Recently the Shining Wizards spoke with Joel Gertner.
Here are some highlights:
On breaking into the wrestling business:
Game shows were my first love, going back to when I was four or five years old. Then when I was about eight or nine I found wrestling, and just heavy into it, my number one hobby. I started following it more and more every year. I was calling 976 numbers, the precursor to 1-900 numbers. I started subscribing to a couple of newsletters. Eventually, by the summer of ’89 I started subscribing to The Observer. By the time I was 16, in ’91, I found out about the Lower East Side Wrestling Gym at the projects on FDR Drive and East Houston. Pete McKay, who wrestled for WWWF, ran the school. Bobby Bold Eagle was a trainer, he had worked internationally as Black Tiger. That’s when I started, a little over 21 years ago. I got to meet Jason Knight, who was doing enhancement stuff for WCW; Little Guido, who was working for IWCCW; Chris Kanyon, who was from Sunnyside; Devon Storm, who I think was breaking in around that time. It was a lot of fun, it was something to do during high school to see if this was something I could embark on, as a career down the line, maybe after college. I wound up getting the ECW opportunity during college, after my third year. Me and Cornell University came to the mutual decision that I had other places to be at that time. So I left school and ran off and joined the circus.