This is the return of the SCU mailbag. We haven’t done one of these in awhile; I think Adam Pearce did the last one, so today I’m just going to answer some questions that I’ve gotten by e-mail or private message recently. All questions regarding Jay Cal’s whereabouts and what Andrew’s problem is have been omitted.
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A guy on Facebook [name removed] is claiming he was the booker for GSCW and it was the most successful fed in the early 2000s. Is that true?
GSCW was run by Henry Luna, and later had involvement by APW when it became APW LA. Henry had a ton of people helping out in one way or another, and I don’t recall if the person mentioned was involved or not, though it was entirely possible. It’s also possible he had some involvement in booking the undercard, at least early on, but the main storyline, the SoCal versus NorCal angle that was so hot there was mainly Super Dragon, B-Boy, and APW.
As far as if GSCW was a success or not, I’d lean towards not really. When it started it ran at the Anaheim Marketplace and hardly drew any paying fans. I was at one show (which happened to be SoCal Val’s debut as well) where there was 40 people in attendance, and I believe less than 10 paid. After it moved to Newhall and began booking Super Dragon in their main events the attendance increased a lot. Having Super Dragon and B-Boy facing top APW guys like Bobby Quance and Jardi Frantz was the real draw. The heat for those matches was incredible. GSCW actually had the 2002 and 2003 match of the year.
GSCW made a deal with APW and then became APW LA, which actually turned people away, as for various reasons some people did not like APW or Roland Alexander at the time and some people didn’t like the direction. The shows were good, but attendance dropped and they could only keep the SoCal versus NorCal feud going so long (also changing your name to that of the NorCal fed shows who really won). They eventually died off when they ran a charity show and kept the money.
Did they have some really good matches and a super hot angle? Yes, but they couldn’t sustain it and didn’t last long. They didn’t win promotion of the year or finish runner up in 2002 or 2003 either, so even at the time people didn’t think they were in the top 2 feds in SoCal. If you have a chance though, check out the Super Dragon and B-Boy vs. Jardi Frantz and Bobby Quance match and Super Dragon vs. Bobby Quance from GSCW. They’ve held up pretty well.
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What was more impressive, B-Boy winning wrestler of the year in 2002 or 2015?
B-Boy winning it last year was pretty impressive, having been around so long and still performing at a high level, but I’m going to have to go with 2002. Indy wrestling is a lot different now than it was 14 years ago. If you are a great wrestler, chances are people will see you on YouTube and a bigger promotion like ROH, New Japan, TNA, or even WWE is going to notice you and sign you. In 2002 there was none of that. WWE had a certain type of guy they were looking for, ROH was just starting, there were some opportunities for guys to go to Japan but not like today, so that meant locally there were some really great wrestlers working regularly. One of those guys was of course Super Dragon, who I felt was one of the best indy wrestlers in the United States at that point. 2001 through 2004/2005 was Super Dragon’s prime years. In fact Super Dragon won the 2001, 2003, and 2004 SoCal wrestler of the year award, and had the match of the year every year from 2001 through 2004 as well.
For B-Boy to win the wrestler of the year in 2002 he had maybe one of the best overall years in Southern California since the end of the territory days in the early 80s. He won wrestler of the month 5 times, which I suspect is a record (no one has won it twice so far this year), compared to Super Dragon’s 3. He finished 2nd two other times and was ranked every single month. He also had the match of the month five times as well. Other nominees for wrestler of the year in 2002 were Samoa Joe, Frankie Kazarian, and Vic Grimes too. Just based on how great B-Boy had to be in 2002 to win it, I give that year the nod.
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How come you never talk about such-and-such fed not paying wrestlers after a show?
I’d talk about it but either I didn’t know or no one will go on the record and say they didn’t get paid. Occasionally people will mention they didn’t get paid for a show but unless they agree to go on the record there isn’t a lot I can do. In some types of stories I’m OK with anonymous quotes, but not for that type of story, especially since I’ll always try to get the other side of the story from the promoter I don’t think it’s good to go to them and say an anonymous person is claiming they didn’t get paid.
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I was looking through some old articles on the site and I saw one where people were excited that there was going to be 10 shows over the month in SoCal. There are some weekends now where there are 10 shows. It is crazy how indy wrestling has exploded.
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We have a few more interviews setup right now. If there is anyone you think would make a good interview let us know and we’ll see what we can do.
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We will have live results and reports up from Battle of Los Angeles this weekend. Be sure to follow @socaluncensored on Twitter for live updates.
