Welcome to the third part of our amazing interview with former ECW, WWE, WCW and TNA star Crowbar. In this part, Crowbar discusses his time working with Ring Of Honor, his favorite of all time matches, and more. You can read part one and part two here if you haven’t already.
Question: Most recently you appeared during a battle royal at ROH Free Enterprise
in 2020, before Covid grounded the promotion. Were there plans for more
appearances in the company at the time? And is it somewhere you want to
wrestle again?
Crowbar:
ROH was a pretty cool experience after being away from anything mainstream for a while. I really appreciated not only the opportunity but also that ROH allowed me to really be creative and showcase my “faction” which I have had the idea for many years on a grand stage. Prior to ROH, the only promotion that really allowed me to showcase my new gimmick and entourage was Luke Hawx and WildKat wrestling. In the ring, ROH gave me the green light to combine technical and high flying wrestling with a little outside the ring hardcore-esque stuff, which I’ve always been a fan of, to create a mix that was acceptable to their audience. In addition, ROH allowed me to integrate traditional “character stuff” revolving around my entourage, which made for a different type of story in that environment and for that particular audience.
I appreciated ROH allowing both my wife, who portrays my valet, and good friend “Percival” the opportunity to experience performing at a “big time” wrestling event. As is said prior in the interview I was introduced to my wife shortly after WCW, and we have enjoyed working together on independents over the years, bonding over our love for this crazy thing we do, and I’ve bounced ideas off her about this gimmick for years. It’s a pretty cool story: I met “Percival” (independent wrestler Adam Payne @World_o_Payne) when he was a NON WRESTLER believe it or not. One day he walked into my facility as a patient. Adam came in for treatment, and in the weeks that followed we formed a great rapport and friendship. He was a huge wrestling fan and a HUGE human being! I referred him to a wrestling school that was very close to his home. Adam is also a US army veteran, and after he had trained enough to do a match, Adam and I wrestling each other became a staple on many NJ independent shows that were fund raisers for veteran organizations.
I always had the idea that this faction would have an attendant / bodyguard / etc. that would interfere in my matches, and who could be a tag-team partner as well. Adam has a very unique look and he is able to hold his own in the ring. He’s hands down one of my favorite opponents in recent memory. It was originally planned for me to wrestle PCO at Unauthorized – however, plans got changed. I’m hoping to have the opportunity to tell that story and work with Pierre in the future. Right now, I have no dates to return, but I’m always open to returning. They have an amazing roster and there are many guys there that I would look very forward to working with either as a singles or as a tag-team with “Percival”.
Question: What does 2021 and beyond hold for yourself? Where can fans expect to
see you appear next?
Crowbar:
This whole character doing promos, memorandums thing, whatever you want to call it, was a COVID experiment. I LOVE wrestling, I believe I am the world’s biggest fan of this crazy thing I do and suddenly, my passion was taken away from me. There were no more shows – so, even though I was never a “promo guy” or a “talker” I decided to toy around with doing promos because it could give me an outlet to still do something wrestling related when there were no shows going on.
When I first popped up on social media a few months prior, I was met with the question from many younger fans with ”who are you Boomer?” So I decided to do what I thought was going to be a one-promo fun experiment entitled “Who are you Boomer” just for a creative outlet. It was seen by Cody Rhodes and he responded “WHO?” – which in turn put a lot of eyeballs on the promo. I got a very good reaction and good feedback, positive and negative (from those who shoot bought it), and that success prompted me to do more. So a huge, HUGE thank you to Cody for commenting and egging this on (probably without even knowing it) – which ended up being extremely therapeutic and a lot of fun during COVID lockdowns. Whether he (Cody) knows it or not, he’s played a huge role in this evolution.
Again, I was never a “promo guy”, my previous characters never called for me to be a “promo guy” and I didn’t realize I had any kind of a knack for it. I had no idea that I could satisfy my passion for wrestling by doing these promos until events opened up again. It was also really cool learning a new skill (I shoot and edit these myself so that I can produce them whenever an idea slips into my head). I had done work with GOPRO wrestling’s crew, who are absolutely phenomenal, but with COVID, meeting up was difficult and public guidelines seemed to change often. Because of this, I realized that if I wanted to produce content at will and without assistance – I had to learn a new skill. I learned to shoot and edit these promos myself so that I can now produce them whenever an idea slips into my head. You can see a definite evolution in the promo style, as well as the editing, from “Who are you Boomer” to the current ones – it’s pretty cool for me look back and watch the evolution. It’s been almost 14 months, I’ve commentated on current wrestling issues always taking the “traditionalist” standpoint – making me a natural heel to the younger fans and a baby-face to many older fans, proclaiming their thoughts and point of view. Ironically, there’s yet to be a promo cut on a wrestler or for an event, but I look very forward to it!
April brought a surprise last minute booking for the ECWAs Super 8, and June brought a GCW/JCW event where I was able to wrestle with RSP. Both events showcased my ability to still be able to “go” and work a modern style that fans enjoyed. There have been some really cool conversations that have come from this “Covid experiment”, that probably would never have happened had it not been for these promos / memorandums. And while I am not at liberty to say at the moment, I can simply say for fans to keep their eyes peeled for ‘When The Time Comes…’
Question: What are your 3 top matches of all time that all fans should go and watch?
Crowbar:
Vs Eddie Guererro (independent match, listed as Eddie Guererro Vs DevonStorm)
VS Sabu in a cage from the WWWA
VS The Wall 3/1/2000 – featuring the best chokeslam ever in wrestling
Question: Who is your all time favourite opponent?
Crowbar:
It’s impossible to choose just one, as each one of the following are in that spot for different reasons – professionally and as a fan or both: Eddie Guererro, Sabu, Joey Janela, Chris Candido, Jerry Lynn and Terry Funk. While they were not 5* matches, some of the most FUN I’ve ever had was in the series of hardcore matches for the WWWA with the hands down nicest guy in the business (possible the planet) Norman Smiley! Love that guy!
At this time i want to give a huge thank you to Crowbar for working with us to put together this series of Interviews. You can follow crowbar on Twitter @wcwcrowbar
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