Through the my decades being involved with pro wrestling, I've gotten to do a lot of cool things, see a lot of wonderful places and wrestle some well-known guys. I wanted to live a little glory days and tell some stories about some memorable matches and opponents I have had. Some of them you'll see on television today.

I've wrestled famous wrestlers who were in the golden years and I've wrestled guys who'd go on to be big stars.

Let's start with....

Seth Rollins - I am thankful that I got to test and sharpen my skills against much better opponents when Ron invited me to Cyberfights in Vancouver in early 2006. It may have been 2005. One of my first time flying on a plane, I flew out of Boston where I saw one of my favorites from my fan-days, Kidd USA, boarding the plane. I'd catch him on the local scene around New England. Rumor had it that WWF/WWE had been thinking about signing him to a contract. I knew I was impressed when I saw him at local events.

The list for the attendees for this batch of Cyberfights tapings was loaded...Matt Sydal (aka Evan Bourne WWE), Jimmy Jacobs, Davey Richards, JD Michaels, one of Honky Tonk Man's favorite wrestlers - Scotty Mac and a few others I'm surely forgetting. All the guys looked like TV wrestlers and far more traveled than I was at just 19 years old. Hell, I was still wet behind the ears. I was still very green and not even close to as polished as I would become. It was obvious that I was out-classed. 

Seth Rollins was on the indie scene but I had heard his name and same his game... whether it was the MTV wrestling show "Wrestling Society X" or "Ring of Honor" or some VHS tape I had of some mid-west wrestlers from Highspots or RF Video. 

SIDE NOTE: How great at chain wrestling was Alex Shelley? That guy was too sweet.

I may have wrestled Seth Rollins twice but the match I remember is the 2-on-1...myself vs. Seth Rollins and his friend and tag team partner, Marek Brave. The guys went OVER THE TOP with the schtick and the match we had was the classic good guy vs bad guy 2-on-1 story which breaks down with me getting my chance to get offense on the bigger opponents. 

Seth Rollins seemed a bit full of himself..and rightfully so. He was around his friends and I know sometimes when I'm around my friends we get a little too full of ourselves, too. He was very confident and was straight-forward about the wrestling he wanted to do.

A fun note about this match is that we all have the same brand of wrestling boots on. If you look close you'll see it. A fan from Houston named Jim was keen on getting pro wrestlers into nice boots and trunks. Over the years, I've seen many indie wrestlers sporting similar boots thanks to the support of Jim.

It's wild how life works out...and if you asked me when I was growing up if I thought I'd ever have a match with the WWE World Champion, I'd tell you......of course...It's my destiny.

Tito Santana - Now, I didn't really watch Tito Santana growing up, but I most definitely knew who he was. I did also got to catch him here and there at indy wrestling shows and conventions over the years, but we never really interacted. As a grew up in the wrestling scene, I found that I enjoyed watching Strike Force. They were a great tag team and I wish there was more to see.

With that said, my buddy was running an event way up in Northern Maine like on the Canadian Border. I was riding my prime years and I was asked if I'd like to wrestle on the event against Tito. Hell Yeah!

Tito was great. Probably one of the easiest matches I've ever been in and the crowd was into it. Some people have their routine down and they know it...and, well, you just stick yourself into that match role. Anybody can really fill the role of the opponent. Some matches are that plug-and-play with the big names.

Tito never really let on if this was his routine because when we were planning the details of the match, he made it seem like it was a team effort. He took my opinion, thoughts and ideas into consideration, so it felt as if we were doing this together. If that's not the case (and even if it is), he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met in the wrestling world. 

I messed up during the match by rushing a moment we had planned...the old hand shake trick. I thought we had reached the right point for the twist and began to attempt the evil dirty heel kick to the gut, but Tito thought otherwise. I can't remember if the camera caught it, or if in my head it just felt bigger than it was, I just remember feeling inferior (and rightfully so) to an absolute better wrestling performer. 

I had such a fun time in that match. It's amazing being in the ring with someone who is so good that you are just playing around having fun.

Bushwhacker Luke - I was surprised when I got the call. I used to attend wrestling events at the same Civic Center where this next experience happened. I also competed at the State Wrestling Championships in thie very same Civic Center as a Junior and placed 2nd. I almost threw up due to nerves of wrestling in such a big arena. My coach had to talk me into walking out for the initial introductions. So I'd say this was my Home Arena and it was on the Bucket List.

I knew these events usually drew in pretty big crowds, especially for those years of wrestling when it was far less popular than it is today. I had gotten used to wrestling on smaller events 40-50 people to a couple hundred as the standard fare. This event had nearly 1000 fans in attendance.

I don't recall if I knew ahead of time that I was gonna be wrestling Bushwhacker Luke, but it was an exciting revelation since I was actually a fan of the Bushwhackers during their time in WWF. I even had the action figure!

Around this time, Bushwhacker Luke was wrestling at Ring of Honor a little bit, so it caught me a tad off-guard when he wanted to do a more ROH-style match than the standard WWF routine I grew up on watching him do. 

I remember discussing what we were gonna do in the match and the Nasty Boys (Jerry Sags & Brian Knobbs) razzing Luke saying "It's a house show. Just do a house show match." Implying this was more of a family fun-day experience than a hard-nosed wrestling audience. But that wasn't what Luke wanted to do and when a lot of the old-timers (no disrespect intended) go out on the indy wrestling circuit, they kind of mail it in and stick to the easy stuff. 

I recall a Diamond Cutter being involved. I believe I was taking the move, but if you told me I gave it to Bushwhacker Luke I'd believe you. That seems wild considering my opponent was about 25 years older than I am now and that would terrify me thinking I'd have a rough few days getting out of bed. That dude is a tough son of a bitch.

I also remember hitting him with a very snug clothesline that kind of surprised him when it landed. I wasn't trying to hurt him or deliver it with malice...and he didn't mention anything about it after. Again, he's a tough son of a bitch!

I wish I could track that match down as it's a wild fond memory.

Davey Richards - I'm not sure how to start a story with Davey Richards. He's probably the only guy I know to hit a Shooting Star Press off the top rope in an underground wrestling setting. He was very intense...in a good way. When a lot of wrestlers were just playing around, he was taking it serious. He had a lot of clever moves, too. 

We wrestled at the Vancouver Cyberfights taping and this is the year that I believe he won the Super 8 tournament for the ECWA. To get out of the local wrestling bubble at that time was great. I would watch the top indie wrestlers from around the world on DVDs and VHS tapes and now I'm able to wrestle with them.

I was no means even in their level, but being able to sharpen my skills against MUCH more talented and capable opponents was a welcomed experience. I wish I would've been less shy and more open in my younger years around this time. I think I could've spread my wings earlier in my career and found myself across the ring from even more all-time greats.

Almost Finn Balor - Last but not least...I ALMOST wrestled WWE Superstar, Finn Balor. I had to miss an opportunity to wrestle him at BGEast in the 2005-2007 range while he was over from Europe doing some local pro wrestling. I think Matt Stryker was also wrestling at the same tapings. I remember hearing from Jonny Firestorm & Paul Hudson about how good "Fergal Devitt" was. 

I think he was floating in and out of Japan starting to build some buzz around himself.

A couple fellow New England pro wrestling friends met Finn Balor at the NWA Convention in Nashville, I believe. It could've been the one in Winnipeg. I didn't go, I wish I had. Again, it's hard to leave a small pond for a big pond. Anyway, they were very impressed with Finn Balor and wanted to book him on some shows in Maine. 

I recall being told I'm going to be wrestling Fergal Devitt at an upcoming show during his time in New England. The promoters were negotiating the booking price. Unfortunately, they couldn't agree on the booking fee as Fergal wanted $50 for the event. That seemed very reasonable to me as he was driving up from Boston area, so 2 and a half hours each way. There was another time those didn't want to pay Johnny Curtis aka Fandango $20-$40 to be on an event. Wrestling is a funny business.

So that night instead of wrestling Finn Balor, I wrestled another English guy. I still had a great time wrestling the other British guy and I thought we had a good match. I got to sharpen my skills against someone from a completely different part of the world. That was fun....but sometimes I wander what would've happened if it had been Fergal Devitt vs. Cameron Mathews.

Leave some comments below, please. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this type of blog post. Should I do more? Do you have any favorite opponents of mine? Any matches you'd like to hear more about?