If you look over all the different wrestling promotions that existed in So. Cal from the mid 90’s to the 2000’s, you will notice one name that basically wrestled for all of them, Edward “Mr. Excitement” Brown. Known to his friends as Ed, Mr. Excitement, as his name implicates, brought a high level of energy every single time that he stepped into the ring.
One of the originators of the Exploder Suplex, his career had several highlights, such as winning the 2002 Revolution J Cup (beating Super Dragon in the finals), winning the Rev Pro Mexican Heavyweight Title, challenging for the PWG tag titles, and also being a major part of the “Rudos Dojo” that made Rev Pro one of the biggest success stories in the history of So. Cal. Over his two decades in the business, he has made numerous friends, many who have moved on to bigger promotions, but none of them ever forgot the man known as “Mr. Excitement”.
Over the years, his travels have taken him from So. Cal, to Mexico, to Japan, and everywhere in-between. He has fought and teamed with such names as Super Dragon, Joey Ryan, Blitzkrieg, Rocky Romero, Scor pio Sky, TJ Perkins, Lil Cholo, the late Rising Son, Scott Lost, Disco Machine, TARO, Donovan Morgan, and hundreds of others. In my talks with those who have worked with him over the years, every single person I asked about him had nothing but the most positive things to say about him.
It was my honor to sit down with the man and go over his career, his inspirations, his friendships he made over the years, his high points, his memories while working with Rev Pro, and much more. I also managed to chat with some of the people who worked with Excitement over the years, and shared their thoughts and kind words as well.
Roy – What are some of the promotions that you worked for during your career?
Excitement – I worked Rev Pro, PWG, Osaka Pro, AWS, MPW, CCPW, UPW, GSCW, APW, XPW, lots of lucha feds, including WPW of course, some offshoot AAA and CMLL stuff with Ron, some worked shoot show. I also worked for EPIC Pro. Paul T (Paul Tokanaga, who worked for Inoki and managed Nosawa in XPW and passed away a couple years ago) wanted me for UFO also. I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot as we did tons of obscure things.
Roy – If you were to credit any one person, school, or a group as your “trainer”, who would you list?
Excitement – As far as training goes, we trained with the Lucha guys at WPW. Adventure was a name I remember off the top of my head. Buddy Landell, Manny Fernandez and some other retired guys gave us tips and showed us some basics. After our first official match 11/7/1994, Two Cold Scorpio gave us a 50 minute pep talk/seminar/life lesson about the business. Also Chris Benoit saw me naked in the shower and made conversation. Without sounding foolish, we learned a lot through trial and error or on our own. Also New Japan had the dojo that Simon Inoki ran. On a personal note, I’d boxed, wrestled and had done martial arts all prior to pro wrestling. Los Luchas came to RevPro training and shared a lot of great stuff with us as far as technical aspects of Lucha and we shared the strong style, which we were all huge fans of, and some American psychology. Like I said more on-the-job training than anything else and just having a few key guys here and there pointing us in the right direction.
Roy – Is Puerto Rico your legit birthplace or is that a gimmick?
Excitement – I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. For short time and I mean a very short time I was billed from Athens, Geo rgia and had more of the southern gimmick but after that I was billed from San Juan, Puerto Rico rather than Aguadilla which is where my family’s from only because San Juan is the capital and is more well known.
Roy – Where have your travels in pro wrestling taken you? Like, outside of So. Cal, where have you gone to wrestle? Name all states (and countries) that you’ve wrestled in.
Excitement – Japan, Mexico, NorCal, Central Ca, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten some.
Roy – If I were to ask you to list some of your favorite opponents over the years, who would come to mind?
Excitement – Los Cubanitos were very stiff which was right up my alley. Our first encounter was somewhat of a stiffing contest as they were out to test me. Afterwards, they were forthcoming with the fact that it wasn’t personal and we wrestled often and worked well together.
AXP (Aerial Express) were students at the RevPro Dojo and were fun to wrestle because they were such a cohesive tag team and were willing to learn and try new things.
Los Luchas were both students and teachers in the fact that we had an open exchange of techniques between strong style and lucha.
RockNES were fun and I got to work them for M1W more or less on my way out from wrestling full time. Kevin Martenson is an incredible wrestler and we ran training at M1W together. YUMA is legendary at playing video games and being a great dad!
Arrogance were PWG champs the times I worked them and Chris Bosh and Scott Lost brought it. There was a reason they were champs for so long. Bosh was a RevPro student but had really stepped out and established himself. Lost was always innovating his arsenal and willing to sacrifice his body to put on entertaining matches to watch as well as be a part of.
Super Dragon always brought out the best in me when we’d beat the hell out of each other. We had many matches and probably cost each other countless brain cells with the ridiculous head drops and stiff strikes we would exchange.
Disco, Excalibur, Taro and I had so many fun matches. Being able to train with them, there was a level of trust that allowed us to damn near kill each other on occasion.
I enjoyed wrestling with and against Angel. I often felt he made it very easy to get the crowd behind us with his gimmick, but he could work the Lucha and American styles well.
Ronin was a favorite opponent because he’d seen me wrestle often and was another fan of blasting me with forearms to get my blood up for matches.
Hook Bomberry was always good for strong style matches.
The Ballards were fun also and reinforced the work smarter not harder ethic which prolonged my career.
I believe at times I was able to motivate Joey Ryan to have actual athletic wrestling matches which was nice.
I wrestled B Boy and Lil Cholo often as well.
I worked Peter Avalon once which was fun. He was a former student as well and I could already feel that he would be a solid worker even back then.
Again I’m sure this is an incomplete list.
A quick and funny anecdote about one time &nb sp;I wrestled Frankie Kazarian for GSCW. I remember JUST winning Rev J Dos and going on a long winning streak. The promoter was too afraid to ask Frankie to put me over and I told him I’d handle it. I walked up to Frankie and we BSd for a little bit and then as I’m about to walk away I asked him so what do you want to go over with tonight? And he said what do you mean? And I answered you should be the one going over since you’re the big draw it only makes sense and then I said how about the one man Spanish fly? And he asked are you sure? And I said “it’s a simple flip bump off the top rope and you’ll be controlling me. can’t take that I shouldn’t be in the ring. And he said “TREMENDOUS!” During the match with Frankie Kazarian, he grabbed a flashlight from security guard and shined it in my eyes and I sold it for a near fall.
Roy – I remember you watching a lot of tapes years ago. Who were some of your favorites to watch in the ring? And when you got into the business, did you try to pattern yourself after anyone specific?
Excitement – Growing up in New York, my dad would take me to MSG in the late 70’s to mid 80’s. From the WWF I was huge into Piper, Snuka, Hogan and when Dynamite came along I lost my mind. When Savage was in his “number one free agent” stage he was amazing. Steamboat vs Savage was great and still holds up. In the NWA I loved Dusty and hated the Horseman.
When I came out to live in LA, I fell in love with Lucha Libre the very first time I saw it on tv! Atlantis, Super Astro, Lizmark, El Dandy were my favorites. Getting to see them live so many times was truly a treat as well.
A friend of mine watched a NWA/WCW show with NJPW guys Hase/Sasaki vs the Steiners and that match cemented my love for Japanese wrestling. I was still in high school at the time. Afterwards, my friends and I would travel several times a week to Little Tokyo to eat and visit J Wave to rent tapes! It was like a drug for us. We started reading “the Observer” and trading tapes as well. My favorites were the main All Japan guys because they had epically stiff matches. Especially Misawa and Kawada who were friends from high school just like the guys that I broke into wrestling and I were Blitzkrieg/Blazer/SuicideKid/AWC (American Wild Child/Ron Rivera).
As far as my style man I really liked Misawa, Hase and Akiyama.I really like the way those wrestlers threw suplexes and I got into shoot and worked shoot styles as well. The cruisers or junior heavyweights were inspirational as well. From Lucha, I guess the technical side and the flow from arm drags, dives and flash pins. The firing up, over the top characters and storytelling from the American style. I was huge into Pancrase as well. Bas Rutten is probably my favorite martial artist not named Bruce Lee. In fact I would do the splits early in my career after winning a match just like he did.
Roy – You mentioned being born in Brooklyn. Where did you move to when you came to California?
Excitement – Originally I moved to Whittier where I met Blitzkrieg and Suicide Kid and then to Orange County where I met Hellblazer and AWC.
Roy – Where did you end up coming up with the ring name “Mr. Excitement”?
Excitement – Tom Jones, Jackie Wilson were known as Mr Excitement…James Brown also I believe. I think we just spontaneously came up with it.
Roy – Take us back to the night of your pro debut at the Ice House in Fullerton. Here you are, debuting in the opening match on a show headlined by Chris Benoit and 2 Cold Scorpio. What was going through your mind that night and would you do anything different about that night, if you could?
Excitement – My exact feelings are hard to recall. I remember leading up to the show, we were all going to college or high school in Blitzkrieg’s case. Hellblazer and AWC were booking which meant constantly calling 2 Cold and Benoit. They were incredibly smart because “Cuando Los Mundos Chocan” was scheduled and 2 Cold and Benoit were already in town, so no flights or hotels had to be paid! Genius. At the time, they were 2 of the biggest stars in the world NOT working for WWF. I remember that Suicide Kid (brother of Blitzkrieg), Hellblazer, AWC and I all went to college that morning which included boxing and a weightlifting class along with the science lab and a math class for me and then we went to the venue started getting things set up the ring chairs all that. I think we went in the ring rolled around stretched out several times for pre-match jitters. I think once everyone showed up and start coming to the back that’s when it all suddenly set in. When the main eventers got there it was surreal.
< p style=”margin:0px 0px 1.2em;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1.5em” dir=”ltr”>As history shows, we went out and opened the show with our first match and went about 25 minutes! So ridiculous and ignorant on our parts but we didn’t know if we’d ever wrestle again. In reality, much of our early careers were spent doing crazy things and going out there and having OUR matches. After the debut debacle, 2 Cold called us over and talked to us about “less is more” and general tips and great advice. He didn’t have to do that but I think he saw how much we loved wrestling at that point in our lives and was trying to save us from ourselves.
Roy – What was your reaction back in 199 9 when you heard one of your best friends in the entire world, Blitzkrieg, was going to start wrestling full time for WCW?
Excitement – We were all super proud of him. We all sat down to watch his debut on WCW I helped him get in shape a bit and kept him company via phone calls on the road.
Roy – Rev Pro was truly something exciting and, well, revolutionary at the time. What were some of your favorite moments from the promotion and did you ever think it would have taken off the way that it did?
Excitement – Was that supposed to be “punny”? I truly believe that because we were all friends and brothers, we were able to transform our mutual love of wrestling into something bigger than any one of us could have achieved or imagined individually. I think we all wanted different things from wrestling whether they were big goals like going to the big leagues or simply blowing off steam training and wrestling.
AWC had a good business sense in terms of trying to create something that appealed to fans across the board.
Super Dragon had his finger on the pulse of what defined exciting wrestling in the ring. Rev Pro was our punk band. We had the attitude of busting out asses to make shows happen. We wanted to go out there whatever show we were on and have the best match on the show. Whether it was putting in time in the gym or ring or watching tapes I think that we took it seriously.
I know that Disco worked tirelessly behind the scenes to print flyers, run the website to generate business for the school as well as set up multiple cameras to tape shows. My favorite thing about Rev Pro was the camaraderie. We would always have fun on road trips acting foolish, having adventures and enjoying ourselves. The wrestling was almost secondary to the hanging out and spending time with each other. Often times shows became simply an excuse to get together when our grown-up schedules got hectic. Things that happened in matches became inside jokes as well as the cast of characters that we encountered during our time wrestling.
Roy – Take us back to the Revolution J tournament back in 2002, where you beat Super Dragon in the finals. What were your feelings going into that, especially since you lost to him in the quarterfinals the year before.
Excitement – Dragon and I were more or less teaming up against AWC and his partner of choice for much of our matches together. However when I became champion, Dragon had injured his knee. When he returned, struck out on his own and joined up with Disco Machine and Excalibur. TARO, Rising Son and I faced them in a six man and I wound up pinning both Excalibur and Dragon earlier that year.
Much like the first Rev J, I was excited to be competing again because we were so into “Skydiving J”and “Top of the Super Juniors” tournaments from New Japan. At the time I was very immersed in wrestling and enjoying it extremely. Being able to have a singles match on the first Rev J with Super Dragon was fun because we were able to work our style in front of a crowd that was more informed and knowledgeable about what we were trying to do. Remember at the time the Rev J was innovative and prestigious even though it was only in it’s second year. I believe the Rev J 2 wound up being my first singles victory over Super Dragon.
Roy – Is there anyone that was a part of the So Cal scene that you never got a chance to wrestle in the ring that you wish you did?
Excitement – Short list Ray Rosas as well as PPRAY as a team. Singles against Kevin Martenson, Ryan Taylor, El Generico. SoCal Crazy.
Roy – What were some of your favorite venues to wrestle at throughout So. Cal?
Excitement – I liked the Stockton Civic Center but that’s in central California. The crowd was huge and I remember there was a stage and a balcony. That show had Pirata Morgan vs Vampiro. Morgan lost lots of blood and needed medical attention after their match. Vampiro was getting crazy glued up and looked at me and said “how’s that for stiff?” I’m pretty sure he was alluding to the fact that during our six man with AWC,Hellblazer and Yakuza v Blitzkrieg, Super Dragon and myself, we stiffed each other and beat the hell out of each other for about 15 minutes straight. There was also an incredible moment where Santo was s itting there in his full gear including his cape smoking a cigarette.
Frank and Sons was fun because it had a lot of room to roam. The original Rev Pro dojo was intimate and it was easy to feed off the crowd especially since we were all just starting out.
PWG’s “SweatBox” and JCC were filled with rabid fans and they brought the energy to inspire great wrestling.
Disco and I wrestled on a cruise ship traveling on Osaka Harbor!!!
We wrestled for XPW in the Valley and the theatre they ran at was cool from what I recall.
“The Garage”forAPW had the crash zone and the crowd was right on top of you, so you couldn’t pull punches or they’d call you on it.
Roy – 11 years ago, you worked for Osaka Pro in Japan, going on tour with close friend Disco Machine. Tell us more about that experience.
Excitement – My dream was to wrestle in Japan and in 2004 that dream was realized. I’d had an opportunity in ’95 to go with Hellblazer, Suicide Kid and Blitzkrieg. In retrospect it was fortunate for them that I didn’t go because I was able to send them care packages of food, protein and other things to help them survive the 3 month long tour.
At the time, it ate at my spirit because I had missed my chance of wrestling in Japan with the friends I h ad broken into the business with. To this day I’d love to have a 3 month long tour in Japan on my resume but it was not meant to be.
Disco and I wound up becoming good friends with Kikutaro from when he, Nosawa and Sanshiro Takagi worked for Rev Pro. So he hosted us when we went to Japan for several weeks. We wrestled 11 shows in 14 days for Osaka Pro and we could have had a couple of more bookings. Again, wrestling paved the way for us to realize a mutual dream, but it was the adventures and not the wrestling which we the highlights for me. I’ve got lots of good stories from that trip, including fans following us around and singing Disco’s theme music, playing baseball for the Osaka Pro team, and school kids mistaking Disco for George Clooney . It was a great tour and there is nobody I’d rather have experienced it with!
Roy – Who are some of your favorite wrestlers to watch in the ring today?
Excitement – I’m biased man. Lots of my favorites are friends of mine or guys I’ve spent time getting to know out of the ring.
Sami Zayn, Adrian Neville or Kevin Owens from WWE for example are guys that frequented PWG and I became friends with. The Young Bucks actually came from RevPro which most people don’t know. TMDK from EPW is Perth are a great tag team. Christopher Daniels is STILL kicking ass. I like local guys like Ray Rosas, Kevin Martenson and Scorpio Sky. Ryan Taylor is fluid and athletic. He not only is a good wrestler, but he has the aesthetics to look the part. Peter Avalon is a guy who has come along way to become a very enjoyable wrestler to watch.
Of course this doesn’t take into account guys like KENTA, Marafuji, Tanahashi, Okada, Nakamura from Japan. I also forgot Antonio Cesaro and the recently retired Daniel Brian.
Roy – Thank you for your time in answering our questions. We sincerely appreciate all the years of blood, sweat, hard work, training, and everything else that you gave to this business. Any last words you wish to add?
Excitement – When you enjoy something as I enjoyed wrestling, it was a pleasure and privilege. I’m happy to have been able to contribute and be a part of something I was so passionate about. Hopefully my influence was positive.
…
I also managed to contact many of the friends who have know Mr. Excitement throughout his career, both inside the ring and outside as well. Here’s what they had to say –
Disco Machine – I can’t heap enough praise on Ed ‘Mr Excitement’ Brown when it comes to wrestling and, more importantly, as a great person and a friend. Ed was one of the first people I connected with in Revolution Pro. We bonded immediately with our passion for music, sports, humor and appreciation for the history and craft of professional wrestling.
Ed was always in stellar shape and has inspired me to improve my fitness. Early on we became ‘gym rats’ when it came to wrestling training. Together we always had great chemistry and meshed well in our singles and tag matches. We constantly collaborated, critiqued ourselves, studied videotapes and strived to do more in the ring.
A few things that I always admired about Ed was the fact he could have a match with anyone (big or small) and that he was so free with passing on the years of knowledge he had. Those traits, as I learned later, are so rare in wrestling. Many people could have a good match, but would never have the ability to tell you how or why they did certain intangible things. He definitely improved every student he trained with and alternately could compete at the highest level with the most seasoned pro.
I will never forget our early days wrestling in parking lots, swap meets and garages. But I’ll always remember how those experiences led us on the path to wrestle in Japan, Hawaii, Lucha VaVoom and for the PWG Tag Team Titles together.
Cheers to my friend and my favorite wrestler…the Caribbean Tiger, Mr. Excitement.
¡Viva Puerto Rico!
(Disco Machine was a regular for the Rev Pro promotion throughout it’s existence, going through their Rudos Dojo, and later fighting for PWG, Wrestle Society X, M1P, XPW, AWS, EPIC, and toured with Mr. Excitement in 2005 for Osaka Pro in Japan)
Blitzkreig – I love him and his family He’s treated me like a brother and his mom treated me like a son from junior high school on. We once skateboarded from Huntington Beach to La Habra
(Blitzkreig started in So. Cal in the 90’s, and ended up working for the WCW promotion in 1999 and 2000)
Scott Lost – Meeting Ed/Mr. Excitement back in Rev Pro, he instantly became a person I looked forward to talking to at the shows. You’d think the first thing we bond over was Pro Wrestling itself, but it was actually comic books and martial arts. Those conversations led to a friendship long maintained after our pro wrestling careers were done. Now we’ve gone onto our other passion of making comics. I couldn’t have asked for a better writer and friend. Instead of traveling the indy circuit of pro wrestling, we now travel the indy circuit of comic conventions. One carney life to the other! As the golden girls would say, thank you for being a friend… and I don’t bring that up because we’re both old as dirt.
(Scott and Ed work together on a comic book called “The 2nd Shift” and were also tag partners)
Rick Knox – I remember Mr. Excitement as being one of the few wrestlers from Revolution Pro that wasn’t a masked character I remember working with him at Federation such as PWG I remember working with him at Federation such as PWG, APW, GSCW and he was always the consummate professional and a very hard worker very dedicated and very polite and respectful in the locker room.
(Rick Knox is one of the most well known referees in the business, especially known for his work in Lucha Underground, PWG, AWS, and almost every promotion in So. Cal)
Lil Cholo/Mr. Cisqo – Ed is a good guy and was always fun to work with
(Lil. Cholo is a long time staple of the So. Cal scene and currently also wrestles as “Mr. Cisco” for the Lucha Underground promotion)
Human Tornado – Mr Excitement helped trained all them future kids like Scorpio Sky, Johnny Paradise, myself, Candice LaRae. Him and Disco once wrestled on a boat in Japan. One of the reasons I wanted to wrestle in Japan.
(Human Tornado was another staple of the So. Cal scene, from Rev Pro, to WPW, to PWG, and everywhere in-between)
Adam Pearce – Mr. Excitement was always a positive locker room guy, and fun to be around!
(Adam Pearce is a current trainer at the NXT Performance Center in Florida and was a regular back for Rev Pro in the early 2000’s)
