My first steps "in the business"

With pro wrestling no longer on television in New Zealand, I had to look for other ways to maintain my interest.

As luck would have it, during the mid 1980s a group of locals who had wrestled mainly on Steve Rickard's undercards formed their own promotional group - the Australasian Wrestling and Martial Arts Association - in the Wellington area where I was living, with the aim of running their own shows. I was able to join this group, starting out writing press releases, helping putting the ring up, and any other odd job that needed to be done.

The "head wrestler" with this group was Bruno Becker (pictured above with the New Zealand Heavyweight Title - photo taken by myself for AWMAA publicity purposes), who had wrestled extensively around the world, and through him I was able to start learning more about the international scene. I also began subscribing to various international fan club publications - Dave Meltzer's "Wrestling Observer" newsletter being the most prominent.

It was during this era that I also met, and struck up a friendship with New Zealand wrestling historian Dave Cameron. I spent several weekends at his home, sleeping in the wrestling room under his house, and reading up as much as I could about wrestling around the world. (The picture above of Dave and I in his wrestling room is from a slightly later period, but it gives you a small snapshot of how jam-packed his room is with all sorts of wrestling goodies!)

Eventually an opportunity to referee for AWMAA opened up - I was now able to get "in the ring"! Like most small independent groups around the world, AWMAA had to battle to get its shows on the road. The economy in New Zealand was not good at the time, and interest (and therefore sponsorship backing) was low. We did what we good, but I wanted more. Between the two Daves (Cameron and Meltzer), and also through purchasing video tapes, I had begun to take a huge interest in Japanese wrestling, and decided I wanted to learn more about this. Why was Japanese wrestling so successful? Could New Zealand learn anything from their success?

Time to pack my bags and head overseas....