Chapter 2: Laying the Groundwork.
October 5, 2003.
A phone conversation between Ricky Jr and Ricky Sr. is going on, a kind of heated argument heard from the living room as a loud slam can be heard, the junior Wayne looks over at his wife, sitting on the couch anticipating the news heavily and Ricky turns towards his wife with the slighest grin.
Ricky: We got the loan Shy.
A loud yell of excitement is heard as the couple embrace in the living room, the wrestling dream was back alive, not as a wrestler, but as an owner, a three hundred thousand dollar loan that is expected to be paid off by New Years Eve of 2006. It's not expected to be easy to break into the wacky world of Professional Wrestling, a 26 year old owner starting everything from the ground up, possible to do, but not easy to do. As the hug is let go, looking down at his shoes rubbing the tears out of his eyes, he sits down beginning to write out the two weeks notice, if he is going to do this his wife is going to have to support them for the time being while he makes this dream come true.
October 6, 2003.
Notepad pages are littered all over the floor of Rickys office, he's been brainstorming for hours, he has spent so long being enthralled with wrestling and every aspect of it, but he never actually stopped to think of a name. The scribbles keep coming and going, it clicks though. Ricky doesn't want to mimic or replicate the wrestling that he grew up with, he wants something new and fresh for people to enjoy, the new big names in professional wrestling. People were enthralled with the blood, and violence of ECW's main event scene, the upper to lower middle cards wrestling ability, crowds despised the NWO, the most infamous image in the history of Wrestling is the crowd throwing trash at Hulk, Nash, and Hall when the NWO was formed at Bash At The Beach 1996, when the two latters helped Hogan defeat Macho Man, and the next night on Nitro Hogan donned the Black and White and Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child would be an anthem for children and teenagers all over America for the next 4 years. Thats when it clicked with the newly made owner of an unnamed Wrestling Promotion.
Paul E. Dangerous messed up with a lot of his decisions, checks bouncing on talent, using licensed music without permission or payments, ECW wasn't perfect, but it was perfect to the fans, the violence mixed with great technical wrestling was a sight to see for the ECW Faithful, it may of not been perfect but it was perfect to them, they went too far, High Incident 1996 for example, but the fans ate up almost everything ECW did and fell in love with this new version of wrestling, no longer the cartoons, now it was people who you genuinely could believe hated each other.
October 9, 2003.
The 2300 Arena, Philadelphia, PA.
The door of a 2001 Toyota Camry shuts as Ricky walks up to the doors of the Arena, the front gate is opened, shows don't really run outta the 2300 Arena anymore, not since it was known as the ECW Arena. Walking up to the office of one Roger Artigiani, he operates the 2300 Arena, signs off on people using it for a certain amount of money.
Ricky: Nice to meet you sir, thank you for agreeing to meet with me and responding to my email!
Roger: Of course son, so I hear you want to bring Wrestling back to the 2300 arena?
Ricky: Yes sir, I feel like wrestling fanatics would love the idea of wrestling coming back to the 2300 and making it into the attraction it was less then 3 years ago.
Roger: Okay, well how do I know its gonna be a legit ran company?
Ricky: I'm unable to prove it any sense of the way truthfully, all I can give you is my word and a promise sir.
Roger: You're a dude whos been doing this less than a week and probably has nothing at the moment how do I expect to believe in this idea?
Ricky: Because you know the idea of wrestling back in this arena, even with monthly shows to start, is as good of an idea as I do.
Roger stares down at the contract and reads it over once before looking back up at the young Ricky with an intrigued expression.
Roger: Lets do it then, All I ask is 15% of the cut from ticket sales and we got a deal.
Ricky: Done.
The two men write their names on the contract and Ricky has now laid the groundwork to starting his new professional wrestling company.