Following Fonzie: A Month on the Road with Wrestling Legend Bill Alfonso

 

Following Fonzie: A Month on the Road with Wrestling Legend Bill Alfonso from JordiScrubbings on Vimeo.

In 2010, I had the interesting pleasure of working with pro wrestling personality Bill Alfonso on a documentary. We met at an All-Stars Wrestling show in Tampa, where I was doing social media. If I remember right, Fonzie told one of my friends he wanted to put something together to show his life. I had a camera and some spare time, so I volunteered.

Fonzie was an interesting character. He was full of wrestling knowledge. He worked for WWE, WCW, ECW, Championship Wrestling of Florida, and dozens and dozens of other organizations throughout the world. He worked for Dusty Rhodes, the Briscos, the Funks, Paul Heyman, Vince McMahon, and many other promoters. He knew the business and almost everyone in it.

For a month, Fonzie and I travelled around Florida. We went to Ocala to see the Funks, we went to Minneola to see the Anoa'i Family, we went fishing, and we regularly went to famed Tampa restaurant La Teresita. Along the way, I had a chance to learn about pro wrestling from someone who had been a referee, a manager, and a backstage hand for over 25 years. I had a chance to be a fly on the wall during conversation between Fonzie and WWE Hall of Famers. It was a crash course I will never forget.

In total, I had over 12 hours of footage. In 2016, I created an hour long movie with the intent to post it online. Unfortunately, my hard drive crapped out. The movie was gone. Fortunately, I had backups of all the footage on a portable drive. In late 2022, I started recreating the movie.

Currently at 1 hour and 6 minutes, it could be a little tighter. But I think I did a good job, especially considering it is by far the longest video project I have ever worked on.

Curveball at the Crossroads on Tampa Bay Morning Blend

Doing interviews for Curveball at the Crossroads has been an exciting and fun experience. I have done several podcasts and radio shows, but I had never done television. Until this week. I recently had the opportunity to visit Tampa Bay Morning Blend and talk about my book with co-host Teyonna Edwards.

I'll be honest. I was a little nervous going into this interview. This was much more professional than a podcast. If I flub a sentence in a podcast, no one cares. Although Tampa Bay Morning Blend isn't live, I still wanted to make sure I did it all in one take. I also didn't know how much time I had. Turns out, I had a little over 5 minutes. Definitely enough to talk about the book, but I have done 30 minutes about the book. I had to make sure I got in the important selling points. I think I did that.

Shout out to my good friend Nick Major for suggesting I contact the show.