Spandex, it's not just for shiny gear

Just returned home after a long day of setting up for our Kezar shows tomorrow. We are working with a new set fabrication company and all I can say is I will be dreaming about spandex tonight. I never realized you could make entire stages out of that stuff. Wow..tomorrow is going to rock!

Where is the cleaning crew?

As our big Kezar event gets closer, things get a bit more hectic around the old office, as you can see here. Somewhere under that mess is a desk that I used to plan on giving to our next employee. However, it looks like Chris and Bryan are sending me a sign that they need more workspace. Hmm what a week for our cleaning service not to show up. I wonder if they are getting scared of our production pit?

Video Killed the Radio Star

The fun just never stops here at Black Pants. You see, just when Bryan and Chris thought they were on cruise control for a smooth week leading to Kezar on Saturday, we find out some APW guys needed some promo DVDs made ASAP.

Luckily, Pixel Perfect came through huge by making some awesome covers and labels, so our job should be easy. Just dub some footage, right? Not so, we have a bit of a problem with "quickees" here at the office. We like to make things that look good and sometimes that takes a little longer.

So, today's screen shot is of 2 of our video capture stations encoding footage while Bryan and Chris huddle in the dark office working on DVDs, which will turn out amazing, no doubt.

Don't forget. APW at Kezar in 5 days!

Watch what you eat

Uh huh, so here is what I saw when I looked out my window this afternoon. Now you know why I don't eat at that funky "greek" cafe downstairs. Must be somthing in the hummus.

Watching new stars shimmer

A lot of you may have been giving your TV screen a double glance while you were watching WWE RAW recently. Hey... Where do you know that girl from? She just looks so familiar. Gosh. You can't put your finger on it. It's okay. I'll do it for you.

That woman you see standing aside the lovely Trish Stratus is Beth Phoenix. Having spent years on the indy scene, and just recently spending quite a bit of time in OVW, Beth seems to have finally burst on to the WWE scene, and she is doing awesome. I always find it exciting to watch the indy stars grow. For example, we have a few Beth Phoenix matches from her very late indy years against Allison Danger and my favorite, Mischif. I think it's great that fans can go back and see their favorite current superstars on ClickWrestle before they were bigtime. There are so many that you can see too, Samoa Joe, Chris Daniels, Crash Holly (Erin o'grady).. And of course, tons more. I'll try to keep you all updated on the CW indy stars that go on to TNA or WWE.

As for the next Kezar/Chickfight show.. Well. How exciting that the next one is coming up so soon! The footage from these shows is always amazing, and I can't wait to see what Chris does with his robotic arm. Though I can only hope he gets some actual sunlight before before the show. Poor boy.

Who needs the sun when we have computers

So the plan for today's blog was to show a screenshot of this awesome robotic arm interface Chris is creating for the ChickFight 4 DVD.

Instead, it turned out looking like the poor boy is getting blinded by some unnatural burst of light created by an evil Dell LCD monitor.

You will have to take my word for it, the robotic arm is very cool and Chris has promised to stay glued to his chair all weekend in order to get the footage done by ChickFight5 next week in San Francisco.

Speaking of ChickFight, we took a trip out to lovely Haight Ashbury today to scout the location and work out last minute details with the venue today. I still get chills the first time I walk into Kezar Pavilion. The building has so much history and it is great APW is able to have a new home in San Francisco.

Bryan held down the fort while we were gone and I'm sure he made a Sparks and Redline run for a long Friday night of editing wrestling footage.

Keep up the great work, guys! And to all our fans, have a great weekend!

Kezar, Kezar, Kezar

Yup folks, it's that time of the month again. The time when your favorite production team's attention turns away from the video servers and turns towards legal pad and design sketches.

APW's big all-day wrestling show takes place on 6/24 in San Francisco and the kick-ass men and women of Black Pants Productions and ClickWrestle will be there in force. Come on out and support APW and see how drawings on a note pad evolve to a full-blown production.

Visit http://www.allprowrestling.com and http://www.chickfight.tv for show details.

We're in the red zone now

It's no secret that we have the hardest working production team in pro wrestling here at Black Pants, but what you may not know is about the magic juice that keeps them going on those long nights of post editing.

At a recent APW show, head ref Kristina turned us on to an energy drink called "Redline". Imagine RedBull times 20 with a pretty scary warning label and you get an idea of what this stuff does. Anyway, as you can see, our mini fridge is stocked with the stuff and sometimes I wonder if Redline and Starbucks is the best meal for our guys to have each day, but the results speak for themselves. Check out some of the awesome ChickFight 4 previews and the many new matches that are currently live. It's amazing what the team can produce and how we can release a new match every day, even when partying in Vegas for CAC (but that's another story).

Long live Redline! How about a sponsorship, eh?

It's Shimmer time once again

Once again it's time for Shimmer. Shimmer Volume 3 is now being released, and you can look forward to it hitting the ClickWrestle front page in the very near future. Old favorites like Cheerleader Melissa and MsChif meet up with new comers to the roster such as Rebecca Knox and Lorelei Lee.

You can expect all of the same quality from Shimmer as before, fantastic footage. wonderful wrestling and beautiful women. In my personal opinion, you should all be sure to check out the illustrious Rebecca Knox. She's quite the mischevious little devil, and the match that she has against Allison Danger will show you just how tricky (and skilled) she can be.

Still don't believe me? Well check her out before her next release, then. We have some old chickfight footage of her against Morgan (who was a little, uhm, unsupported during this match) or against japanese legend, Mariko Yoshida.

Alright. You all have your assignments. Run along now.

Some how I don't think Sony had her in mind.

Recently the fine folks from IWA-MS sent us in a nice little batch of footage. The matches range from gory (Madman Pondo vs. JC Bailey in a death match!) to CM Punk vs. AJ Styles to matches featuring some great female wrestlers such as MsChif, Allison Danger, and Mickey Knuckles.

A predominant theme in the coming matches, though, is Mickey Knuckles. Knuckles has been taken under the wing of IWA-MS owner Ian Rotten, and has been trained to wrestle in his same brutal style. Mickey takes a lot of pride in her wrestling, and in her business. She isn't your everyday WWE Diva, and she prides herself in it. You can see her in the upcoming footage, or go ahead and check her out in some of the existing ChickFight 3 footage that we have on ClickWrestle. She made it all of the way to the final round where she faced off against the infamous Mariko Yoshida.

So you all keep your eyes open for Mickey. As for me? I'll be steadfastly avoiding any nature scenes. Let's just say that Egg updates are ending, now.

Very, very sneaky, indeed.

So Chris did it again.. He made a very cool preview for all of the Chickfight matches. I told him I would be blogging about his greatness, and I'd like to take a picture of him.. and he proceeded to act like a girl about getting his picture taken. So I took the super-sneaky photo you see above. Ah hah.. Fillet o' feeesh.

Anyhow, Chris made the ChickFight 4 preview that was released today. It's awesome, and has a super creepy finale. You should all watch it and salivate as you wait for the actual matches to release. It was the best ChickFight to date.

It's all relative.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.
-Albert Einstein

So I may have been a little impatient at work on Friday, but it's been busy enough around here for the past two days to keep me occupied, so I am pleased. Recently I have been working less with actual footage, and more with clientelle and customers. This is a change that I like. I love talking to people, I love solving problems. I get to play hero. It's fun.
I have been working on SOME footage, though. I've been cutting and editing the Kezar show, which has been a lot of fun as well. We had 5 cameras shooting the San Francisco Kezar show, and it's been a real learning experience. I have so much to work with that I have the ability to be a lot more choosey about the cuts I make. It's wonderful.. It's so, so pretty. I get to watch this 3-way match with Melissa, MsChif, and Mercedes in 5 angles. You all should be very jealous.

It's kinda sihry.. But not rearry.

It's a lonely day in the ClickWrestle offices today. Bryan? Sick. Chris? Day off. BossMan? Well.. I am never quite sure what BossMan is up to. So today it's just me and a couple people from a seperate business in the office. And while I generally like the work environment to be a little less crowded, the fact that today is Friday makes this a little harder on me. I want to goooo... I want to play.. I want to run around on the beaches of Santa Monica. Alas.


Instead? I am working on getting more footage providers. (aww, man.. One of the guys from the other company is leaving, too, now! Bah!) While I am sure Indy Wrestling Promotions across the nation understand the whole nationwide coverage/income deal, I don't think they have business on their mind, either. They all want to play on the beaches of Santa Monica as well.

Oh my god. The last employee just left. What am I doing here? Waaaaaaaaaaah!

Egg

Perhaps Egg was as worried about Momma Pigeon as I was, after seeing the state of Something Else Completely (formerly Unfortunate Pigeon) and Other Egg, and has fled the nest... Or perhaps Momma Pigeon has struck again. I can't tell yet. All I know is that Egg is now about a foot away from the nest, and has little tiny cracks in him, as you can see in the photo. I fear egg is either dead (dying?) after a mishap with Momma Pigeon, or perhaps Egg is hatching? Let's hope for the latter. 100% mortality rate is just too much, folks.

A waist is a terrible thing to mind.. Dude.

..but I can't seem to avoid noticing one of APW's top wrestler's physiques lately. Former All Pro Wrestling Heavyweight Champion, Kafu, wrestled the ECW Hardcore Legend, The SandMan, this Past Saturday at Kezar in San Francisco.

Kafu, while a little insane, has made some vast improvements as of late. His wrestling, his passion, and what I noticed the most this past Saturday, his looks! He has really stepped up and taken care of himself. Check out Kafu 2/3 years ago:












Look at the improvement! In any case.. I'm thinking you should all keep your eye on this Indy star. I am betting he is going to be a pretty big deal one day soon. Even if he is one crazy dude.. The Brazilian Beast (Beef?) is definitely going to move on up.

2000 more raindrops, and my cup doth not overfloweth.

Ah ha! And now it is time for those reviews I promised. I am a woman of my word. ;)

ChickFight numbero quatro. How exciting these female shows are. There is a whole different atmosphere. During the opening round Mercedes Martinez defeated Carla Jade, Cheerleader Melissa defeated Rain, MsChif defeated Candice LaRae, and Lacey defeated Hailey Hatred. These four matches were good. Some were a bit short for my liking. I really would of liked to see Candice LaRae get a little more play. I hear she isn't half bad, but she just didn't have a chance against my pick of the night, MsChif.


In the Semi-Final round of ChickFight 4, there was Mercedes versus Melissa and MsChif versus Lacey. While MsChif is still my strong favorite of the show, Melissa and Mercedes really put on the match of the night during this round. These girls did not hold back at all. Every punch, every kick, everything they did hit home and HARD. How either of them managed to wrestle again after this match, I do not know. I saw both of these women back-stage after the show and they were completely covered in the most grotesque bruises. If I ever had any doubts about whether or not wrestling was real or not, they completely vacated my mind after seeing those girls post-match. These women really beat the snot out of eachother.

And as the Final Round of ChickFight 4, we see MsChif take on Mercedes Martinez. This was a fantastic match. I loved it, but I have a small reservation. I feel like if these women weren't so broken and bruised, there could of been an even better match. I often feel this way after tournaments, though. I will think about how fantastic a match is, but then thing.. "Wow! It would of been even BETTER if these girls didn't just completely exhaust themselves twice before this match ever took place today!" Tournament style or no, this match was great.. There was a few unexpected events that took place during the match, but it all made everything even better. In the end? Well.. Never go against my picks. ;)


And last, but certainly not least... There were Zombies.. Oh yes. There were zombies. Bwa haha!

Never put all of your eggs in one basket.. Especially this basket.

Ahh.. After a long weekend that included a holiday and a huge show, I am sure you are all just chomping at the bit for a review.. Well. I am going to make you all wait for it. Bwa-ha-ha. Honestly, I still need time to digest all that happened on Saturday. It was so huge. 2 big bad shows that we have been working on for so long now. It's amazing to me that not so long ago I was calling venue after venue trying to help BossMan nail down a location. Look how far that progressed? It's a lot of fun to see a project through. I feel pretty good about that.

So.. Since I am not going to leave you with a review, I will leave you with a few of my favorite photos, and a quick word about the pigeons.


I just want to say.. This whole nature-watching pigeon baby experience is really starting to get me down. I scared off Momma Pigeon today in order to check out the eggs. Unfortunate Pigeon is still there, but appears to be turning in to something else completely. I look at the eggs.. and it's not eggs anymore. It's egg. Where did other-egg go?! What is Momma Pigeon doing? So now it's just Egg and Momma Pigeon. Other Egg is gone.. forever? Where could Other Egg have gone? He is not in the vicinity. I know Other Egg couldn't of just taken off. I think Momma Pigeon sold Other Egg on the black market. I fear for Egg's life. Will Egg turn out like Other Egg and Unfortunate Pigeon? What a motley crew this is..

Well you're a real tough cookie with a long history..

So, while I am very excited about the whole day on Saturday.. I must admit that I do have a special place in my heart for ChickFight. Being a strong supporter of women's issues, and a bit of a feminist, I always find it exciting when an all female event takes place in a male dominated realm. When it is an event like ChickFight, where the women are presented as strong, capable, athletic, and smart rather than the more prevaliant bimbo eye-candy, it's something I truely get inspired by.

I thought I'd talk a little about the contestants of ChickFight today, I'll go in order of the pictures descending the right side of this column. First off we have the lovely, if ill-tempered, Rain. Rain has competed in one prior ChickFight, the last one in fact. She faced off against Mariko Yoshida, who promptly turned Rain's knew only pain. Rain didn't have much of a world into a place that showing at that event, so I am hoping I get to see a little bit more from her this time around.

Next we have MsChif. MsChif has really caught my eye recently. Beyond her passion and rage, she is backed by amazing flexibility and tremendous athletic ability. I have seen this woman in some amazing matches against some great wrestlers. She wrestled in a cage match versus Mickey Knuckles that was absolutely brutal. In the recent past she wrestled Cheerleader Melissa at Shimmer, the two of them tore each other apart. MsChif is definately a favorite of mine coming in to this tournament.

Mercedes Martinez is our next competitor. She is a powerhouse. Her style of wrestling can be likened to those such as Sara Del Ray, the amazing women Japanese Wrestling like Ninja Ranmaru or Drake Morimatsu. This latina is definately a force to be reckoned with, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her leaving this tournament with a victory.

Melissa is a ClickWrestle.com favorite and has competed in all 3 prior
ChickFight tournaments. Coming in to the finals at the first two, and timing out in a battle against Sara Del Ray at the last. I am interested to see what will happen with her at the end of this bout.

Lacey! I am also very excited about this competitor.
Lacey has been a growing favorite of mine as well.
Probably my 2nd favorite wrestler in the tournament, in fact. Lacey has a lot of attitude, but some great skills in the ring too. I'd be a happy camper seeing Lacey win this ChickFight.

Lastly we have Carla Jade and Candace La Rae. I don't know entirely too much about either of these wrestlers, as I haven't seen much work from either of them. Candace La Rae is a nice little Canadian chica who had participated in ChickFight 1, she quickly was eliminated from the tournament, having had the unfortunate luck of running in to Princess Sugey, ChickFight 1 champion, during the first round. Either of these girls might just have something up their sleeves, but I don't know enough to make any predictions.

So who do I think will win? Well.. My money is on MsChif at this point. She is my favorite, and I'll stick with her. As far as other predictions for Saturday? Well.. I predict that Bryan will be staying clear of the cage during Kafu's match versus the Sandman. That's one cage he wont want to be locked in.

Much ado about something; Twelve thousand raindrops in every ocean.

So I have been talking about this Kezar Show for weeks now. I figure it's time to give you all the low-down on what's what. Here in San Francisco, we will be holding the 4th ever ChickFight tournament and also one more huge mixed-gender show on Saturday.

With two shows in one day, there is a ton going on. The Chickfight show will have 8 of the nation's worthiest female wrestlers competing, including ClickWrestle favorites like Melissa, MsChif, Hailey Hatred, and Mercedes Martinez.

The night time will be your classic All Pro Wrestling show, amplified ten times over. We will be having the ECW Hardcore Legend, The Sandman, take on our own former Universal HeavyWeight Champion, Kafu in a steel cage. Ahh.. The gore that will follow!

And it's all only ten bucks. Not too shabby, eh? Everyone should come! Carpool. Call your neighbors. Bring people who don't even like wrestling.. They can always watch our Undead Zombie Burlesque Dancers (who are worth way more than just ten bucks in themselves.) gyrate their much decayed hips and feast on the blood (brains) of innocents.

Miss Congeniality

This little lady managed to pop up on www.ClickWrestle.com's front page twice today, so I thought I'd go ahead and talk about her in the blog, too. Make it a nice little tri-fecta. So, here we have "The Well Rounded" Christie Ricci. She is featured in the match of the day and had a new match released just yesterday.

Ricci, who was a tomboy growing up, found her softer side as a teen and started competing in beauty pageants. She gained the title of Miss Teen Tennessee and competed in the Miss Teen USA pageant. Her history in pageantry no doubt leads to her current nick-name in the ring, the Mississippi Queen. In any case, Christie is a great wrestler and I encourage you all to watch her matches. (On a side note.. she has the spiffiest little kneepad/boot cover things. Very cool.)

Other news? If you open up today's issue of the SF Guardian to page 39 you will see APW's Derek Sanders posing with his APW Universal HeavyWeight title and Melissa putting Sara Del Ray in to an inverted Texas cloverleaf submission. How neat is that? On top of that you'll see a little spot pimpin' out this Saturday's show at the Kezar Pavilion in San Francisco. Come check it out! All your favorite female wrestlers will be there, all of your favorite APW stars will be there, and even the ECW Hardcore Legend "The Sandman" will be there. For more info, check out www.allprowrestling.com

Lastly.. Pigeons. Unfortunate Pigeon is still unfortunate. Momma pigeon is roosting so often that I havent been able to check on the eggs.. Hopefully her extra roosting will make up for the fact that she has shown such a lackluster performance up to this point.