It was quite a sight to see no-name indie wrestlers doing really bad chair shots in front of around 100 people treated as a serious news subject. The idea that when a show the calibre of "Nightline" investigates pro wrestling, hardcore style in particular, and its effect on children, they go to Mantua, NJ for basically unknown Combat Zone Wrestling, and interview the promoter of the almost as unknown Bayonne, NJ based Jersey All Pro Wrestling, is mind boggling.
But there it was, Ted Koppel, one of the most respected television newsmen in the country, debating an overmatched Jeff Shapiro, the promoter of the Bayonne, NJ based group.
The show opened with "Nightline" reporter Dave Marish going to a Combat Zone show in a warehouse with about 100 or so fans. They interviewed fans, who did great service to wrestling fans around the country by saying they were there were the blood. They showed clips of some really bad wrestling, even by indie standards, featuring terrible chair shots and a guy jumping off a pretty high balcony onto an opponent and sending him through a table while, in ECW fashion, the crowd started chanting "CZW." They brought a psychologist to the matches, who found them very exciting and entertaining, but focused on how riled up very young children attending the shows (one of whom brought a barbed wire baseball bat to be used as a weapon, and apparently, with the ABC-TV cameras there, was disappointed because none of the wrestlers would use it) were from the simulated brutal activity. The psychologist, in what was obviously a dated reference, said that recent studies with kids revealed Hulk Hogan as the seventh biggest sports hero among young children.
John Zandig, the promoter of the show, bragged that it was his promotion that introduced the new spot of using a staple gun to the head, that has since been taken national by ECW.
