In August of 2000, the Eastern Wrestling Alliance performed a free show in Gorham Maine during a family fun day. This cost the promoters a couple thousand dollars. The trade off was that the EWA would then get to use a Gorham school for free to do a show that would be heavily promoted the next month. Nice trade off, I think.

After the Gorham show, I decided to stir up a little heat on the internet. I went onto the EWA website and logged into the forum. As I had done several times in the past, I began a tirade against wrestling fans, their hygiene, breeding, and education in order to get the internet fans ticked a few weeks before the second Gorham show was to happen. I also attacked the town of Gorham, as I've found nothing works better to get under the skin of a redneck like mocking their hometown. I finished my rant, clicked "SEND" and sat back content with a job well done.

Flash forward to Sept. of 2000. I come home one night and listen to my messages. On my machine is my friend/wrestler Frankie "Mr. Muscles" Armadillo. He is laughing hysterically, and wants me to call him back and tell him what I told the Portland Phoenix to piss off the Gorham School board so badly. The Phoenix is a local city/culture mag, like the one they have in Boston. I listen to the message again. What the hell is Frankie talking about?

After a confusing conversation with Frankie, I gather that there was an article about the EWA in this weeks Phoenix, and apparently I said something that caused the Gorham school board to call the EWA owners and leave them very, VERY angry messages.

What the hell is going on?

The next morning I finally grab a copy of the aforementioned rag, and open it to the article about the EWA. Now, you know when magazines take quotes and enlarge them in a box, to draw the reader's eye(I'm sure there is a name for this, I just don't know it, so there)? Well, there in the middle of the article is a quote saying...

"If Windham is a pimple on the buttocks of Maine, that would mean that geographicall and socially speaking, Gorham would be the actual bunghole of Maine." Dr. Everette Payne, Founder and Director Of The H.C.I.

Oh, I laughed. Did I laugh. I suddenly remebered typing that gem into the EWA forum some two weeks before. Also in the article, it quotes me as calling Gorham "A Xanadu of incest, beastiality, and illiteracy" among other things. My initial reaction was surprise.

What I couldn't understand is why the reporter NEVER spoke to me, and just pulled things I had said off of the internet. Throughout my workday, I just kept chuckling to myself and this absurd situation.

I had no idea the weirdness had just begun.

That night I get home to find out that the Gorham School board was cancelling our upcoming show, which would cause the owners of the EWA to lose their investment from two weeks prior. Now it was no longer funny, just irritating. The EWA owners told me not to worry, they didn't blame me (which had never crossed my mind), that they would explain to the school that the reporter never even spoke to me, and the whole thing was a misunderstanding. I went to bed feeling better.

The next day I was called at work by one of the EWA owners to inform me that indeed Gorham would not back down, and the show was still cancelled. In fact, the Gorham School board told the EWA that they, and especially DR. Payne would never be able to perform in Gorham if they had anything to do with it.

Now I was PISSED. The Owner told me that he would talk to the phoenix and get this smoothed over. "No, Dr, Payne. Don't bother sending them an angry letter, I'll take care of it. Don't worry."

The next week I open up the next issue of the Phoenix to find a new article.

This article, named "Banned In Gorham" was more or less what I just wrote. Unfortunately, some things were different. See, in the Phoenix, after the explaination of what had happened, I saw something that absolutley stunned me. There was a public apology from me. And not from Dr. Payne. There was a quote about how I felt badly that I caused all this, and the quote was attributed to me, as in MY REAL NAME as a Portland resident.

WHAT!?!

I called the EWA owner and asked him why in the fuck my real name was being used, and not just used, BUT QUOTED. He gave me a line of B.S. about protecting the business, and he didn't think I'd care. I told him that I thought I had made it painfully obvious to him that I was not sorry, and in fact was ticked off at Gorham and the Phoenix, and now him for lying to a reporter. I asked why the reporter never called me, and he said that he thought it was best this way. I told him that I quit the EWA, and to lose my number from his phone forever.

Now that I was retired, I thought it would be over. Instead, I start getting calls from people I hadn't seen in forever telling me they read the story and thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Then when I told them that I had yet to actually speak to a reporter, most people understood my anger.

What didn't help is that the story gained legs. The next week, another Portland "culture" mag, The Casco bay Weekly ran a short story about the goings on, again, never speaking to me, but using my real name.

Then I started getting e-mails from people who were forwarding me online articles from various wrestling websites around the country that were talking about Dr. Payne being a champion of the 1st Amendment, school boards over-reacting, how far should wrestlers go to get "heat", etc. Then people argued about the situation in other chat room and forums. I still had not spoken in person to anyone about this!

Then one day I get home to find a message on my machine. I recognize the voice, but can't completely place it. The speaker then identifies himself as Chris Cruise of World Championship wrestling. Of course I recognized the voice. He was a commentator for one of the top wrestling promotions in the country in his time.

I called back the number he had left, and had a very nice half hour conversation with him. He told me that he had grown up in Maine, and liked to read up about the goings on up in this part of the country. He had read the story about me, and looked my number up in information, and lo and behold, he had the right guy.

He told me to not take it personally, and how in hindsite it would all be humerous to me. He also told me to get back into wrestling, how if I made it through this bullshit, nothing in the business could bother me. I thanked him and hung up.

In the interim, the owner who had used my name and gave a quote had since been fired from the fed, so I decided after more kind words from some of the boys to re-enter wrestling two months later.

About nine months ago, I was at a local bar I frequent and was just shooting the shit with the doorman, whom I had known for two years. I had never told him I was in wrestling, but actually mentioned it that evening.

"Hey, did you ever meet that guy that got like, banned from Gorham?" was his first question.

I proceeded to tell him what I've just told you.