilogue #1.

A week later Jay turned on me and challenged me to the championship in a regular match. In what was my first brush with called spots, Jay whispered, “Let me put you in the back slide like Kerry did Flair. I’ll let you kick out at 2.” Of course, Jay didn’t let me kick out at 2 and I lost my belt.

Epilogue #2

When the three of us were nearly thirty, we got into a heated debate, over a few beers, about who had actually retired LWWWF champion. The record books were a bit fuzzy on that. So, we decided to have a tournament to settle it once and for all. We drew names out of a hat and it was decided that the first match would be between Jay and Bobby. About thirty seconds into the match Jay started seeing spots in front of his eyes and nearly every muscled in Bob’s body had cramped up. I reckoned about the same would happen to me, so we just said to hell with it.

E-mail Dan at:

Dan@WorldWrestlingInsanity.com