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I Loved Five Inch Wrestlers

        I grew up in Rice Lake, Iowa, the modern day equivalent of a village, with 70 people living in it.  Our television had three network stations and Iowa Public Television.  I first discovered the American Wrestling Association program “All-Star Wrestling” circa 1983.  It aired on Sunday nights at 11PM.  Unfortunately for a 10 year old Troy, that was Approximately 2 hours after my scheduled bedtime.  I would stay in my room and do whatever I could to stay awake.  At 11PM sharp, I would plug my headphones into my 8 inch black and white television and would spend the next hour entranced by the tiny wrestlers on the screen and the bigger than life personas.

       Mondays after school were an even bigger deal than Sunday nights.  At home we didn’t have a VCR, but we had a VHS playback unit (This story is hard explain to my 5 year old son who streams Minecraft videos on his iPad).  My mother was a school librarian, basically the sheriff over all the equipment in the library, which housed the only VCR in the entire school.  She would drive the 5 miles to the school on Sundays and set the VCR to tape channel 6, KAAL out of Austin Minnesota, at 11 PM.  I don’t know if my parents understand my obsession/love/fascination with professional wrestling, but they have always been 100 percent in support of it and me.   

        My mom would get home at 3:45 PM Monday and I would have watched the entire program twice by dinner through the magic of the fast forward button.  I would watch each week upwards of 20 times before I would get the tape for next week’s show and the process would repeat itself.  I would memorize the play by play.  The highlight would be when they would show an arena match from the Civic Center.   Rod Trongard would be doing the play by play.  It makes me smile as I write this now over 30 years later.   

      When I started running  my own shows, I tried to think about what it was that really drew me to those tiny little wrestlers on my black and white television screen so I could replicate it.  I thought about it and realized it was they made me BELIEVE.  They made me believe that they hated each other.  They made me believe they were beating the hell out of each other.  The physicality made it appealing and the over the top personalities made it a can’t miss show for me.  I found out quickly that recreating the feeling that the AWA gave me was impossible.  It gave me a new found respect for the wrestlers I grew up with.  Guys like Mad Dog Vachon, “The Clawmaster” Baron Von Raschke, and The Crusher would get me invested in them emotionally through their great promos and charisma.  Then they kept me invested through their physicality in the ring.  That is the way it looked back then.  There weren’t perfect square landings on your back or 8 move pinning combinations.  There were two men, who looked like tough guys you wouldn’t mess with, and who wanted to win at all costs.  I believed.  Although I have long since given up recreating the AWA, I still try to reinvent how to get fans to buy in to what we are doing in the ring each and every show.  

Troy Peterson founded Impact Pro Wrestling in 2002.  IPW runs about 25 shows a year primarily in Iowa and Minnesota.  Troy helps organize the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame weekend in Waterloo, Iowa each summer.  The weekend features an awards banquet and a talent evaluation for young wrestlers scouted by Gerry Brisco and Jim Ross.  IPW also presents a live pro wrestling show in conjunction with the weekend.  Troy lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his wife Caroline and 5 year old son Truman.