Great Lakes Championship Wrestling Owner Talks Blizzard Brawl, Facing Abyss and More

– Great Lakes Championship Wrestling owner Dave Herro spoke with WrestleZone Radio for a new interview promoting this weekend’s Blizzard Brawl and more. Check out the audio and highlights below:

On how Blizzard Brawl got started and the ups and downs in the event’s history: “It’s the 11th annual Blizzard Brawl this Saturday night in Waukesha, WI. It’s really a fanfest with pro wrestling thrown in it because you have so many great superstars and attractions that are there. Meeting the fans, signing autographs, taking pictures and it’s just amazing. The event has just grown each year. It was really supposed to be a one-off eleven years ago. It was supposed to be one Blizzard Brawl, all said and done. It was going to be a tribute show for The Crusher when The Crusher had died. Three weeks before the event was supposed to happen The Crusher’s family, who was in-fighting at the time, over his estate. Half of the family didn’t want to do the fundraiser for The Crusher. The other half did. The radio station I was involved with said, “Hey, we got to pull the plug on your show. We are going to get sued by The Crusher’s family.” I was like, “Holy crap, man. I’ve got like five grand in to this thing already and I got to get my money back somehow.” I called up The Crusher’s daughter, her name is Dawn, and I go, “Hey Dawn, I don’t know what’s going on. I’m involved in this. Your Dad and I have done a lot of business together.” She goes, “If you want to do the show, that’s fine. Just don’t mention my Dad’s name or likeness.” So I’m like, “Deal.” How am I going to pull this show off without any advertising or sponsorship or whatnot? The next day I went back to the radio station and I said, “The Crusher’s family is not going to sue. I’m in to do the show and do the event. I’ll throw in the other five grand but I need help.” Clear Channel radio in Milwaukee and Jeff Lynn, who is my ring announcer, they got behind me. They gave me a ridiculous amount of promotional value. I went out there and thought, “Man, now I have to replay the show.” This was supposed to be The Crusher Bolo Brew Ha. I decided to call the show Season’s Beatings. I felt that was appropriate for wrestling. I thought, well, I need a fundraiser, I need someone to tie myself to. The only fundraising I could get was from the Variety Network. The Variety Network is a charitable group for battered women and children. So guess what name is not going to work? Season’s Beatings. So NOW I have to re-brand the show again and I’m like, “I’ve been doing shows since 1996. We did a show a few years prior called Blizzard Brawl.” I thought, “I am just going to go with Blizzard Brawl.” What was the worst that could happen with that? Well, I got a shoot blizzard the night before the first Blizzard Brawl. I had all this money tied in to it. We got a foot and a half, maybe two feet of snow. Planes went off the tarmac in Chicago. So Dallas Page’s flight skidded off the tarmac when he landed. I’m like, “God.” At the time I was married to my wife and she hated wrestling. Even tho that’s how she knew me. I thought, “I’m just going to get in to this and then get out and be done.” Thank God we had a packed house. I think we had eight hundred some people. The show came off. I was done, I was out of the wrestling business and a few months later Clear Channel said, “Hey, let’s do another show next December. Same thing.” We’ve been doing it now for eleven years and the show has gotten bigger and better. I’ll be honest, every year it has become harder to out do the previous show. As far as brining in some of the star power that we’ve had. I’m very thankful and happy to have a lot of really cool Superfriends that want to see the show continue and grow over the years. We outgrew the first building and now we are in the Waukesha Expo. We are on track to have about 1,700 people on Saturday night.”

On why he wants to have a Monsters Ball match with Abyss: “Anyone that knows me knows I make a lot of terrible decisions. This, obviously, has been one of them. For the past eleven months since last Blizzard Brawl, Dameon Nelson got involved with Abyss. Abyss got pissy with him. Blames it on me. Wanted me to fire Dameon from the Pro Wrestling Report. Which I can’t do because Dameon Nelson owns it. It’s been a lot of antagonizing. Over the Summer he put his hands on my son. Unfortunately for me I’ve been in a boot since May due to multiple foot surgeries. The only way I can get my hands back on this jackass is if I agree to fight him in a Monsters Ball. Then he threw in the added stipulation that if I lose then I have to leave the Pro Wrestling Report and Great Lakes Championship Wrestling. Or, he won’t do the match.”

On Tommy Dreamer appearing on Raw before his appearance at Blizzard Brawl: “It’s fantastic. It’s even better when your commercial airs in Milwaukee the moment after that segment is on TV. Tommy Dreamer, he is the most brilliant man in all of pro wrestling. He works for TNA, ok? He’s one of their agents. He runs his own successful company, House of Hardcore. He then winds up on NXT on occasion. Now he’s back on RAW and Smackdown. He goes and does whatever he wants. It’s great having a guy like Tommy because the fans love him. Him and Al Snow, I’m expecting nothing but an amazing match between the two. They both have that old school psychology of wanting to tell a story. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be great seeing Tommy there. What a bonus for everyone who is coming out Saturday. The guy they just saw, in a big program with The Wyatts on Monday, then of course again on Smackdown when he was in the big six man tag with them.”