An Open Thank You to Karl Stern

I wasn't planning for my 500th post on the OCC to be the same post where this letter was posted, but it is cool that it turned out this way.

The following is a letter of thanks to someone without whom it could be argued, there would be no OCC. So please:



An Open Thank you to Karl Stern.

On Wednesday, Karl Stern announced that on January 1, 2007 he is transferring all of the DragonKing archives over to Bryan Alvarez of Figure 4 Weekly and walking away from the professional wrestling industry.

While I speak only for myself, but as someone who owes a great deal to Karl I am quite certain that we have not heard the last of him even after January 1. However, that not withstanding with Karl’s announcement I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank Karl for some of the things that he has done, and I’m not the only one.

First, let me say this. I first became aware of Karl from his appearances on the Old Wrestling Observer Live show on Eyada.com back in the day. After that show ended, I lost track of him for awhile but then with my subscription to F4Wonline.com last November I was happy to hear that Karl was still around as I remembered him quite well. The first of his podcasts I listened to was the one where he went off on PW Torch writer James Caldwell for something he had written about wrestling deaths. The first episode of the Ric and Steve...er...Karl Show I heard was the one where "Sheiky" made his first appearance on March 20, 2006. So I've been a fan of Karl's for quite some time.

I owe a great deal to Karl. The fact is that if it weren’t for the Ric & Steve…er…Karl show there would be no Old Country Corner and definitely no blog. It is through Karl that I have made contact with someone in the person of Ric Gillespie of Canvas Chronicle who is one of my biggest supporters. It is also through Karl that I have been connected to my tag team partner in wackiness Wandering Euan and also if not for that show I wouldn’t have come to know Art Shimko of the Meanfilipine.blogspot.com blog.

I’m sure that if you were to ask Karl he’d probably tell you that it is he who should thank me for all of the comedy I’ve provided his show since March of this year. However, the fact is that there are any number of shows that I could’ve emailed and displayed my minimal talents but it just wouldn’t have been the same. A lot of what made anything I sent Karl funny was his own delivery. Karl himself has also been nothing less than supportive of anything I’ve done and while I know that Karl will have a presence on F4W, I am also offering him an open forum on the OCC to talk about anything he likes from College football to Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.

I don’t want this to sound like a good bye letter as this is not good bye. If the Ric & Steve…er…Karl show is going to continue on f4wonline.com then rest assured the Old Country Corner will wander with the Extravaganza over there as well.

So again I’d just like to say thank you Karl for all of your support over the past few months.

Sincerely:
Casey Trowbridge
Casey’s Old Country Corner


I was listening to Figure 4 Daily today and was sad to hear that Karl Stern is retiring from DragonKing, however I understand his stance and position and I want him to know that I've learned a lot about pro wrestling history from both his newsletter and website. Karl's also helped inspire me to forth more effort into my blog and I also appreciate him (and Ric as well) helping promote Schlock N' Hyperbole as well as having me appear on his audio show. I just want to say thank you Karl, I know you are not done just yet but you are a great and
knowledgeable person and I'm glad to have crossed paths with you.
-- Art Shimko
http://schlocknhyperbole.blogspot.com
http://oldcountrycorner.blogspot.com/

"I too along with Casey owe a lot of Karl as without him there would be no Wandering Euan's EuTube Extravaganza and i would not have gotten to know Casey and the other inhabitants of the Old Country Corner. I hope i have contributed something to the history of Dragonking Wrestling by introducing the greatness of Razor Ramon Hard Gay which has brought joy and amusement to Ric and Karl since the beginning of this year. I really hope the legacy of Dragonking Wrestling continues over at F4W. I would simply like to say thank you for everything Karl. Fuuuuuu~!"

Wandering Euan
MySpace/JoesGonnaKillYou

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Full Text of this week's OCC.

Behind the cut is this week's OCC as heard on the Ric & Steve...er...Karl Show

Let me also say that while the new intro music is much appreciated, the official opinion of the Old Country Corner is that country music is not cool. If we were to pick a song we'd probably pick a Country Boy Can Survive by Hank Williams Jr. which is also the song used by Matt Hughes.

That also reminds me that I aught to write up a mock history for the Old Country. Hmmm, perhaps that will be next week's corner subject?

Hey Karl:

I promised that not every email I sent you would be a gratuitous plug for my blog: oldcountrycorner.blogspot.com, and here’s me keeping my word.

A couple of weeks ago you and Ric did a profile on the Lord Humongous character. Well, this got the Old Country Caretaker thinking which is both never a
good thing and very rare, so we went back into the Old Country Archives and searched through singles of documents to find a character that had a similar
career path.

It should come as no surprise to you, that we found one.

So, I give you the history of the famous gimmick of Wimpus Maximus Minimum.

The character originally debuted in Ultimate Pro Youth Ohio University Reality Sports, known as UP YOURS Wrestling for short. He was ¼ of a wrestling stable
that was only known as that team we couldn’t think up a name for. He was a member of the group along with “flat on his back” Jay and a wrestler designed
to be a futuristic robot known as J.O.B.B.E.R. I said he was ¼ of the team but we’ve only got 3 wrestlers. This is because the promoter advertised 4 men
but was so cheap that he only hired 3. The other member was nicknamed the invisible man and still works today, commonly appearing disguised as an empty
seat at an ECW house show.

None of that is important to the story, just filling time. Did I mention that Wimpus Maximus Minimum was a masked wrestler? I didn’t, well he was and that
would be part of his exit from UP YOURS Wrestling.

You see, those in charge of UP YOURS Wrestling weren’t very smart. How dumb were they, even WCW didn’t hire them because of gross incompetence. Anyway one
night, a match was scheduled to take place between Minimum and another masked wrestler I.M. Uglay. However, the match would not take place as advertised
due to the fact that the promoters forgot that the same man played both characters. Even though the match never officially took place that didn’t stop
Kade Weller of the Pro Wrestling Star from giving the match six torches.

The character would bounce around to other territories in the United States including: “Fantastic American Grappling” out of San Francisco, the Future Unsanctioned
Central King’s Wrestling Promotion In Seattle Washington, and Big Intense Titanic Championship Hurting out of Little Rock Arkansas.

The character was never more than enhancement talent and I use the word talent loosely. His finisher was known as “All in a Day’s Work” and he did manage
to hit his finish in every match, unfortunately the move always resulted in his shoulders being pinned to the mat and the 3 count was a mere formality.

As time passed, the character finally was called overseas. It made its debut in the famous Japanese Company (Promotion Universal Spirit Success Yahoo~!)
Wrestling called “PUSSY Wrestling” for short. The rules in “PUSSY Wrestling” were a little different as losing was rewarded more than winning, losing matches
is how you earned titles and being beaten up every week earned you the support of the company’s fan base known as the “Pussy Patrol”.

So the biggest day of Wimpus Maximus Minimum’s career finally arrived. He was fighting for the title of “Top Pussy” after having lost 3,245 matches in a
row and becoming the company’s most over star. He would compete in a mask Vs. Hair match against the Native American Superstar Dances with Baldness. I
don’t have to tell you that the outcome was severely telegraphed in this match.

In the end Wimpus Maximus Minimum was victorious in defeat, losing the match and winning the title of “Top Pussy.”

He was unmasked for losing and proceeded to cut the following spirited promo.

“My big dream has been realized. I am now considered the world’s largest pussy. This means that I have accomplished all that I can in the ring. So now,
I must return to America to work on my new dream. I am going to start a website, so you can check me out on the web for I am Ric Gillespie of Canvas Chronicle.com!”

So there you have it the career of a man that will be known from this point forward as “top PUSSY” and the man who will always finish behind me in WWE Fantasy,
Ric Gillespie. Karl, I’m surprised that Ric never told you about his infamous wrestling career, but now that you know I don’t think you’re all that surprised.

Thanks to you both, and to Ric, when you brag about finishing first for a week of WWE Fantasy you might want to check and see that you didn’t actually finish
third. Then again claiming to win when you didn’t is one of the traits that make you “top PUSSY”

Take Care guys, thanks for the time, and thanks to Ric for being such a good sport and a PUSSY to boot.

This has been, Casey’s Old Country Corner.

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Next Week's Ric & Steve...er...Karl Show.

The Ric & Steve...er...Karl Show is really where your humble caretaker got his start (Note that I didn't need any Sheik help to be Humble) and I can give a little preview of next week's OCC having already sent it to Karl

Its not simply a plug for my blog, no this is the Old Country Corner that you all have come to know and love.

Its another historical piece with an ending that is a much better swerve than Vince Russo could've come up in a million years for anything.

Tune in and be surprised.

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