I love Chicago. Many of my favorite memories from the ECW and ROH years are from Chicago. Since Dragon Gate USA tickets for the September 6th Chicago debut went on sale today, I figured it would be nice to reminisce about some of the good times, great memories in the Second City (tickets available in the www.DGUSA.tv Store section).

Chicago can best be described as a home run from my very first trip in June of 1999. The first weekend in Chi-town saw one of my favorite outside-a-show memories with the ECW crew. We ended up with some free time. Someone saw that the White Sox were in town and suggested that we head to the game. When I say "we" I mean the guys I traveled with and the entire locker room. About 20 of us headed over to the ballpark with no tickets in hand. Tommy Dreamer, who had taken charge as the locker room leader by that point, told us in his stoic voice to hang out for a minute. He disappeared and returned calmly a few minutes later and told us to follow him.

"We have a luxury box," he said with a sly smile as we were escorted into the stadium.

I couldn't believe it. I never thought I would ever get a chance to catch a game from a luxury box. I still remember the dessert tray to this day. Good times.

The ECW debut show at The Odeum was a pinnacle event. First of all, the Chicago fans were unbelievable. Not only were they extremely nice, but they were happy to spend money and it became my all time best program selling night. When the opening ECW theme hit their kindness turned into a rabid enthusiasm. When I say rabid, I mean they went absolutely insane.

Nothing exhibited this more than a tag team match that pitted Bubba & D-Von Dudley vs. Spike Dudley & Balls Mahoney. I loved fan camming during the brawls in the crowd. It was so much fun. There would be bodies flying everyone, people pushing and shoving and total chaos all around. The camera gave me carte blanche to do what I had to do to get through the people and follow the action.

Hey, this was ECW at the Chicago debut so naturally Bubba, D-Von, Spike and Balls were amped up to do something that we wouldn't forget. The brawl soon took to the stands. Of course, I had to scurry after them. I knew this would be a tough one. I hustled over the guardrail, but the four pugilists were already lost in the crowd. I led with my shoulder through the mass of bodies and soon found myself in the midst of what can only be described as a mosh pit. The wrestlers were killing each other just a few feet away as they set up for Spike's dive off some high place. The fans were in a frenzy as I was getting jabbed, hit, pushed and smacked around from every direction. Suddenly, I remembered that I had a nice chunk of money on me from the evening's program sales.

With one hand I followed the action and with the other hand I grabbed my fanny pack (hey they were in style at the time) to protect my night's taking. Finally, the action returned to ringside and I was safely over the guardrail. Only, I wasn't exactly out of harm's way yet.

In a scene that I can still picture perfectly in my head to this day, The Dudleys doused a table with lighter fluid. I mean they covered it. In fact, it felt like forever that they were spraying the flammable liquid on the wooden table. Each second felt like a minute as I began to grow a little concerned about my own safety. The guys in the ring were going above and beyond the call of duty to make ECW's first Chicago show a success, but they were literally playing with fire. From the amount of fluid on the table it was pretty obvious that there would be a burst of flame. Finally, they applied a lighter to the flammable substance. Balls was then powerbombed on the roaring blaze. I can still feel the heat to this day. Balls, Spike, Bubba and D-Von really made Chicago an ECW town at that moment.

On a funny side note, it also was the night I met two people who would play big parts in my post-ECW life. Christopher Daniels' brief ECW career began (and might have ended) that night. I remember him as being a nice and professional guy in the locker room. I will continue to describe him as that to this day. Meanwhile, an unknown Colt Cabana was lurking around the building. Although I don't remember crossing paths with him, Colt told me many years later he remembers seeing me running around. I'm sure he must have said some kind of smart alecky comment about me that night, but he won't admit it.

When it was time for ROH to go into Chicago, it was obvious that the city would be made by Cabana and CM Punk. Naturally, the first show in Chicago was built around them winning the ROH World Tag Team Titles. They executed the opening angle and main event match to perfection and Chicago became a ROH town.

It got to the point that it was worth trying a doubleshot in the Second City. In December of 2006 ROH presented "The Chicago Spectacular" Friday/Saturday events. It would produce one of my more frustrating nights in ROH followed by one of the most satisfying shows.

Things just didn't click on the Friday show. I would have to go back and re-watch the DVD to remember exactly what I didn't like about it. I just looked back at the lineup, and it actually looks pretty awesome on paper, so I'm not sure what went wrong. I just remember it was one of the rare nights that I left the show disappointed and angry.

When we got back to the hotel that night I wasn't in a mood to do anything other than re-examine the Saturday show. We had to pull out something special to make up for the first night. The Chicago fans couldn't get two lackluster shows. As I opened my booking book and glanced at the lineup for night two I saw nothing that jumped off the page to me. Nothing looked too exciting or exceptional. Sure, it would be good, but good wouldn't do the trick. 

I drew my pen and slashed away at the advertised card. First, it was time to pull out an old trick from "Generation Next." A bunch of midcard single bouts that didn't seem to have a lot of interest were turned into an eight man elimination tag, something very rare in ROH. Hey, it worked at "Generation Next," we could use that idea again. Then we culminated a year long storyline with Delirious in Chicago. Delirious had become one of the most popular characters in Chicago with a losing streak. He hit one out of the park with the Jim Cornette angle at Wrestlemania weekend earlier in the year that saw Cornette tell Delirious that he had to win or he was out of ROH. Delirious got a huge pop when he defeated Reyes. It was time to capitalize on Delirious' popularity again. It was all but guaranteed that the fans would go home happy if Delirious won the elimination bout by scoring the biggest win of his career against Bryan Danielson. It would be unexpected, but make sense, and be a "moment" for the fans that supported Delirious throughout his career. Plus, it set Delirious up as a challenger for the World Title. Finally, we took a strap match stipulation that wasn't exactly setting the world on fire between Homicide and Adam Pearce and turned it up a notch by making it an impromptu steel cage match. Homicide and Pearce both eagerly agreed to the stip change when they got to the building that day and put on a great cage bout. Of course, there was a bunch of other re-booking, but you get the idea. Everything clicked on night two. It was a great card and to this day I feel it is one of the most underrated shows in ROH history. Maybe I'm biased, but I'm damn proud of that one. We had a few hours to kill before our flight and were a good mood so we had a nice night of celebrating. Great memories.

The fun continued all the way to my last trip to Chicago when we visited Wrigley Field and went to the infamous Weiner Circle. I was actually really thankful that I got to go to these landmarks because I didn't think I would have another chance to go back to Chicago after being fired from ROH. Then the opportunity with Dragon Gate USA came along. As you can see by the examples set by ECW and ROH, it only made sense to book DGUSA in Chicago. Now I look forward to the making my way back on September 6th for the next chapter.

On a sidenote: Sorry about the lack of blogs, but now I actually have a job and it's nice out so I'm not sitting around a cold house with nothing to do. I'll be back soon to write about my involvement with the new FWA and a story or two about going to England with ROH. Also, everyone should watch Heckler. Thanks for reading!