And then of course I would go and tell my friends who had no idea about this newspaper and watch them marvel at my predictions. To some I was deemed "Wrestling Nostradamus."
It wasn't long before I started entering contest and calling Alan Raskin's wrestling phone line.
Eventually I won tickets to an event from him in a contest and our friendship formed. My contest win was a pair of tickets to a TWA wrestling event in Philly where I saw a young Mick Foley nearly bleed to death. (TWA wrestling never took off, ironic seeing it sounded like an airline instead of a wrestling federation.)
After winning the tickets, I wound up corresponding to Alan Raskin, and would call him on his home phone which he gave me.
There we would talk for hours after a pay-per-view about what happened. Him teaching me the terms of wrestling. Heel? Face? back in 1991 I had no clue. We would also debate who was the best wrestler of that era. Hogan or Flair. Alan was a Flair man. And he made a very good argument.
One I'm sure I'll talk about in another blog. But me, I was a teen who was a child of the '80s and well "The Huckster" still had me sold. I guess I cant dislike the kids of today then who buy the John Cena hype. After all, he's the Hogan of this generation. ( Feel free to send me hate mail for that comment my friends.)
Alan Raskin and I would chat for hours, and within a couple of months I began doing guest appearances in his column on the weeks he felt like taking a break from writing. My skills as a wrestling journalist grew.
Then I started doing what a lot of would be future wrestlers (Chris Jericho included)and wanna be reporters would do. Hang out at the hotels waiting to meet the wrestlers. This went on for two years.
With me reporting back to Alan. It was Feb of 1993 by then and Alan was going to be getting married soon and was working on a children's storybook. I was a senior in high school, and planning on a communications major. The last time Alan I had talked, we talked for hours as usual.
About a week later in the mail with his monthly newsletter, Alan sent me a Hulk Hogan friendship bracelet. If your a fan of wrestling from the 80's you'll remember those WWF friendship bracelets that they sold in the WWF catalog in the center of every magazine.
No matter how much we debated who was better Hogan or Flair, Alan still respected Hogan was my favorite. About three weeks later, I, as usual, went to my grandmother's and picked up a copy of the Review Newspaper to read Alan's weekly column.
To my shock and sadness there inside the first page was a story and picture that The Review's very own Alan Raskin had died that week from a brain aneurysm. The same paper that brought me joy every week had brought me devastation.
My mentor and wrestling friend had died. And it felt as if Hulk Hogan had just dropped a leg drop on one of his opponents. That was March 1993.The next several months I muddled along.
May came around and with it was an WWF event at the Spectrum on a Saturday afternoon card. Scheduled to appear was new WWF champion Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake.
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