Posted on 5/16/126 by DMV Wrestling News
There’s a saying about celebrities that you will hear a lot
in online discussions involving pro wrestling fans: never
meet your heroes. This is based on bad experiences some
people say they have had in the past. As prices for meet and
greets, and everything else, skyrocket, it can be tempting
not to want to fool with it.
Over the past three or four years, I’ve met plenty of active
and retired pro wrestlers, from rising indie stars to hall
of famers, and generally I’ve had great experiences, with
some minor exceptions who I won’t name here.
A view that many people working in the business have is to
just take the picture, since none of us are ever promised
tomorrow. This is a view I have even as a fan when it comes
to hall of famers and others who are no longer youthful,
although it should apply to the young too, with all the
premature deaths in pro wrestling over the years. My wife
still regrets not going to an MCW show in 2015, long before
either of us had been to an indie show, that ended up being
Roddy Piper’s last public appearance before his death the
next week.
Recently, I met a WWE Hall of Famer who throws the idea of
never meeting your heroes into the trash. Before the Game
Changer Wrestling event in Joppa, Maryland, on May 1, I met
Ricky Morton, best known as one half of the Rock N Roll
Express. He was the primary reason I spent the money to go
to this show and took the night off from work. The passing
of Dennis Condrey a few weeks ago helped cement my decision
after I had been waffling on whether to go.
From the time he first saw me, wearing the shirt in the
picture above, he was as nice as anyone could be. After he
autographed a picture for me and posed for a photo op, we
talked about mutual friends and how I grew up watching him.
He talked about coming to Greenville on Monday nights and
also going to Fayetteville on the Crockett circuit. I told
him what a big part of my childhood he was, and he beamed
and told me how much that meant to him.
I stepped over to the bigger lineup of tables of GCW
wrestlers and talked to Matt Tremont and 1 Called Manders,
and they were both great to talk to as well. As I headed
back around to go to my seat, I passed the Mortons’ table
again and talked to Kerry, who was now there, as well as
Ricky again. We talked about baseball, Tennessee, and the
mountains in North Carolina before I started to head to my
seat, and Ricky grabbed a Sharpie and signed my shirt for
free.
Kerry’s match came up earlier in the show, and he is an
amazing heel and was getting “Shut the F up” chants right
away. Later in the show, when Ricky wrestled in a trios
match, a “Rock and Roll” chant started for him when he was
introduced. When he got into the match, he ended up getting
the bad end of things and was in the corner selling the
damage for a bit before finally getting the pin for his team
to win.
After the show, I went over to see some friends near the
dressing room entrance, and Ricky came out leaving the arena
and was gracious and talked to me again. He also reminded me
to come to Philly for NWA 78 in July.
I have met countless pro wrestlers over the past decade,
most of them since I started this site in 2022. I haven’t
had one truly bad experience, and I’ve had many great ones,
even with people who have allegedly bad reputations for
meeting fans. I am writing this as a counterpoint to people
who say “never meet your heroes.” Sometimes you should meet
them, take the picture, and tell them what they meant to you
while you still can.