Unknown: This is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting more beautiful than pro wrestling when it's done right in the most simplest of terms, professional wrestling is a beautiful combination of acrobatics and Broadway and theater performance and cinema performance and sports and like choreography, it's just it's pro wrestling is so many different things that it's so hard to pin down one definition.

It's a story as old as time.

You know it's not the big guy against the little guys triumphant.

You want to see a hero beat a villain.

Every emotion you have you get pulled out of through pro wrestling.

Pro Wrestling, to me is this may sound cliche, but pro wrestling, to me is everything I've ever wanted.

Think West Virginia wrestling fans are the greatest in the world.

Part of that, I think, comes from our culture.

Our culture in West Virginia is one that lends itself to the professional wrestling story lines that if you cheat, if you are a bad person, you're not supposed to win the people who are good and honest, hard working, good at their craft, those are the people who are supposed To succeed, not the cheating, lying, manipulative rule breakers you This is an old saying that you can go to any tree in West Virginia and shake it, and 10 wrestles will fall out of it.

We are so abundantly blessed in West Virginia, just tremendous, tremendous homegrown wrestling talent.

That guy with the face paint was cool.

The cool thing about chance profit, what a marketable look.

I mean, you want him on your flyer, that's why he looks so good.

It's why everybody wants him on their shows.

And when the bell rings, he's going to deliver one of the better matches of the night.

He can do crowd interaction.

He can get them to hate him.

He can get them to love him.

He's one of the true masters of the game, Bishop.

Bishop's great you look.

What I like about Bishop's character is he's just kind of that scumbag heel, and that's always like classic wrestling trope, but he does a really good job of it.

He's got the look Casey.

It's another guy who's a reliable hand on your show.

The confetti gets over big time with the crowd.

Nobody sees it coming, and it's always a surprise, and it is like the perfect mixture of skill and comedy in the ring.

Micah, definitely one of my, like best peers, is she just beats the crap out of people in the same way I do.

I'm like, how am I even gonna announce Huff?

Manly, you know?

So now it's one of my favorite ones to announce Huff manly, you know?

I yell it because everybody knows who he is, and the more I get to know, the more I share his passion for wrestling.

He has respect for the stuff that came before us.

Noah Ray, who perhaps the most believable of all, heals huge guy.

Looks like he's mad, looks like he doesn't like anything, and he's really hard to beat.

Noah, the most believable in the pack right now.

And I think there's a few people now who are admiring Noah the same way he admired Shane storm walking and when he was coming up, Shane storm will never be gone as long as Noah Ray is in the ring Troy Parker.

He came in ready first day of training like he showed up.

He was like, Oh, that hurt, but I think I'm good.

And like, reps, reps, reps.

He has a work ethic like nobody I've seen in this area.

Troy Parker is my first character, and hopefully, if everything goes correctly, Troy Parker will be the only character I would need to have.

I'm not too fond on like, doing something that isn't authentically me.

It's just me but one of the most extreme versions of me, whether that be my the funny side of my personality or my anger or my my athleticism, it is me, whatever exponent you want to use so much more.

Character's name is Casey King.

Squeaky clean.

Casey King, well, the squeaky clean character is something that I have been developing for the last almost a decade in wrestling.

You know, you never really find yourself in wrestling.

You're always evolving and always constantly changing who you are as you find yourself.

And I wanted to be something different.

And wrestling is an activity that ugis In the cheese mode, right?

Like it's Macho.

I wanted to be the complete opposite.

I wanted to be the guy that came out who's giving people hugs, and I wanted to just have fun and be different than everyone else that stand out.

The moment I wake up, I think about pro wrestling.

I think about cutting a promo.

I study, I tape study all the time for pro wrestling.

So pro wrestling is literally my life.

Heel is a bad guy.

Face is a good guy.

So a heel is someone who's supposed to make the crowd hate them.

Face is supposed to make the crowd like them and rally behind them.

You should hate the heel so much that you want to rally behind the face and see them kick his butt, and then when he kicks his butt, you're like, Heck, yeah, my favorite kick to bad guy's butt.

I personally like wrestling more as a heel.

I feel like I can relate to that character a little bit more.

I'm a little rough around the edges.

Personally, I think my image, my demeanor, comes off more like a heel.

You know, I'm a brawler type.

When you see me, it's character work, Bishop Baylor's character work.

I get the crowd going.

And honestly, I think that's what wrestling is anyway.

Bring psychology is sort of like a heart.

That's the hardest thing to learn as a wrestler.

It's as soon as you hit the curtain, it's even, you know, backstage, even trying to learn your character, what it's, what's, what he's, he or she's supposed to do what they're not supposed to do, stuff like that with no array.

A guy that may not be the smartest guy you've ever met, but if he gets a hold of you, it's trouble.

You know, you might be able to out think him.

You might be able to be a little faster than him, but you're never gonna outwork no Ray.

And it's kind of fun.

You know, most jobs you don't go in trying to make and people hate you.

So it's something that I find more enjoyment being a heel, I'd say, and globally, people to enjoy wrestling.

You don't even have to speak the language to be able to watch a wrestling match and easily follow the story.

I mean, that's, yeah, it's hard to export some things with tons of dialog, but with a wrestling match, anybody can, it's easy.

It's easy to see who the bad guy is.

It's easy to see who the good guy is.

I like being a face, just the crowd interaction, just hearing their roar when I come out.

It's great, although, you know being a heel is great too, when they boo you and stuff.

But I just like that roar of them cheering for me so Micah as a character and as who I am.

It's me turned up to 90, and when I go out there, I'm louder than life.

People wear my merch.

People know who I am.

Me as a hill.

I'll see a kid, they'll say something to me, and I react to that to them.

And it's like there's no better feeling that you you have that crowd in the palm of your hand.

You can control them just by doing simple stuff.

I mean this in the bottom of my heart, I've been doing this for 23 years, and whether you do me or cheer me, and I say this with awesome series in the bottom of my heart, I hated every single one of you come up.

Single one of you, you see him light up like, Oh, my God, he's he's talking to me.

And so that's, you know, as a hill, I'm doing my job as a human being.

I'm like, Oh, they're having a good time.

I like that.

I am a 26 year veteran of professional wrestling.

Like, as soon as the music goes I generally just get in the zone and just try to make sure that I'm 100% chance and 0% Joey, because if I go out there as myself, I'm a pastor, I'm a father of four, I'm very mild mannered, but, yeah, I'm very much the opposite of who I am out there.

You got to have your own thing.

You got to be different.

You can't go out there and look like every other guy that's on the show with you, whether you're a quote, good guy or a bad guy.

You want to get a reaction from the crowd.

If you just get silence, you might have some things to work on.

I love to give people hugs, and when I do my entrance, people won't give me hugs, and by the end of the match, they're getting up and wanting to hug me.

I mean, that tells me that, you know, they like wrestling a little bit more than they did eight minutes ago.

Wrestling here in Appalachia, it's honestly my favorite place to wrestle.

They care about the entertainment more than anything.

They're really stuck on story lines as well.

You don't remember who, necessarily, but like, who was scary, who was cool?

What?

Who had cool music, who did cool moves.

So it was just you wanted to go back, like, oh, I want to go see the guys do that again.

That was a good show.

Every promotion you go to, no matter where you work here, you're gonna get love from the crowd or you're gonna get hate.

If you're a good heal, you're gonna get good heat, and they show it.

The independent scene of West Virginia is broad.

It's different each of those promotions, no matter the level of quality or the frequency.

You know, they each have their niche.

They each have their place.

You.

Overworking.

We still have a little bit of a territory system.

In a lot of ways, in West Virginia, it's a part of, in a way, Charleston, A has the same vibe the pro wrestling conquest brings.

ASW is definitely more small town vibes, but they always pack out those shows because, I guess those people build a personal connection to what that brand represents and the things that that brand puts forward.

West Virginians care about.

West Virginians there's like ASW runs primarily in the coal fields and in Madison, and conquest runs in Charleston, and then a real shoot wrestling runs in the Parkersburg area.

So there's still this territorial system, I feel like, more and more in the last few years, the promotions tend to be a little less territorial, a little more willing to work with each other, to give the promoters around here their flowers.

They they know what the fans want, and they deliver it consistently.

Props to the guys too.

They're creating something that the fans want to see, because, again, they do want to see the older style stuff.

I first became acquainted with Gary in 2004 Gary wanted to grow all star wrestling into something that was really powerful in the state and in the independent wrestling scene.

Gary Damron, well, I am the owner, promoter and Booker of ASW, w, w, w, as much media as you possibly can.

We plan things out, sometimes a year in advance for where we want things to go on the show.

So it's a lot of it's pointed out and they just put together.

We say, Okay, we're doing the show and we're doing a match, and that's it.

Wrestling can be brutal or it can be funny within minutes of each other.

So how do we get there?

It can be athletic, or it can be all entertainment driven.

You always try to go and where you want to be at and then kind of Rewind.

It can be storyline based.

It can be anything.

So that's how you do storylines.

Yeah, it's a great formula that Gary uses.

He's had that formula the whole time.

It works, and like said things with Gary, he truly cares about ASW.

He wants it to be a great show, and he puts his heart and soul into it.

So that's kind of what we do.

We?

We don't want to get complacent.

You always try to mix the matches up, you know, you gotta, if you can, have a no DQ match, have a singles match, have a tag match, have a girls match, you know, kind of mix it up a little bit to to get a good flow of things and have something what they say, as they say, for everybody, they're looking, they're listening, they're adjusting.

They're taking everything in as the you know, fan response, paying attention, whether they like something or not, and adjusting accordingly.

And I think that's why the fans keep coming in.

They keep filing in more and more every show, because they realize they're being listened to.

Wrestling is very much a team sport, without the promoter giving us the opportunity, without us working together, instead of working against each other.

It's about you making me look good, making me making you look good.

I never wanted to be a talent on the show, and I was like, well, we'll do it this one time.

You know, I saw I go out and on that particular show, I did a spot with one of the heels at ASW Shane storm, where what led to the match was they had taken one of my collectible items and destroyed it Didi trash.

Was going to get revenge for me.

I was going to be their manager.

But in the match, I got a spot where I got The Body Slam Shane storm, i Oh, my God, the it.

And when that happened, the whole building, because they weren't expecting it, you know, they never seen me do anything like that before.

So the whole building erupted.

And that was a very memorable and I loved it.

And ever since then, I was like, hey, I want to do this again.

Let's do it again.

I think it probably goes back to certainly early TV days in the area.

Go for a body plus you would have pro wrestling from Beckley, or pro wrestling from Parkersburg or wheeling or Morgan, or wherever it is.

And that would get the local communities into it.

And then as as it kind of blew up and became this, this pop culture thing, and you started seeing, you started seeing it on big TV.

You started seeing it on cable.

The show was on W, i y, and remember the first match that I watched, big boy Williams is from somewhere in the state of Virginia, who gives us the pride of Lebanon, Virginia?

And I was just blown away.

I was like, you know, and these guys are coming out there, and the bad guys are running their mouths and render savages.

That's all he's after.

Is this.

His ego is so high that wants to be known as the best, the most vicious wrestler in the world.

We'll choose that is a cow.

And I was just blown away.

I was like, these guys are coming out there, and the bad guys are running their mouths, and the good guys are telling them what they're going to do to them, and they're not going to let them cheat and crush your body slamming.

Lanny is outside of the ring now.

It's always been there for me as a form of entertainment that's never let me down.

And so that's that's why I love it.

These people were superstars.

It just became really easy for generation after generation to share that it's good guy versus bad guy.

Gives you drama, gives you comedy, gives you all that wrapped up in one.

It's great.

It's a family thing for me as well.

My uncle was Big Bob McCoy, and he was one of the pillars for West Virginia wrestling.

Without Big Bob McCoy, there was no Danny Ray, and without no Danny Ray, there was no Jamie Noble or chance prophet.

I wanted to carry it on.

So, you know, you see these first, second generation wrestlers, and I was like, I think that big Bob's legacy needs to be carried on, and I'm the one to do it.

West Virginia has a reputation all over the United States.

Is one of the best crowds, whether it was the Crocketts running here and now from the top rope, he drops it.

We're WWE running here.

It has a great reputation.

Growing up, I didn't know there was like such things indie wrestling, because whenever you're young, you just see what you see on TV.

It's very therapeutic for me to wrestle in front of the West Virginia fans, just because of how passionate they are.

We run in a town that is very How do I say kind of old fashioned.

They they still believe down there, and that's wonderful.

And we have a lot of fans, even adults, that believe.

You know, hey, these guys really hate each other.

Pro Wrestling is an escape from reality.

Everybody's stressed out about something.

Wrestling lets you shut all that off and dive into a whole different universe and just enjoy it.

It's a nice breath of fresh air because it's different.

They want to see that older stuff.

They want to boo the bad guys and cheer the good guys, you know?

So brings wrestling back to its roots.

There are no second takes in pro wrestling.

There are no stunt doubles.

So in that regard, I think it's more real than movies and more real than television shows.

And, you know, people say, Oh, it's fake, but them, surgeries aren't fake.

I don't like, I don't like fake predetermined.

Sure.

Call it that all day long.

I mean, it's entertainment.

I love the wood fake because it is, and if you don't think it is, you're doing it wrong.

But it's entertainment, and I think it's the greatest form of entertainment on the planet.

And I think you can go and you can tell stories and get people invested, just like any TV show can.

Pro Wrestling is just a very physical part of entertainment, the vibes here are like no other.

West Virginia is a wrestling state.

Through and Through, it's hard to say what makes West Virginians love wrestling so much.

Part of it might be our underdog mentality.

Part of it might be why, how we've been talked down to or looked down upon by pretty much the rest of the world for our whole lives.

I think we particularly have experienced some hard things economically growing up around here, you maybe didn't have very many forms of entertainment.

There's fans that you can count on being in the front row at multiple promotions every single show, their mortal enemy, just as much as it is the guy in the ring, they're just as mad as if they walked he walked up to him to slap their grandma.

They're mad because that's their best friend in the ring that they've only met three times.

We're from Appalachia.

There is something inherent in West Virginia culture that wants to see the good guy win and the bad guy get his comeuppance.

And so culturally, I think professional wrestling speaks to us as a people, on a very deep level.

They'll use these terms that like let you know that they're watching entertainment, but somehow, at the same time, simultaneously, they're buying all of it.

It's fascinating.

It's really cool.

Then you'll have the ones that .. And I love proving them wrong, making them think that everything that's going on is not a part of the script.

Because, oh my gosh, why would someone do that?

But when it comes to pro wrestling, you get to give back and and it's very reciprocal.

And in West Virginia, they give it back in spades, they've got their blood pressure up.

You can see them about to lose their mind.

Then afterwards, and they come up.

And they're not supposed to, thank the heels, but they'll come up.

Hey, kid show, that was a really good match.

Thank you, man, I appreciate that.

There's a lot of people that don't like pro wrestling because it's, you know, it's fake, it's, it's still real here, you know, like, some fans are in on it, but most of the time you go into West Virginia, and whatever town you go into, they buy into it.

They believe everything that is happening, and that's beautiful.

But the fans, especially in West Virginia, they really, really, really stick to, like the K fave.

K fave is the belief.

Well, I'd say it's a the far fetched belief now that everything within professional wrestling can be retained, can be kept a secret, can be kept behind closed doors, keeping K Fave would be, oh, if I just wrestled you, and you're the good guy and I'm the bad guy, making sure no fans see us eating together at the Denny's because that's breaking K faith.

Think it's an escape.

You know, especially, especially down south, maybe the economy is not great.

They really don't have a lot of extra money to spend on on entertainment.

And, you know, independent wrestling, it's relatively cheap, and it's two two and a half hours that they can get away from whatever problems they have at home, whatever problems they have in everyday life.

It's just two and a half hours to escape, to enjoy yourself, to get away where you can just enjoy and watch and not have the worries of the outside world or whatever it is you're facing at home.

Maybe they say, I can't come to this when I don't get paid until Monday, I say, we'll just come on down.

We'd rather have you as a not have you things like that.

There's not a whole lot of things that that really cover that broad spectrum, that you can take your mom and your dad or your sister or your kid or your friend to and everybody has a good time.

There are a lot of relatable elements in the everyday techniques of professional wrestling that we acknowledge, that hit home with us, that are completely relatable.

There's just as many people who see themselves in the bad guys as those who see themselves in the good guys.

Chances are we see a little bit of ourselves in almost all the characters, and that's what makes them relatable.

On the other side of the curtain, we cheer for each other.

Everybody's lifting each other up.

Everybody wants everybody to get better.

And I can tell you, 85 90% of wrestler he's seeing, WWE and aw started in the Indies, so they started from the ground up as well.

I think we're going to see more opportunities for the guys from here.

There has always been talent here.

However, I think right now may be a better time, certainly, than what I can ever remember.

And if there was a better time, I just didn't see it.

And I think that all comes back to chance, profits, power, same academy, the students that chance has been turning out are just really, really talented.

And not just good for West Virginia, but they're good on whatever level you would put them on.

There's a lot of really good talent here, and a lot of guys that are willing to put in the miles and put in the bumps and the years to do it if necessary.

West Virginians don't take no for an answer a lot of the time.

Like, especially if it's something we want, like, we're gonna work hard for it.

And I definitely got that, that from this area, the hard working drive until you get it done, mentality.

I've definitely gotten that.

I've had cars break down.

I've had I've had just things go wrong leading up to shows and big opportunities, and the mentality of, if I don't do it, who's gonna always takes over, and I always make sure to find a way to do it.

Have you heard about all these guys that are coming out of West Virginia right now?

Have you heard about Troy Parker?

You heard about Micah coming out of West Virginia?

You heard about Huff Manley?

The more that happens and the more people will start to take notice.

Those three aren't just some of the best wrestlers in West Virginia, they're some of the best wrestlers in the country and the world.

I put the top end of our talent up against any state we can hang with anyone else.

Next year will be my 30th year being a promoter.

It's been a been a long, long 30 years, but I've had fun.

I've enjoyed every minute of it.

So gets stressful sometimes, but what we have in West Virginia is super special.

We're really we're hitting gyms here.

I was taught by Bobby Blaze to leave it better than you found it.

And so I've tried to go my whole career and do that.

I've tried to i.

To impart that on the boys and girls that I've wrestled, the boys and girls that I've trained.

When I'm not having fun, I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk away, and I'll be happy with that, like, ultimately, when I'm it's all said and done, I want to be able to come back to the places that I started in, and I want to say, hey, the dream you have in your head right now is possible.

It's on the other side of a lot of hard work, but it is possible.

I want, I want to be able to build up the West Virginia wrestling scene, especially for the next generation of wrestlers that comes through.

Because it's, it's not easy, traveling six hours to go north, five hours to go south, three hours to go west this then so many hours like there's only so far east we can go.

The next crop of talent in West Virginia right now is, truthfully and honestly, stunning and amazing in every way.

And I'm not just saying that because I'm a part of it, but as far as you know, wrestling goes, I've, you know, made some good friends that I believe will be with me, you know, hopefully until the day I die.

So just leaving the dream, there's a lot of fans that go to all the shows they'll go to every one, every weekend they're somewhere.

And that's cool.

That's cool.

I hope they continue to do that.

Four posts, three robes, 12 turnbuckles, the apron, the mat, some slabs of wood and some cabling to hold it all together underneath.

And next thing you know, you've got a wrestling show.

I am the eight bit kid, Huff, manly.

You see, I was asked, you know, come up here, get in front of this little camera.

This is a chance for Bishop Baylor to shine 275 pounds of the fastest, hardest hitting athlete in the entire state of West Virginia.

I want all the fuss about me, and you see, I'm gonna get my way, because I watch PBS, and I know that this is brought to you by viewers like me.

Take care of business by any means necessary.

The name Troy Parker will ring out through households everywhere, and before you know it, at your dinner table, it's gonna be there too.

But when you step in the ring with no array, they don't call that a dream.

They call that a nightmare, and you can take that to the bank.

Yeah, y'all learn to flip on the switch.

I gotta calm down now.

So this is the promo.

This has been a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

You.