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