It seems very strange now looking back on the relatively
brief time I was co-promoter of an extreme professional wrestling outfit. My
life now is so different, that although I can see me back there and feel the
energy I had then it just seems like another life altogether. What seems even
stranger still was the path that led me there. Tell anyone now who either knows
me through my work as a self-protection/martial arts coach or even through my
current connections to showbusiness, that I was once a Gothic sword wielding
wrestling manager that had a penchant for wearing red contact lenses, getting
cut up with razor blades and barbed wire, and spewing Kensington Gore all over
the place they are likely to ask “Is this the same Jamie Clubb we are talking
about”. It’s no secret. I appeared in Combat martial arts magazine on the front
cover with an eight page feature, covered in corpse paint and did the best I
could to court media attention. And yet, years later I find myself training in
an MMA gym in Birmingham and one of the receptionist starts teasing me as if
this part of my history was comparable to being closet transvestite. A friend
of mine pretty much summed up the incredulity of those that have known me since
my days running a pro wrestling promotion are over: “Why Jamie? Why?”
In July 1998 I was in my deepest self-esteem trough since my
school days. Only 10 months before I had given my first performance of my
martial arts act, "Dead Souls." It was my dream to make a piece of physical
theatre that used martial arts and dance to tell a gothic tale about the
spirits of purgatory. The act had been intended for the Edinburgh Festival and
it was on the promise of a circus friend of mine – as we both attended the
annual circus festival in Monte Carlo - to showcase it that had inspired me to
make my dream a reality. I had returned home with a fire in me and I desire to
create something unique. I financed, wrote and performed in this 25 minute
production, but the reality of its first incarnation had fallen way short of providing
me with the sense of satisfaction I had anticipated.
In spite of growing up in a long and established
showbusiness family and in spite of being behind the scenes of virtually every
form of entertainment enjoyed in the western world – circus, film, theatre,
pantomime and more besides - my obvious lack of experience in the driving seat
had ensured that I made just about every professional error one could imagine.
I had lost performers and a fair amount of my savings account to bring this
show to the stage. The Edinburgh Festival was soon out of the question and I
tried hard to find another event to stage the performance. The first production
was intended to be staged at the Cheltenham College of Higher Education. I was
teaching a kickboxing class there, which had been successfully set up by one of
the students. My career teaching kickboxing for an unscrupulous instructor is
another story altogether. Suffice to say that I had money and I was sailing
high in my own little world. However, a year or so of teaching kickboxing and
living like a materialist had made me yearn for something else; something I had
wanted to do since I first stepped into a martial arts class, something,
according to legend, my family had done for 300 continuous years: create an act.
The original “Dead Souls” story went like this. Three
spirits are confined to purgatory. One spirit is a type of St. Peter character
who leads his two charges through endless mechanical routines, represented by
the more stilted and robotic looking traditional martial arts forms. The
opening scene had the three characters veiled in long ragged cloaks – a regular
trademark of “Dead Souls” entrances for years to come. I got the idea from a
production of “Macbeth” I once heard about, where the three witches appeared in
the first scene as three rags on the ground. My three characters walked through
dry ice holding lit candelabras, as the narration to the story was played over.
After setting them down they did a synchronized routine of disciplined
movements, inspired by the more regimental martial arts forms. Certain
sequences were actually inspired by “Riverdance”, which captivated me at the
time. The music played over this routine was the theme tune to the science
fiction mini-series “V: The Final Battle”.
Each character made his or her individual appearance by
throwing off the uniformed hooded cloaks. This was inspired a little by the
concept of artists throwing off sheets to reveal their unique works of art.
The first reveal was The Gatekeeper. He had his cloak
removed by the other two cloaked figures, and then performed a fast moving
martial arts routine to a black metal piece that would become the “Dead Souls”
anthem, “Malice through the Looking Glass” by Cradle of Filth. The lights went down and everyone left the
stage.
The second reveal was the Spirit of Youthful energy, who I
played. He would be a character I would develop into the wrestling manager, the
Spirit of Instinct. Essentially he was the teenage rebel or the spirit of
unchecked energy, often curbed and contained by strict religious doctrine. I
had him throw off his cloak to Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People” and his
face glowed with energy thanks to a type of make-up that was invisible unless
ultra violet light shone on it. It was unobtainable in the UK now, only a bad
imitation that was still visible under normal light could be bought. But a
production company that was originally going to sponsor us found some through a
US contact. It was the same stuff that Robert Mansfield the famous American
actor used to in the 19th century to change from Dr Jekyll into Mr
Hyde on stage. It was a great effect and I topped it with contact lenses that
also lit up under the UV. His character
was a culmination of many icons - real and fictional - that interested me. He
was James Dean and Marlon Brando in his spirit of rebelliousness. His look was part inspired by J O’Barr’s “The
Crow”, although more Brandon Lee’s interpretation. That much was obvious, but
my wonderful costumier, the fantastically resourceful and talented Ronnie
Dorsey, followed my wishes in bringing aspects of the rock star Trent Reznor
in. I liked Reznor’s fractured look and mood. I was also inspired by Puck from
“Midsummer Night’s Dream”. I had performed a version of this play during my
last year in the sixth form and loved this mischievous sprite.
After performing a
solo form inspired by the free-flowing techniques of Chinese wu shu, using
animal movements to emphasize the freedom and primal energy in the character,
he froze like a statue. Next the cloaked figure of the Goddess of Original
Innocence Lost entered the stage. She flung off her cloak alone to reveal a
huge Burmese python wrapped around her. This character had something in common
with Eve or even Lilith from Jewish mythology. She is the tarnished saint for
all fallen women throughout history and therefore confined to a mystical prison
until her sins were cleansed properly. Here she embraced the serpent and freely
exhibited the feminine charms that typically Judeo-Christian religions have
oppressed throughout the centuries. She performed to a piece that was suggested
by the dance coordinator of the aforementioned production company,
“Supernatural” by Army of Lovers. The snake dance climaxed with the Goddess
breathing life back into the frozen form of the spirit. This was inspired by
Greek mythology and the concept of breathing life into a clay form.
Both characters then competed with each other, the spirit
exhibiting martial arts moves that were contrasted with the goddess’s dance
equivalent. This was played out to Curve’s wonderful comment on the battle of
the sexes, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”. The two characters
eventually came together and performed a sexual adagio type routine. Their
united energies resulted in the destruction of the set up candles and the whole
ritualized setting.
Next The Gatekeeper appeared to discover the desecration left. To the song “After the Flesh” by My Life with
the Thrill Kill Kult, he expressed his outrage in a solo weapon routine with the
Kwondo – a type of Chinese halberd. This scene was followed by the appearance of
the Goddess of Original Innocence Lost who exhibited her new sense of freedom
in a solo dance routine to the very beautiful “A Warm Place” by Nine Inch Nails.
The scene climaxed with the appearance of The Spirit with apples – a rather
on-the-nose reference to the Abrahamic story of Eden. Lost danced with the
apple, the Spirit juggled with three and then Lost put each of them on the end
of the sword they had stolen. The Spirit struck each of the apples from the
point of the sword with a different kick. They then saw the light, the chance
of heaven. It seemed like they had succeeded in taking paradise on their own
terms. “The Storm” from “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” soundtrack played out as they
neared the light. Suddenly The Gatekeeper appeared and attacked them both. The
Spirit fell and as The Gatekeeper made his finishing blow Lost jumped in at the
lost moment. However, rather than dying she gave The Spirit her life-force and
using it he was able to defeat The Gatekeeper and forced his/her self into the
light. The final line of the production was “Death is sudden, but never final”.
Those were heady times. I was 20 years old when I started
teaching at Cheltenham college and I had a lot of fun for a short period. After
my kickboxing class we would all typically hit town and get completely smashed,
and often end up talking about my plans to run a martial arts act. Alex, the
student who set the classes up, was to be my manager and plans for how it would
all work out would typically arise from drunken conversations in the early
hours of the morning; often with barely vertical fellow students giving their
unsolicited opinions or shouting their support.
Anyway, the booking at the college fell through in the end
and I temporally fell out with my student contact. I upped and left to put it
on at a nearby theatre, which ended being something of a charity project. It
would have made a lovely story and in hindsight I probably wasn’t looking at
the bigger picture. At the time all I could see was money and time running out,
so I wasn’t interested in staging a show at a venue that wanted to do it for
free if I gave them the profit. Next my circus contact leant me his tent with
all the sound and lighting set up to hold a dress rehearsal. It was at this
point that everything really seemed to go tits up. I lost both my first dancer
and the strongman who was intended to play the role of the guy I fought in the
piece. In a final attempt I booked in a college theatre room in Coventry to
film the full dress production. The build-up to this costly venture had seen me
audition and steadily lose all my prospective dancers for several reasons –
mainly due to money constraints. My grandfather died the day before the
rehearsal around the same time as the country was plunged into hysterical
mourning for Princess Diana.
Now I was stuck in a bad relationship that was sapping me of
all my energies. The girl in question had been the first dancer I had chosen
for "Dead Souls" who had eventually walked out on the production, but
not left me. The pressure of the act was too much for her and when things
didn’t run smoothly on the lead up to the dress rehearsal in the circus tent,
she pulled out unceremoniously. With the
inexplicable naivety that keeps ill-matched romances going long past their
expiration date we had kept together. She “auditioned” new dancers with me, but
I don’t think she was ever happy with the idea of a replacement. In the end, I
had to pay quite a bit for a professional dancer at the eleventh hour for the
dress rehearsal.
That entire episode, which included me having to do my best
to keep my kickboxing coach from trying to hit on the dancer every five
minutes, was exhausting both mentally and physically. I had found the enigmatic
Israel Robert McKenzie to play the role as the act’s bad guy. He was someone
who I was happy to call a friend when all had been said and done, but he was
one hell of a character and needed to be to get through those two days. I recall driving home on the second day with
blurred vision from the many times I had put in the green glowing contact
lenses. At that time coloured and theatrical contact lenses were still pretty
thick and got very painful after extended periods of use. After all the major
disruptions, cast changes and emotional problems back home, the resulting two
complete dress rehearsals that were filmed were far from polished. However,
running it all single handedly and with little support coming from elsewhere
along with dwindling finances I was something of an emotional wreck by the end.
After hearing my girlfriend’s savage dissection of the act, I paid those who
had stood by me to the end, surrendered back to normality and shelved the whole
recorded experience.
My confidence had
been eroded and my dreams now seemed unobtainable. However, I still kept up my
training, although I lacked direction, and regularly attended the local gym.
One day I was approached by one of the gym instructors. They asked whether I
was still working on a martial arts act, as there was someone looking for a
demonstration as part of his professional wrestling show. The gym instructor
described the guy as a big tattooed individual who worked out in the evenings.
I didn't give the matter much thought, but told them that he could call me
about it if he wanted.
The phone call came within days. With a calm politeness that
has never really matched his presence, the man introduced himself as Stu Allen
and explained that he was helping to organise a professional wrestling show for
the Blue Cross charity for a new promotion called Commonwealth Championship
Wrestling. He already had one martial arts demonstration organised by his
brother-in-law and wanted another one to help give the show a little variety. I
suggested that he contact Israel. Israel was an excellent martial artist who
competed internationally all the time. Against his protests, I explained to Stu
that my ability was less than Israel's worst student and he eventually relented
- but not for long.
He called me again explaining that Israel would be very
happy to do the demonstration, but insisted he do it with me adding, "He
is my best student. "My next phone call was to Israel, who I felt I had
let down when the act ceased to be, and tried to talk him out of doing the
demonstration with me. My argument was flimsy, mainly because I didn't believe
in it. In reality I wanted to get out in front of an audience and prove
something to myself. There was some unfinished business to attend to in my
head.
The idea to turn the performance into "Dead Souls"
again was not my idea nor was it poor Israel's, who was looking forward to
displaying his martial arts skills in a more straightforward performance. The
idea to do "Dead Souls" came from Stu who I met up with not longer
after Israel convinced me to work with him. Stu was currently using a gangster
gimmick the wrestling promotion had given him called "The Hu$tler",
which he didn't feel suited him. We got onto the subject of gothic imagery. He
wanted to be a painted wrestler like his childhood hero "The Ultimate
Warrior", but a darker heel-version. I told him about the "Dead
Souls" act, which attracted his attention straight away. As the
conversation flowed I began to feel the ambition rise in me as it had once
before. He convinced me to lend him the tape of my last performance. I brought
the video in the next time I saw him and gave to him, fearing what would
happen. The barbed comments of my girlfriend rang in my head and in my
emotionally and physically drained state I had come to accept her words as the
absolute truth. It was against my nature to give up on my dream, but I still
had my kickboxing classes; classes that kept her fit, but made feel
uncomfortable due to the dubious morals and precarious business principles it
rested on. It was easier to settle in her ready-made family and the routine of
the mundane. Extended weekends in the park and Saturday afternoons watching
Blind Date and Gladiators on the TV filled up my social life, as I struggled to
get on with a writing course I had no especial interest in, as I kidded myself
I was happy.
On leaving the gym, Stu announced in typical cheerful melodrama
"perhaps we can resurrect the 'Dead Souls.'" I smiled, thinking to
myself "or perhaps they're better off dead."
It was August 29th 1998 and in just under two months my
whole world had changed. After a little persuasion Israel had agreed to do the
Dead Souls act and we had practiced hard on our new five-minute routine. I had
helped Stu with putting the wrestling show together. It was supposed to be
CCW's event, but the two Internet addicts who called the shots had done little
in terms of running the operation. Designing the programme and organising the
match-ups was really where their influence stopped. Blue Cross was Stu's
unlikely workplace and the even more unlikely sponsors of the event, which was
being called "Animal Instincts." The organisation of the show had all
been down to Stu who was pushing for a theatrical light display and sound
system to enhance the production.
Stu visited my place a few times before we got the publicity
machine rolling. He and his fiancée, Niki Bradshaw, who was also his valet
going under the name "Miss Fortune", would sit in my parents' old
disused circus wagon and discuss what was intended for the show. He brought in
work colleague, Josh Perry who had experience with theatre lighting and also
mixed and arranged the show's music. I applied my knowledge of theatrical
scripting to help build a professional plan and Stu explained to us what he
envisioned for the event. Together with Niki and a friend of Stu's called
"Big Jay", who was playing the part of The Hu$tler's bodyguard in the
show, we made up the backbone of the show.
By the time the day of "Animal Instincts" arrived
several events had happened. I had already been in my first wrestling event.
This was CCW's warm-up show a week before, hosted by a small promotion in Trowbridge.
The venue was a community centre with an audience of around one hundred. Those
watching were wrestling regulars, diehards from the days when British wrestling
was still on television. Most were there to see their local boy take on the
Shadowarrior, a disgruntled but ambitious wrestler who was intended to work
with Stu in his match at "Animal Instincts." Stu, himself, was paired
with a newcomer, eighteen-year-old called Jodie Fleisch.
I appeared as a bodyguard to Stu, noticeably overshadowed in
every sense of the word by his other bodyguard, "Big Jay." It didn't
bother me. That night may have been a far cry from the shows we would run or be
involved with, but the potential was clear to me. Stu was a natural heel and in
spite of being virtually unknown and out of the wrestling business for a while
he gave an aura of eminence on the show. The humble easy-going character of
Jodie Fleisch turned into a dramatic and acrobatic high flyer when he entered
the ring. The combination of Stu's unrelenting aggression to his
"opponent" and all those watching and Jodie's heroic tenacity, made
it clear to the audience when to cheer and when to boo. As if to add to my
first live British wrestling experience, I even encountered the wrath of the
notorious handbag wielding grannies in the front row and found myself briefly
under fire as I aided The Hu$tler in his match.
If this bout gave me a taste of the US-style glamour
possible in a British show, the next would provide a prototype for the punk
flavour Stu and I would inject into the wrestling scene. "The
Shadowarrior" was Lee Edwards whose aspirations were clearly outside of
Trowbridge. He took his match with the local hero outside of the ring onto some
tables and began to make use of whatever he could get his hands on, whether or
not it was a real prop. Much to the promoter's dismay and genuine attempts to
intervene, the tables ended up as firewood. Lee Edwards brought anarchy to an
audience fed on the past. His match against their local hero was representative
of the battle between old school wrestling and new British wrestling we would
soon be in the midst of. He left the shocked crowd with his forehead dripping
blood and a satisfied grin across his mouth. The ironic thing was he had been
marked down as the face!
After the dust settled, you couldn't help notice the lack of
input from our CCW bosses. They were clearly out of their depth and their
humbling of the entire event was summed up their frequently repeated comment:
"It's real now!" In a radio interview given a few days before the
show, one of CCW's co-owners declared "CCW is going to breathe new life in
British wrestling." Yet in reality they were after family-friendly bouts,
they were against the whole "Dead Souls" idea and in spite of their
claims that they wanted CCW to be the top hard-core promotion in Europe, Stu
was being told to drop just about every prop he intended use in his match at
"Animal Instincts." The final straw came when I was told that I
couldn't spit any fake blood as part of the "Dead Souls" act. After
that Stu and I made a decision to start up on our own once the show was
finished.
Putting such differences aside we worked "with"
the promoters that night, well the one that turned up anyway, at Cheltenham
town hall. This fantastic venue was close to full and contained a bizarre
mixture of people. Amongst which were the staff from Blue Cross, supporters for
the various wrestlers, some of the crowd from Trowbridge as well as residents
from Cheltenham wondering what had hit them.
More significantly, under that roof there were also a number
of key players in what would become the New British Wrestling movement. Sitting
amongst the wrestling "dirtsheet" press was a teenager who would go
on to host one of the movement's first large scale events. His name was John
Feltham and tonight he watched his poor sister, who was clearly not ready for
the job that had been thrust upon her, announce the opening of the show before
handing over the MC responsibility to a heel valet for the rest of the night.
Wrestling first on the show was a guy going by the name of
"The Specialist" Mark Sloan who would found the Frontier Wrestling
Alliance. Mark has remained an underrated technician on the British scene to
this day, discovering his real forte in teaching. That night his match with a
one "Paul Glory" had great intentions behind it even if the result
was a little overlong and lacking character. My apologies to these two workers
for pointing this out, but I feel Britain's greenness to the new era of higher
production values was demonstrated with these entrances. On the video you can
see poor old Paul Glory being wrongly cued and almost pushed through the
curtains before a pyrotechnic goes off and almost scares him to death. Mark's
entrance is more confident, a little too confident perhaps, as he appears to be
scratching his groin on the way to the ring. In contrast FWA's first show would
also boast high production values the following year. Mark would improve as an
all-round wrestler although I've always been frustrated with the idea that if
he was managed well he could garner more of the respect he deserves. He would
also become a first class instructor and promoter.
Backstage Phil Lowe, who would go on to run the
controversial British Wrestling Alliance's first and only show, was CCW's
runner. To be fair he did a good job at our show. Also backstage a shoot-fighter,
who was making the very temporary transition to professional wrestling, had our
promoter hung upside down. This was over a disagreement about an angle in the
show. Needless to say CCW didn't win the argument. Lee Edwards was already
voicing his opinions on the promotion to Stu and he liked what he heard about
our intentions afterwards. The mutiny had well and truly begun.
After Stu's interview in the ring the time for Dead Souls to
make their public debut had arrived. Bar getting my black belt at sixteen years
old this was the first time a genuine dream had come true. Before then I
envisioned the act to appear in the circus, at the Edinburgh Festival and at a
student theatre, but its appearance at a professional wrestling event was as
much a surprise to me as it was those who gathered that night.
The performance began with a gothic clad vamp, carrying a
lit candle in candelabra, leading a cloaked, hooded Israel to the ring. His entrance music was "Once Upon an Atrocity", the first track on Cradle of Filth's concept album about the legend of Countess Elizabeth Bathory ("The Bloody Countess"), "Cruelty and the Beast". While
this was going on I was stood backstage with a sixteen foot Burmese python
wrapped round me, losing my temper with Josh because even though the suitably
gloomy music was being played for the "Gatekeeper's" entrance, revolving
disco lights were flashing through the curtains. Josh was safe from my wroth up
in the light control box on the balcony, but it really wasn't his fault. Some
idiot, who shall remain nameless, had failed to unplug this lighting effect
intended for someone else's entrance.
Israel having done a circuit of the ring with his herald
climbed the steps and in one graceful movement leapt into the ring. A premature
round of applause demonstrated their gratitude, but was quickly hushed. My
music, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" by the Smashing Pumpkins, kicked in and my character, "The Spirit of Instinct", made his
entrance. The opening line of that track was perfect for setting the scene. The snake made the impact I had intended and I began to circle the
ring. Front row members of the audience shuffled away from my approach and one kid
tried to kick the snake, which concerned me, but I made it to my assistant to
offload the well-behaved reptile and make my own ring entrance.
The act did not resemble a wrestling bout in any respect.
The whole "duel" between Israel and I was a tightly choreographed
fight scene co-ordinated to pieces of music and lighting. We used pretty much
the whole arsenal of lighting effects at our disposal. Finally the blackout
came and Israel and I waited in what seemed like eternal darkness for the
audience's verdict. I was soaked in sweat and a wound was open on my face from
a blow Israel had mistimed with his halberd. The spotlight fell and the slow
clapping began, then it built, filling the auditorium and finally the whistling
began. Wrestling or not, Dead Souls had been accepted. I could have cried. Ten
months before I said goodbye to the act, I had since split from my damaging
relationship and was on a threshold of a new optimistic time. All that
heartache, money and seemingly fruitless hard work had finally been
appreciated.
As I went back through the curtains I turned to Israel to
hug him. Checking no one else was around he suddenly doubled up and gripped his
hand declaring, "you chopped my fucking finger!" While he had hit me
in the face by accident, my timing hadn't been perfect either and my sword,
once blunt, but now jagged from the constant practice had sliced into his index
finger. Like a true professional he had saved the moment to express his pain
until he was backstage. The wound was superficial, but he was bleeding rapidly.
We got it bandaged straight away and joked about becoming official "blood
brothers", and then laughed again at the irony of the "fake blood
ban."
The second half of the show provided the audience with a
taste of what wrestling's new generation had to offer. The shadow of the
"World of Sport" days, which would dog us and other New British
Wrestling promotions for years to come, first showed signs of being lifted when
the last two matches of "Animal Instincts" played. First up, Jody
Fleisch was paired against another great new up-and-comer, Jorge Castano. The
match was a spot-laden affair, where Jody was given full reign to display his
ever-developing high flying skills against Jorge, a great heel, who played as a
catch wrestler.
The main event featured Stu going at against Lee Edwards. In
spite of CCW's protests, there were plenty of hard-core props used during the
bout, which saw The Hu$tler win over another good guy. To this day Stu has
always spoken favourably over his matches against Lee. They both love mixing
hard-core with technical wrestling. Stu was very much into
"spot-wrestling" at the time and was more reserved, technique-wise,
in his approach to what I would see in future bouts, deciding to play ground
defence, but his approach to wrestling psychology was already ahead of its
time. In fact he and Lee have are notable by the way they arouse an ambiguity
in their audience.
Stu has always enjoyed playing an aggressive heel, spitting
at and assaulting his audiences, either with a tirade of politically incorrect
taunts and profanities or even physically unseating his critics during a show.
Yet for all those who see him as the villain, there are plenty who chant his
name and cheer when he wins. Lee has never been happy playing a textbook
British blue eye or face and his uncomfortably with this style could be seen at
Trowbridge. He has often played the hero, but an anti-hero who puts his
character's integrity above simply playing the crowd.
"Animal Instincts" was a blueprint for EWW. Stu,
Josh and I left Cheltenham happy with the results of our work, but with
ambition in our hearts knowing what could have been had we controlled the show
completely. Already we began discussing the fusing of Dead Souls the act with a
wrestling angle. I saw Niki and Jay standing either side of Stu like two
perverse halves of a personality named "Pleasure" and
"Pain." I would lead the heel outfit as the "Spirit of
Instinct." As for Stu he had already chosen a name, one that would soon be
buzzed around the wrestling community: "The Dominator."
Such feelings are hard to convey in written form. It captures
your imagination and makes you feel bonded to the idea of an exciting future.
Like other very few other things and people in my life I would experience, it captured my
head and then my heart.
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