Three Count

Jimmy Korderas

Description

The Three Count highlights the triumphs and tragedies that referee Jimmy Korderas experienced over his career as a WWE official, from humble beginnings in Toronto to being a part of the main event at WrestleMania. He divulges stories from both inside and outside the ring and highlights the bonds he formed with superstars like Edge, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. A fun read from a man who doesn't have an axe to grind, but who wants to inspire wrestling fans, The Three Count shows that there's much more to the industry than scandals and dirty laundry.

Sujets

• Lucha libre profesional
• Wrestling

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 09 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781770904095
• Langue: English

Extrait

This book is dedicated to those who dare to dream . . . Dreams really do come true.
and
For my wife, Audra. Without her never-ending encouragement, I would not have been able to finish this book. She believed in my dream.

Foreword
So I’m sitting in my recliner with my teacup poodle (he’s very tough) in my lap, and I’m reminiscing. Pleasant thoughts. The kind that are surrounded by fluffy clouds with breezy ukulele music as the soundtrack. Okay, got sidetracked, but I’m trying to set the mood here, folks. Let’s just say these thoughts make me happy. Thoughts of my career. A career that has seen me main-event WrestleMania s. Win 31 championships in the WWE . TLC matches. Triple ladder matches. Money in the Bank matches. A Hall of Famer. A smile adorns my face. Until the record scratches. The lazy chords of the Hawaiian music slam to a halt in my brain, the clouds dissipate, and I crash back to Earth in a heap, suddenly realizing that a certain individual has been a part of all of these moments. A Canadian. No, not the Canadian who has annoyed me and audiences worldwide for years as Christian. But a Canadian nonetheless. A prematurely balding Canadian who admittedly used to rock a serious frullet (fro-mullet) that would make Billy Squier proud and the rest of us cringe. A certain Canadian who has parlayed his experience in the WWE into becoming a pretty successful analyst of the industry now on the ol’ Canadian boob tube. I suddenly realize this man is the Forrest Gump of my career. He’s been there, lurking, just barely out of focus. Oh, but he’s there. You can’t mistake that hollowed-out hair and mirror-like dome. Right over my shoulder or my prone body as the Undertaker plans to do his worst to me. That man is Jimmy Korderas.
Now, as Lance Storm would say, if I can be serious for a minute , Jimmy and I go back. Way back. To 1996, when my WWE quest was being realized. I was a young up and comer, and Jimmy was already a road horse who had logged hundreds of thousands of miles as a WWE referee. One of the toughest jobs in the industry, and one that flies under the radar. Because if you are doing it the right way, your job is not to be noticed. Not to take away from the match and performance. Help tell the story, but not be the story. The narrator who furthers everything, but you never see his face. He’s Daniel Stern in The Wonder Years . It can be a thankless job. Being a referee means you log all the same miles, but without the fame and glory. Put up and tear down the ring. Also the occasional bumps. Not an easy gig to say the least, but Jimmy always did it with a smile on his face and a horrible joke on the tip of his tongue.
What made a great guy even better was the fact that he was one of the best referees ever in the industry. And there’ve been some good ones. He really was there for so many of my pivotal moments. WrestleMania 2000 triple ladder match. Check. TLC 1. Check. TLC 2. Check. TLC 3. Check. Money in the Bank. Check. I made sure he was there for the biggest match of my career. Yes, I personally requested Jimmy as the referee for my match in the main event of WrestleMania XXIV against the Undertaker. He got booted in the face by Taker and took it like a champ. Here’s the thing: we knew he would, and that’s why we wanted him.
Since those early days of my WWE career we’ve remained friends. He’s one of the good guys. You hear that term tossed around a lot, and while it may be cliché and overused, with Jimmy, it couldn’t be more fitting. To be honest, there are not many people I will stay in contact with in this business. I can count them on two hands. But Jimmy will be one of them.
Technically this little tidbit is usually named a “foreword.” A few hopefully entertaining anecdotes that kick off an interesting journey you, dear wrestling fan, are about to embark on. I look at it as something different. This is more of a thank you note from one friend and colleague to another. Thank you, Jimmy, for being my Forrest Gump, but more importantly my friend.
Adam “Edge” Copeland
March 2, 2012
Asheville, North Carolina


Introduction
Never in my wildest imagination as a young boy growing up in the heart of Toronto’s GreekTown would I have thought I would be in the main event of a WrestleMania . March 30, 2008, the it’s WrestleMania XXIV and there I am, lying on my side under the bottom rope, just staring out into a crowd of almost 75,000 screaming wwe fans. I have just been kicked in the head by a size 16 boot that sent me crashing to the canvas. The other end of that boot belonged to the wwe ’s most revered superstar of all time, the Undertaker. For me it was a badge of honour to have taken that kick from a legend. The other participant in the match was none other than fellow Canadian and good friend of mine, Edge. This was truly a dream match for any referee to officiate and I was fortunate to be chosen for this match. I was not originally scheduled to ref the main event, but I will get to that story in due time.
While I was lying there, so many things raced through my mind. The predominate thought was, “How did the kick to my head look?” After that, my thoughts turned to, “How do you top a moment like this?” I can’t describe how much being a part of this match in wwe history means to me. It was so overwhelming; however, as I lay there I could see that the crowd was standing on their feet and apparently cheering — I just couldn’t hear them. These are the moments guys like me dream about. These are the moments that make a guy like me proud and humbled to be a part of something that people will remember for a long time. This one moment in particular was the crowning achievement of a long career and a dream come true for a kid from Toronto, Canada. It was the culmination of a lot of sweat, tears, and yes, even some blood and broken bones. All the while my passion and love for this business never faded. It was a long and at times difficult journey to achieve this dream but I finally got there and this is my story.


Chapter 1
How It All Began

My journey began many years prior to that moment in Orlando, a long time before I began working for the premier wrestling/sports entertainment company on the planet. Watching wrestling on TV was not high on my Greek immigrant parents’ priority list. Excelling in school and going on to college or university was all that mattered to them. If that did not happen, plan B was to follow my father into the family business. My dad was a licensed auto mechanic who owned a gas station and repair shop in the heart of Toronto’s GreekTown, affectionately called the Danforth after its main street. As much as I respected my father’s wishes and as much as I liked tinkering with cars, the garage business was not what I wanted to get into. I did however work for him part-time while I attended school. When it became clear that a post-secondary education did not appeal to me, it was pretty much set in my parents’ mind that I would work full-time for Dad. One thing was certain, I had not given up on a very different dream that I wanted to pursue. It was extremely difficult not to be a wrestling fan growing up in the epicentre of the Canadian wrestling scene, Toronto. Let me explain by taking you back to where my passion for this unique form of entertainment originated.
Before the days when World Wrestling Entertainment ruled the sports entertainment landscape, before the Rock ’n’ Wrestling Connection, and even before the Incredible Hulk Hogan, professional wrestling was a territorial business. Promoters divided North America into specific regions with the agreement that they would not run wrestling shows in the others’ territory. Although they often worked together by trading talent and so forth, there was also a healthy competition between them.
Arguments arose among wrestling fans as to which area of North America had the best wrestling on television. After all, St. Louis had Wrestling at the Chase , Texas had World Class Championship Wrestling , there was the AWA in the midwest, plus the NWA and WWF, just to name a few. As a diehard wrestling fan growing up in Toronto, Ontario, I believe that I had access to the best wrestling on television you could possibly get anywhere. Each weekend provided me with countless hours of enjoyment watching my favourite sports heroes — outside of the Toronto Maple Leafs of course. I am a proud Canadian, after all!
Let me run down for you what a typical weekend of watching wrestling on television consisted of for me. On the weekends, we here in Toronto were able to watch the AWA on Global Television Network, Stampede Wrestling from Calgary on CKVR Channel 3 from Barrie, International Wrestling from Montreal on CityTV, All Star Wrestling from Vancouver airing on CKOC Kitchener, Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling on Buffalo’s Channel 4, WWF on Channel 29 from Buffalo, and of course Maple Leaf Wrestling on CHCHTV Channel 11 out of Hamilton. I can’t think of anywhere else on the continent where you could watch that many different promotions on TV in one city. There were a few others, but these were the major players for me.
Many a Saturday afternoon Mama Korderas would break out the floppy slipper (or as we call it in Greek, the pandofla ) trying to drag me away from the television set to do my homework or maybe some chores, or even go outside and do something, anything other than watch wrestling on television. I was hooked , though. There was no chance I was going to give up watching guys like the Original Sheik, Tex Mckenzie, the Tolos Brothers, Hartford and Reginald (the Love Brothers), and the rest of those crazy characters that I loved to watch. For some reason, I really enjoyed Tex Mckenzie and Chief Jay Strongbow as a youngster. Tex was tall and lanky. I loved when he did this high knee lift, followed by this cowboy stomp around the