Road through Indymania: Walker (Part 2)
Can you remember a time when John Cena wasn’t getting mostly boos? My friends, it was a time in smarkdom prior to “Let’s-Go-Cena…CENA-SUCKS!” Do you remember? It will soon be a mere five years that have passed. The event was Wrestlemania 25. The match: Edge vs Big Show vs John Cena. Edge enters the ring with the World Heavyweight Championship Belt around his waist. The Big Show lumbers in like some kind of a big lumbering-lumberer. John Cena enters…100 times?
I’m not sure if there were 100 Cenas because I haven’t counted. Go back and watch Wrestlemania 25 on the WWE Network (or youtube) and if you feel the need to push the glasses up on your nose to tell me how “…everybody knows that number.” then feel free to leave a comment, you smark-scum!
The point is this: Part of the Main Event at Wrestlemania 25 featured Vordell Walker. Vordell Walker was John Cena.
Well, one of his doppelgangers at least.
To preface the following account, it is important to know that there were other names in the pro wrestling world involved but to cut to the chase, the three main players are Vordell Walker, Raven and one Robert Rechsteiner better known as Rick Steiner.
Prior to becoming a one-time John Cena look alike, Vordell Walker was working on his craft in the squared-circle up and down the roads of the Southeast portion of the United States. For the record, he’s wrestled in 21 different states including Puerto Rico. Not a bad résumé especially once you also take into account some of the names he’s wrestled. Ahem…check out Part 1 of this story and share it…cough, cough.
One such event in Ocala, Florida for SCW (google it), Walker was in a tag-team bout on the opposite side of the ring against Rick Steiner. I’m not trying to pull the curtain back too far, boys and girls, but prior to the match a certain someone refused to talk about what was going to happen in the ring. This is widely known as a BIG no-no. If you believe the certain someone was Vordell Walker, you are incorrect!
A certain number of minutes into the match, Walker took a punch to the back of the head. Then a swift kick to the face. Two more kicks to the face. Folks, the pretend gun was ‘a smoking because ‘Ol Rick Steiner was ‘a shooting. Then, according to all word-of-mouth and internet message board accounts of this match, Vordell got tired of taking Steiner’s garbage and let him know he wasn’t going to be bullied. Rick was certainly not being a star.
There was some more back and forth, but eventually Walker got the best of Steiner. Basically, Steiner was worked over by the very same guy he was trying to make look like a putz. The anti-pushover match lived in Southeast Indy infamy for a little while but one person had a different account. That person was none other than former ECW/WCW star Raven.
In a segment on the Raven: Secrets of the Ring DVD, Raven took the time to bury Walker, a guy he hardly knew. The hardworking pro wrestler Vordell Walker, known for downplaying his own accomplishments in the ring, was sold as a disrespectful shooter with blatant disregard for the business. That hurt him a little bit, but just as life rolls on, so does the business of pro wrestling.
Raven, known for being a colossal windbag, is always shooting about this and that. I mean, the guy can only reminisce about bellowing into a microphone while stooped against the bottom turnbuckle for so many Shoot DVDs before all of his “flock” grows tired of the gimmick. Believe Raven’s past agenda if you’d like. I don’t.
Vordell is not only a good hand in the ring, he’s a tough S.O.B. (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) who tends to be reluctant in taking garbage from anybody else inside or outside of the business. Who in the hell could blame him? Why would anyone take that kind of crap?
Consider the following:
If you’re at that paper-pushing, soul-sucking thing you call work and big fat Bob one cubicle over tries to push all of his TPS reports on you without any reason whatsoever, are you going to humor him just because he’s worked for the company 20 years longer than you? No! You’re going to tell big fat Bob where he can stick the paperwork! Then you’re going to move on about your business because you know Bob is as lazy now as he ever was and that’s all he’ll ever be. A lazy, marginal slob. Nobody makes a big deal of you putting Bob in his place because pretty much everybody hates Bob except for nosy Tammy. You know the make and model. She throws other employees under the bus. She helps Bob push his work on other people because she does the same thing. If you stood up for yourself against Bob, she would trash your name and anything resembling a career that you have ever worked for. Most people wouldn’t pay attention to Tammy’s idiotic gossip, but those who don’t know any better will assume she’s right and think you’re a jerk. You can recover, but it will slow you down and take precious time away from your workday and/or any other goals you plan to achieve while on the job.
In case you didn’t catch it, Rick Steiner is big fat Bob and Raven is nosy, idiotic Tammy.
Walker says he was bitter about the whole thing but he’s moved forward. He now draws crowds at many fine Indy promotions around the country.
My only problem with this is that Walker is not wrestling on my television (or computer screen). I see plenty of spots he could fill on TNA wrestling. I even see a couple of slots he could contribute in the hot-product NXT.
Every televised wrestling event I watch today whether or not its ROH or WWE, the fans are making their voices heard and –shocker- they are cheering and chanting, hooting and hawing for the guys who work the hardest. I guarantee you that after a Vordell Walker match, his opponent is going to be sore the next day from trying to outwork the guy.
An easy route to the big time from the Indy scene is like a Superman movie without a real-estate scheme as the main plot; it doesn’t exist.
Today, wrestling fans chant for the organic worker, not the manufactured superstar. For such a fake sport, I don’t think the world has ever experienced a fan base who wants something so real. Walker is what many refer to as, the real deal. He tells a story, boils over with physicality and can put on a 20 minute match with no problem. The road through Indymania is filled with more obstacles and pitfalls than upward mobility and gratification. My hope is that Vordell will stick with it and grant everyone the opportunity to watch some of his matches live or record them on their DVR. He can easily be the premium content you pay for when you watch a high-profile match.
I just wonder if he kept those Cena jean shorts…
Follow Vordell on twitter at @vordellwalker1
“Positive feedback or negative feedback. I don’t really care what it is, as long as it is fair.” -Vordell Walker
Feel free to leave any comments below if you’ve seen Walker in action.
