George Tragos/Lou Thesz 2008 Hall of Fame

As some of you know I just got back from Waterloo, where I was at the George Tragos/Lou Thesz 2008 Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame. It was Great!!! The Weekend started off on Friday night where Harley Race's WLW had a 5 match show. Harley Race, Larry The Axe Hennig, Baron Von Raske, Nikita Kolloff, Abe Jacobs, and a few others were there signing autographs all night. A few matches in Bret Hart and Roddy Piper made their entrance, and did autograph signings during intermissions.


On Saturday was the induction ceromony where everyone got their plaques/awards, Bret received an award for his father Stu Hart(Bret was inducted in 2006) Roddy Piper was inducted, Abe Jacobs, Masa Saito, Ray Gunkel, and Leo Nomellini were also inducted. The ceremony was then followed by more autographs, I got my pic taken with everyone, and my wife got her pic taken with Roddy and Bret.


On Saturday night was the Banquet for the induction ceromony, which was by far my favorite part because there was only a select 50 or so people there, mostly wrestlers and people from the wrestling community. I was in such awe at one point as I realized I had Baron Von Raske at the table behind me, Larry "The Axe" Hennig a few tables to my left, Harley Race a table to my left, Brett "The Hitman" Hart, "Hot Rod" Rowdy Roddy Piper, Abe Jacobs, and Masamiro Saito at the head table to my right, I felt in a dream like state as the banquet was a very social and friendly time where you got to see these guys as just regular people like everyone else. I am very blown away by how friendly everyone was, ESPECIALLY Roddy Piper, he was an awesome guy to talk to, he was asking us questions about our marriage, telling us about his, asking about the baby, how my wife was feeling, all sorts of things you never imagine being able to talk to one of your heroes about; let alone someone of that magnitude (Roddy was just on Monday Night Raw last week!) and alot more exciting things happned over this amazing weekend I will post about later tonight or tommorrow!

Our trip to Waterloo was supposed to include a visit to the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum; unfortunately because of the rescent floods the museum was nearly destroyed. Priceless articles are lost forever including programs, magazines, posters, articles, and more dating back as far as the 1920's for both professional and amature wrestling. What could be salvaged in such a short amount of time was, but again nearly a complete loss which is really unfortunate. But the museum will be rebuilt, and different artifacts will come in to take the place of the old ones. We also had a very interesting occurence at the banquet, Bret Hart was giving a speech about his father and the legacy guys like him have left, the sacrafices that have been made, and so forth, then he suddenly becomes very upset and begins scolding a guy 2 tables behind me(that was craziest thing I have ever seen in my life) about how this guy doesn't know anything about the business, and should learn to keep his mouth shut and one of them needs to leave either him(the guys name was Greg Oliver) or Bret, Greg's friend/partner got up and left trying to bring Greg with him to defuse the situation, but he refused to leave so Bret did, and several wrestlers followed.(by far the most crazy and unforgettable thing I have ever seen!) Apparently Bret dislikes Oliver over his book about the greatest Canadian wrestlers of all time. Bret is not happy about the rankings or something...(not quite sure all of the details I am still researching.) anyhow here is some more pics: