This week I return not with a tape review, but rather with an interview with J.R. Benson who has been on the indy circuit for a few years now.

1. Well for the benefit of newer wrestling fans who may not be acquainted with your work, can you give them an idea of just who J.R. Benson is? Well, I've done a lot of different things in the wrestling business and I've been a lot of places. I guess I'm best known for my own promotion, Extremely Strange Wrestling out of the San Francisco area. It was about the lewdest, most politically incorrect promotion ever in wrestling. People either loved it or hated it but it was impossible to ignore. I promoted those shows, booked them, wrestled in the main events, hell I put up and took down the ring, so I guess I should be synonymous with ESW. But I've done lots of other stuff, actually I've primarily worked as a manager for a lot of different promotions.

2. What made you decide to get into the wrestling business and how did you go about getting into it? I was obsessed with wrestling as far back as I could remember. Watched any wrestling that was on tv, went to any live show that came through Northern California. I basically fell into it. I became friends with a lot of people in the business, partying with the wrestlers and shit. Some people heard me cut promos and you gotta understand I was a huge fan of wrestling promos but had never really tried it myself. But I was a natural, it just spewed out of me with ease so people suggested I pursue the manager thing. Once I got involved I stumbled upon another fact I didn't know about myself, that I had a very very high threshold for pain and pretty much zero fear of danger once I was in the ring. So I had all the tools and didn't even know it. Through connections I had made I got booked on small indies, got trained and just kept on going until I had made a name for myself.

3.How did you feel when you got your spot in Smokey Mountain Wrestling, which was one of the top indy promotions to ever come along? Oh at the time I was thrilled. I had only worked little bullshit shows and at the time Smokey Mountain was easily the best product in the US so it was incredible. I gotta clear up though, I didn't exactly have a full time spot on the roster in SMW. Basically I made friends with Jim Cornette, Tom Prichard etc. So a group of us from California, me, Ron Hed and Mistress Stacey, who now works OVW as Synn, would go on regular trips to Tennessee to travel around with the crew. I just flat out asked Jim if I could manage on the next spot show in Albany, Kentucky. He said sure, saw that I could handle it and basically I did a lot of the spots shows in cities like Albany, Kentucky, Beckley, West Virginia. The craziest town SMW ran was Barbourville, Kentucky, just psycho inbred hillbillies who legit wanted to murder the heels, that was a great town to be a manager in. It was lots of fun and a great experience for a guy who had only done a handfull of shows. I never did the big cities like Knoxville or Johnson City and I never made tv, though my name did. Chris Candito actually said on SMW tv he beat Jushin Liger and J.R. Benson in a tournament to win the US Junior Heavyweight championship. That year Pro Wrestling Illustrated credited Candito over J.R. Benson in the finals of a tournament for that title, which of course never happened. But I did mostly spot shows in small towns. When Jim said I could manage on backwoods spot shows during my Tennessee trips, I don’t think he had any idea how often I'd be traveling down there!

4.Who did you like working with in SMW and who didn't you like working with (if anyone) and why? I had a great time working with The Thrillseekers, Chris Jericho and Lance Storm. I managed the Infernos against those guys their first week in the country from Canada. I was new to SMW, they were new to SMW and to the United States, we had a great time working against each other. We were traveling in a van with the late Dick Murdoch for those first few weeks and it was just a mind blowing experience. There was literally no body in SMW that I disliked or didn't get along with. Great crew, everyone had a lot of fun. Everyone truly loved the business, it wasn't just a paycheck but everyone enjoyed what they did. Work was fun and then the fun just continued on afterwards. Great times.

5. Any funny or amusing backstage stories from your SMW days that you'd like to share? Well the most infamous story is known as the dairy queen massacre. I actually have it on tape and used to sell it to people, basically after a show in Kentucky a van full of us pulled into a dairy queen, Jimmy Del Rey was driving, Jim Cornette in the passenger seat and in the back of the van was Chris Jericho, Lance Storm, me, Synn, Ron Hed. Ron had the camcorder on and caught all the action. Basically we ordered a shit load of food, we had a full van, waited 20 minutes to get to the front of the drive thru line and the broad tells us now they'll start cooking the food, they wanted to make sure we really wanted it. Jim let into her, one word led to another, she told him we wouldn't get any food if he talked to her that way and slammed the window shut. Out of the van comes Jim Cornette on a warpath, he pulls the drive thru window open, sticks his body inside and starts cussing her out "Listen here you ugly fucken bitch...." and he cut this awesome promo on the chick working the drive thru. You really have to see the video because it's the most outrageous thing you'll ever see. Funniest part was inside the dairy queen at the counter, Tom Prichard, Chris Candito and Tammy Fytch were at the register getting food and they look up to see Cornette, their boss, diving through the drive thru window and verbally assaulting the workers. Just classic. Another moment I always remember is Jimmy Del Rey of the Heavenly Bodies, who if you haven’t seen him was one of the best workers ever, the guy was great. He was a nut outside the ring and took us to this strip club in Knoxville. He was ripped, just totally trashed and pretty much about to pass out but he brings his Smokey Mountain Wrestling tag team championship belt in and is wearing it, dancing with the strippers and shit. His energy level didn't hold up and he passed out and a bunch of us are just sitting and watching his tag team title belt because different strippers are wearing it, dancing with it, passing it around. We made sure we got it back. Lots of wild memories, I came from California and thought Tennessee was the middle of nowhere. I can’t really say it isn't but we used to have insane parties.

6. What was Jim Cornette like? Does he always talk a mile a minute like he did in his wrestling promos? Jim Cornette is the best story teller I've ever met. One, nobody has as many stories. He's been everywhere, worked with everyone and done it all. But not only are the stories great, no one can tell them the way Jim does. If anything, his speech only increases from his wrestling promo style when he starts in with stories. Jim Cornette is one of the funnest people in the world and a great guy. Biggest difference between Jim Cornette the on air personality and Jim Cornette the person has to be his temper. I was used to the old Mid South and NWA Jim Cornette running and hiding from everyone, cowering and crying. The real Jim Cornette is the exact opposite. He'd be the first one to get into a fight if incited and he will finish it. But if you stay on his good side, JC is one of my favorite people I've ever met in the wrestling business.

8. Did you like how SMW was run and promoted? Was their anything you would've done differently had you been in charge? No it was run great. I don't know how Jim took care of everything himself, it must have been the ultimate 24/7 head ache but he did a great job. He ran a smart territory and he ran a fun territory. What more can you ask for? I wasn't there at the very end but you can be sure everything possible was done to keep SMW going.

9. Now you were involved in some famous matches on the California indy scene, specifically the Sabu/Chris Candido ladder match from around 94ish I believe. During the match Sabu hit you with a brutally stiff chair shot that caused you to have to get 12 stitches after the match. Did you ever have any heat over Sabu with this? No not at all. In fact I worked another time with Sabu after that, and met up with him many times after that, never had a problem. Sabu is a great guy but once your out at the ring he truely is suicidal, homicidal and genocidal. You see what he does to his own body, can’t really expect him to have a lot more regard for someone else's. But I always got along great with Sabu outside the ring.

10. Now in my opinion Sabu was a great worker when he was on the indies and during his early stints of Japan, but around 1997 his whole style just started to get stale. Do you think this may have been because Sabu never really changed his act I mean his moveset and general character was almost always the same, or do you think his style may have gotten stale due to the fact that wrestlers are now more athletic and all the more willing to put their bodies on the line, much like Sabu used to do in his early days? Tough to say. Sabu never lost the willingness to put his body on the line that's for sure. I don't feel like he got that stale, all wrestlers, no matter who they are, get repetitive in their styles. No way around that. In his prime I always felt Sabu did a good job of at least busting out with one or two brand new maneuvers in each match. I don’t think Sabu got stale so much as the style that he originated just got very overdone and over exposed. I think once RVD became popular that may have hurt Sabu due to

comparisons between the two. I think Sabu still has a lot of mileage left in him. Sabu and Devon Storm had a hell of a match on pay per view this year.

11. Now back in 1994 you and Johnny Legend worked on a rather big indy show called "Aftershock "94" and the main event on this show was Sabu and Al Snow, but Terry Funk eventually came out and all three basically tore the building down with a huge brawl, which lead to the owners of the building calling the police because they had never seen anything like it before. Were you ever involved or on another show where something like this happened? First of all, the term tore down the house goes way back in wrestling but that was one instance where they literally tore down the house. Sabu and Al Snow had probably the best match I've ever seen from either man that particular afternoon and then Terry Funk showed up, not announced I might add, and put on one of those performances only Terry Funk can. It was an incredible spectacle live and it holds up on video. Anyone who has never seen it needs to. That was the first time I had been involved in something getting so out of hand the police had to come. But in the future I would be involved in several incidents like that during my Incredibly Strange Wrestling/Extremely Strange Wrestling days. We were such the outlaw shows that it was the nature of the beast by that point.

12. Now at "Aftershock '94" one of the play-by-play men was a young Danny Wolf who would go on to become an interviewer for the failed show RollerJam, is it true that the guy is insanely cheap? I only met Danny Wolf a few times. Cool guy but don't really know him.

13. You also promoted events with Johnny Legend around 1995ish. These events were rather infamous and you called the promotion Incredibly Strange Wrestling, which was an apt title for your indy. How exactly did you come up with the idea of ISW and all of the incredibly strange gimmicks and angles? I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. I met Johnny Legend for the first time at Aftershock 94 when we did our Northern Cal vs. Southern Cal dual. I didn't know anything about his background that day but I later found out he has quite a background. He's a legit Southern California legend and a real cool guy actually. I told him I lived in San Francisco and he said he was talking to some night clubs up there about promoting some wild after hours shows in these night clubs and that he was real close to a great deal. Said he needed more bodies and since I lived in San Francisco maybe I could provide part of the crew for these shows. He said they didn't necessarily need to be great workers just be able to entertain and be crazy. The thing is, in wrestling people are always talking. If you believe everything you hear, well, just don't believe much of anything and you'll be in good shape. So I really didn't pay much attention but I'll be dammed, he was telling me the truth. He cut a deal with these night clubs in San Francisco, and these weren’t dives either, we're talking the biggest after hours clubs in SF. I mean, these clubs pack a thousand people in on Friday and Saturday nights regardless of what band or what event. They didn't need wrestling, if anything the ring would cut down on how many punkers they could cram into these places. So it was a real sweet deal, you had a guaranteed built in audience of at least 800 people, most likely more, in the heart of downtown San Francisco. The way it was set up was an hour of wrestling, then a band would play, then another hour of wrestling, another band etc. etc. The name Incredibly Strange Wrestling was Johnny's. I don’t recall the actual significance but I liked the name myself. Johnny had a much different vision then me and my group of people. Johnny was along the lines of comedy skits, lots of guys in Lucha Libre masks with hilarious names doing very light hearted matches that all had comedy punch lines and silly angles. Very tongue in cheek light hearted stuff. It was fun. Now the vision my crew brought to the table was hardcore matches with lots of weapons and blood and we also had a certain comedy but it was a darker comedy. Kind of Stern meets Springer meets something quite a bit more sinister. We had the Abortionist, who brought a rusty coat hanger to the ring with him. We had the Rapist, we had a dominatrix who would discipline her slaves in matches in the ring. A molester who's manager was a little boy. You get the idea. Johnny actually appreciated where we were coming from, he got into the sicker ideas, but he wasn't a fan of the violent matches. He felt we could use our cruder and more offensive characters and ideas but present them in the way he presented his, basically walk through matches that posed no threat to the wrestlers, fans or furniture. We made it pretty clear that most of the fun for us was the warfare in the ring and that we weren’t getting paid a ton so to keep us, we were gonna do our matches our way. Johnny was real cool, even the shit we would that he just didn't understand, he was open minded and we would negotiate and find a middle ground. Of course we usually went too far once in the ring and rendered those negotiations meaningless but nonetheless, we were a hit. We were so popular in SF that year people legitimately waited for ISW shows every month and we packed them in. We even got booked on the Lollapalooza tour that year, in Mountain View, California and the big one in Seattle in front of 30,000 people. Granted, Incredibly Strange Wrestling didn't sell those tickets, neither did any band, Lollapalooza was hot and drew everywhere it went. But what an opportunity for us to work in front of a giant crowd, even on the side stage, we had a huge crowd, it was great, and our concepts combined with Johnny's made for a strange mix but it was working. Johnny wasn't the problem. The problems were this, in order for Johnny to secure these night clubs on a regular basis for these shows, and believe me they were a score, the catch was that these night club people wanted to be part of the show. We're not talking as owner of a company, or on commentary or as managers, these people wanted to be in the ring wrestling and they wanted to be put over as the stars of the show. They had no wrestling training, no ability to put on a half way passable match and they had no desire to learn shit. They would just get in there, flop around like little kids on a trampoline and be put over as main eventers. I really didn't give a fuck, it was there venues, do what you want. The matches were beyond embarrassing but whatever. Their names were all over town on the posters and fliers and they would neglect to mention us. Again, what can you do? But when they saw us blowing the roof off these places, and we did every show, then they started getting jealous. They would put pressure on Johnny, have him tell us we can’t do this character, we can’t do that angle, we can’t use weapons, we can’t use blood, our matches had to go less then 5 minutes, you know to make room for an 11 minute tumbling routine reminiscent of children on a kindergarten playground. Johnny was so caught in the middle because they were adamant about crippling our whole routine and we were adamant about doing what we wanted because quite frankly it worked. The crowds would go ballistic at the end of our matches. One night they told us the wrestling had to end at midnight. Usually these things went on and on until 2-3 in the morning but at this particular club the wrestling had to wrap up at midnight and the ring had to come down for the dance floor to be open. Then they purposely held us off and put our match in the ring at 11:57. 3 minutes. At this point we really didn't care anymore. We weren’t intimidated by these assholes, they had a lot of clout in SF with bands and everything because if you pissed them off, you couldn't play at the main venues in town. Well, we weren’t in the music business and we didn't give a flying fuck about these assholes. We went to the ring at 11:57 and we did our entire match, which was about nine minutes in length not including a post match angle, mic work etc. They were livid. The funniest part was the ring announcer Ron Hed, he would do the announcing over the pa for the live audience, was part of our crew. They were flipping out and telling security to put an end to our match and Ron is on the mic daring security to try to stop it. We're using chairs, tables, thumbtacks, a dildo wrapped in barbed wire, bleeding all over the place, and security was looking at it going "I don’t wanna get in the middle of this." And they didn't. We really showed these people up and to make matters worse the finish of the match was the first ever golden shower in the middle of the ring. We neglected to fill anyone in on the fact that we would have a girl peeing on a wrestler in the ring, the fact that it was about ten minutes after midnight when we were supposed to wrap up didn't help. The fans went nuts. One of my favorite matches I ever did. Somehow, this incident didn't get us fired! So we decided to set out to get ourselves fired on the next show because it was becoming too much of a head ache. We showed up at the night club with our commissioner, a homeless bum, Paul E. We used to film lots of footage of Paul E. for our videos but never brought him to a show. I mean he wreaked of piss, had snots hanging from his face, not someone you would bring to any establishment. We brought him and had a huge fight with these people in the afternoon. By the time we got to the ring around one in the morning you could imagine the tension. We managed to get fired by taking our brawl out of the Paradise Lounge and on to the corner of 11th and Folsom in San Francisco, which is incredibly busy on a Saturday night, and we were doing spots in the street cross walk, chair shots the whole thing, ending up with a golden shower in the street holding up traffic with horns everywhere. This was the final straw and got us fired. We didn't even go back into the club, we headed to our cars and never looked back. That was the end of ISW, at least for us. 14. Later on you and Ron Hed would leave ISW after people tried to get you to tone down the product. You would shortly thereafter form Extremely Strange Wrestling and promoted probably the most famous show from the ISW/ESW fame Human Cockfighting '96 and then you took it a step further and did Exposing the Business '98. Which of these two shows did you like better and why? Well Exposing the Business 98 was the more popular video and if I were a fan just watching, I'd definitely go with Exposing the Business. It was just fucken insane. However, from a personal standpoint, Human Cockfighting was much closer to what I had planned on paper and took much less of a toll on me, physically and mentally. Human Cockfighting was a lot of fun and was exactly what I wanted it to be. Exposing the Business was a horrendous train wreck that everyone involved was lucky to survive quite frankly. Both are great videos.

15. Is there anyway the fans could purchase old ISW or ESW shows? I still have the masters of all these shows and anyone interested can contact me at JRBENSON@webtv.net I guarantee anyone who has never seen any of this footage will be blown away.

16. Tub of Aids Infected Syringes match or Fuck with Death match, which was your favorite and why? I'll go with the infected syringes match because I was able to walk away with very little discomfort. Fuck with Death left me with a badly bruised kidney, a concussion and just a ton of discomfort everywhere. It taught me my limits of how far I can push things. It left Synn with four screws surgically implanted into her ankle, Rapist took ten stitches to his head and a concussion, we learned that we weren’t indestructible that evening.

17. How do you feel about Vince Russo who more or less basically stole your concepts of ISW and ESW, watered them down and then churned them out for the WWF, WCW and now NWA:TNA and made a living out of it? Well this is how I look at that situation. I believe it was inevitable. When you look at society in general and television in particular, everyone is going that route. Not everyone, but certainly the majority of the public in general is leaning towards the crude and politically incorrect and shocking. I think it was inevitable that someone would do it in wrestling. I love the fact that we did it first, I take great pride in that. But if we hadn't done it, someone else would have. So as far as Russo, I don't know how much of an influence we had on him, I met Russo well before he was a power in WWF or before we were doing the crude stuff, but I know he was aware of us and enjoyed our product. How much he emulated it I'm not sure. Maybe he would have gone that route on his own. Maybe he did. Russo had one hell of a tremendous run in the WWF. So far I've been disappointed waiting for him to do it again. Maybe he burned out. Maybe he'll have another hot run. We'll see.

18. On your website (www.jrbenson.com) you say that you folded ESW because there were simply no more limits to push, since then however have you ever thought of bringing it back if only for a one time thing? I think more could always be done. I love booking. If all I had to do was book the product and then show up and give everyone their finishes, I'd love to do it again. But without a budget to get a lot of help, I'm just not interested in all the work. Promoting a show with limited help is way more work then I want to take on at this point.

19. Can you describe your falling out with Roland Alexander and how it came about? Where do you even start? First off, people knock Roland constantly so let me start by saying Roland gave me a hell of a deal on my training and I appreciate that. I got good training and Roland definitely made it most affordable. I also generally liked Roland most of the time I was around him. Now that I got that out of the way, let the knocking begin. We had a few different falling out's actually. I was only fired from APW twice. Roland had a big problem with the Incredibly Strange Wrestling stuff. Felt that we exposed the business, gave the business a bad name and gave him a bad name by association. Now mind you, APW shows were family friendly fund raisers, at high schools in remote small towns. ISW was in front of a bunch of non wrestling fan punkers at night clubs after midnight in downtown San Francisco. Not much cross over audience there. Roland didn't see it that way and felt that by employing me in APW, he was somehow tied in with ISW's rep. It got worse when I formed ESW because in ISW I was only providing a portion of the crew, for ESW I needed more bodies and a lot of the APW workers loved the shit so we'd put masks on them and they worked my shows. Roland had a fit about that. So I was let go, I figured permanently because we also had disagreements about my work. Roland liked the early 70's managers who just stood quietly in the corner, because then when they eventually did something and got involved, it was a shock and created heat. Well, that was fine then but with all fans had seen by the mid 90's, standing still wasn't gonna get heat. I would work ringside aggressively, doing my best to not take away from the match but I still made my presence known and Roland didn't like that. But I got heat and could cut a good promo so Roland brought me back. The second time I was fired was when I sent a video of Vic Grimes and Erin O'Grady (Crash Holly) to Jim Cornette and they got a tryout match in the WWF. To be honest, I wasn't even thinking in terms of getting the guys into WWF. I would often send Cornette videos of random madness. He always knew if a JR Benson video arrived in the mail, have a seat because it was going to be off the hook. At that time, summer 1997, Grimes and O'Grady were doing the state of the art matches. In the particular match I sent Cornette, those two must have invented 20 moves that at that time had never been done before. Hell, even today I haven’t seen some of those spots done again. You would never know it from anything Crash Holly has done in WWF, but O'Grady is an incredible wrestler who can really excite a crowd. Of course we all know what Grimes is capable of and those two really tore shit up back then. Cornette loved it and at that time he was in the office in WWF and he got them booked for a tryout match when WWF came to California. It was still a few months away and I gave them what I considered solid advice, don’t get Roland involved in this. It's hard enough to get your foot in the door and here you have a tryout match coming up, you don’t need Roland in there aggressively negotiating money, and talking about what percentage he should get. That's between Roland, Vic and Erin, all that talk would have done is gotten the tryout match cancelled. Well, word got to Roland and that was the end for me. It was a combination of me telling the guys not to involve Roland but also, Roland's main guarantee when getting guys to pluck down five thousand dollars was that once trained he shops them around to WWF and WCW. Granted, Matt Hyson aka Spike Dudley did get to ECW but I don’t know if Matt sent his own tape or Roland did. But the bottom line was, no one was shopping Vic and Erin around and when I managed to get them a tryout, Roland was upset because he was always talking me down to the crew and saying what crap Extremely Strange Wrestling was and how listening to JR Benson will get you no place except black balled in this business. Well that turned out to not be true. Roland's worst move was to get rid of me over it though, because then all the boys took that as proof that Roland really wasn't interested in getting his guys into WWF or WCW. He was upset that he was losing his best two guys and he fired me over it. I actually left APW at the perfect time because everyone looked at me as the guy who wouldn't do what Roland told him and the guy who got Vic and Erin noticed. I got calls from guys all the time about sending their tapes in. Lets just say I left APW with a real good rep with the boys and that probably wasn't what Roland planned but that's how it worked out.

20. Now you sent Jim Cornette tapes of Vic Grimes and Crash Holly, so really you could claim to have been the one that got their foot in the door, so how do you feel about Roland taking credit for the success of these two wrestlers? I just take it in stride. You know, whatever. Roland claims he did it but he was none to happy about it when it went down that's for sure. But Roland can say his school produced them and they did do a damn good job training them so we'll leave it at that.

21. You were trained by Mike Modest, do you still keep in touch with him today and what do you think of his and Morgan's Pro Wrestling Iron promotion? You know, I've been meaning to get in touch with Mike and Donavon. Two great guys. Modest taught me so much and he is the most underrated guy to never make it in this country. I'm glad he's finally making it in Japan because what a talent to not be noticed. The guy can do it all. And I go way back with Donavon, real cool guy, I'm glad he made it to Japan too. From the one tape I've seen, their promotion looks great. First real attempt at a true Japanese style promotion in this country. Impressive that the fans respond so well to it. On the tape I saw of their promotion, I just saw another of my old friends Vinny Massaro working against Misawa in California and that blew my mind. I wish all those guys best of luck.

22. In "Beyond the Mat" Roland Alexander said that he was one of the better promoters as far as paying the wrestlers and such. How did Roland really treat you guys in APW? Roland treated a few people well. He treated a few people real badly. Payoffs, all I've heard were complaints. I remember the night I laid on a table while Vic Grimes took his 400 pounds up 12 feet to the top of a garage door, for his first ever balcony dive. No one was willing to lay their and absorb it but I did it, not for Roland but because I trusted Vic, and I wasn't injured in the slightest but you know, talk about a risk. Not one cent. Roland paid me zero dollars that night. Guess that sums it up for me. I know it was my last night in, that was the first time I was fired, I know we're not seeing eye to eye on most things, but come on. He had a hundred people crammed in that warehouse at $20 a piece, did it every two weeks and was always busting out with all his new computer equipment, new toys and shit. He couldn't find any funds for a guy who risked his life and popped the crowd at the end of the show. Come on.

23. Currently your working in XPW managing Snuff. How did you meet and hook up with Rob Black? All of my old friends from APW are working down there. First it was Steve Rizzono and Joe Appelbaumer, who is Pogo the Clown. You know, me and Steve trained together breaking into this business. I was Joe's first manager in the business. Then Vic Grimes, Ron Hed, Scott Snott, Vinny Massaro, all of my old friends were working down there. I saw some videos and I loved the product so I went down on a few trips, met Rob Black and Kevin Kleinrock, everyone was real cool, the crew is awesome, great bunch of guys and I love the atmosphere, the more dangerous the more I like it. I showed them a video of what I could do, they told me when they had an idea for me they would use me and they kept their word.

24. What is working for XPW like? It's wild. Just insane. Early in my career I used to work old school shows and I'd go by the book. In later years I've gone the hardcore route and I'm just so used to people saying you cant do this, you cant say that. NO NO NO. DON’T DON’T DON’T. Not in XPW. They tell you what they want out of you and then give you a lot of room to do your thing. Nothing is too much for them and I like that. I've enjoyed my experience in XPW a lot.

25. Do you think XPW gets a lot of unfair press on the internet? Totally. People just latch on to any negative and ignore the positive. Any promotion, and I do mean any promotion, would come off bad if only their negatives were pointed out. XPW has some incredible talent and does a lot of really great stuff. You never hear about the great matches between Kaos and Chris Hamrick. Talk about underrated, these are two of the best talents in the business. You never hear about things like the music videos, which smoke anything I've ever seen in this business. Hell even the managers, G.Q. Money and Angle go out and do matches better then wrestlers in most circuits. XPW has a lot going for it but people who haven’t seen it, just reading about it on the internet, get fed all this negativity before they can even see for themselves. If people would just mention the positives once in awhile. People have already banded together which is very unfortunate but another way to look at it is this, XPW is now the ultimate outlaw promotion. A true heel promotion, and it doesn't even deserve it but that's not a bad base to build from. Sometimes being infamous and notorious works better then being good and I think that's the case here. Once people are exposed to XPW, they'll be surprised what a good show they put on but what will bring people to the table is the forbidden, evil XPW. Hey, whatever works.

26. What are your opinions on the sad situation with The Messiah? Oh shit, I don't know. Same as everyone else, I feel bad for the guy. I met him a few times and he was a nice guy. That was some fucked up shit that happened to him. I hope things work out for him.

27. Have you ever worked with New Jack? If so what is he like in your opinion? Is he as intense in person as he comes off on TV? I've never been in the ring with Jack but I've been around him a lot in XPW. Actually, he doesn't remember me from SMW but I spent some time around him then. Got to know him better in XPW and he's a riot to be around. He's so intense in the ring but when you get to know him, he's one of the funniest guys I've ever been around. He can make you laugh for hours. But he does have that intensity outside of the ring, he's not to be messed with. If you want to fuck with somebody, I'd suggest starting with the next guy because the New Jack you see in the ring can come out rather easily outside of the ring.

28. What do you think of other hardcore promotions like EPIC, CZW and IWA: Mid-South? I've never seen EPIC. CZW has a lot of great talent. Their hardcore shit is definitely hardcore but they don’t get enough attention for their smaller high spot guys. I've seen some amazing matches in CZW. This dude Ruckus is off the charts for a big man. I think he's lost too much weight actually, I liked him better doing all the aerial stuff when he was heavier because it was more mind blowing but he's a great wrestler. I've seen some IWA, my favorite part is without a doubt the bikini girl at ringside. She's great, she made those tapes worth the price on her own. They also did a bubble match with these two strippers that people should go out of their way to see if they can. Again, their known for the bloodbaths but one of the best matches I've seen from anywhere was Chris Hero and C.M. Punk tables and ladders. Those two guys are incredible.

29. Who is your best friend in the business? Synn in OVW. Synn and Cornette, those are my peeps. Let me mention that OVW is another great product and their doing a hell of a job training wrestlers to be complete workers down there and the future of the WWE is being developed as we speak in OVW. I've got a lot of old friends I'm working with again now in XPW which is cool.

32. You do have a technical wrestling back round, yet you choose to wrestle in the hardcore style, why? Bottom line, it's easier. Hardcore takes a lot of guts and a high pain threshold. But friggin technical wrestling is tough. I enjoy it but I'm simply not talented enough for it to be my calling card.

33. You've done promoting, wrestling and managing. Which job do you like the best and why? Well managing is fun. I'm very confident when I'm managing, I know what to do in any given situation, it's a fun job and I thoroughly enjoy it. Promoting sucks. Booking is fun but promoting is one big head ache. As for wrestling, it's a challenge for me. I enjoy it. I think managing is the most fun but being successful at wrestling or promoting is far more satisfying.

34. What's your favorite match and why? What can I say, I'm a fan of the hardcore shit. I love these 40 foot scaffold matches XPW has been putting on. I really like these 200 light tube matches I've seen some other groups do, where the tubes are connected to the ropes, cool concept.

36. In your opinion who is the true King of Hardcore wrestling past or present. Have to say Mick Foley and Terry Funk. Until hardcore wrestling is presented on a bigger stage again, it's always going to be them. I'll tell you though, if he was ever given the same opportunities, I could see Vic Grimes being the most hardcore of them all. Indestructible, no fear and wrestling ability as well. He's the top hardcore guy right now without any doubt but the only guy who's ever made a fortune and gotten famous doing it was Mick Foley. And Terry Funk is literally the godfather of the concept itself.

37. What's the worst injury you've ever had? Concussions. I've had problems with concussions. I've taken a lot of stiff shots to the head from some pretty blunt objects and it's not a good thing over time. All things considered, it could be a lot worse but I've had more concussions then someone should. Stitches, I've had my share of stitches but otherwise I've been unbelievably fortunate. I mean, I think about all the crazy shit I've done over the past 10 years and it's a miracle I'm still sitting here. I haven’t had a lot of serious injuries to my body other then the usual bumps and bruises. The time I bruised my kidney was very very painful for a few weeks. That sucked. I took some stiff crutch shots to the kidney but then the guy I was wrestling, the Rapist, took a bong hit out of this big giant glass bong in the ring and he smashed it right into my kidney, shattering this thing. It was full of water, it was just a hell of a blow and I felt shooting pains to every part of my body. I was ok for an hour or two but by the next morning I was pretty much laid out for a week. But no lasting damage.

38. Any big plans for www.jrbenson.com? It probably depends on how things work out for JR Benson but it will all be documented on jrbenson.com, the good, the sick and the ugly.

39. Who is your favorite wrestler to watch past or present? I was a fan of the managers, Bobby Heenan was incredible in his prime, just an awesome manager and he took better bumps then the wrestlers. Most of the shows I went to when I was a kid, Bobby Heenan made them memorable, not the wrestlers. But then Jim Cornette was so awesome in the 80's he took it to another level. It really hasn't been taken to a higher level since. Managers unfortunately are a dying breed. As far as wrestlers, just like everyone I was a big Ric Flair fan in his day. Manami Toyota, I was a big into All Japan Women and Manami Toyota is the best wrestler who ever lived.

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