Porn Valley- Over the weekend I spoke to Ralph. No, Ralph wasn’t Chloe Jones au pair. I knew Ralph from the Extreme Associates days when he moved from Rochester where he worked at the Zicari bookstores then came out here to be the basic handyman, whatever you need guy.
Ralph was one hard working sumbitch, and he and I always got along great. Ralph built a lot of the additional offices when Extreme was still located in North Hollywood and was also employed to work for XPW. I remember one gruelling project where he built an elaborate steel cage for a match at the Olympic Auditorium.
Ralph left the company and is now living in Ft. Myers and works on Sanibel Island as a building contractor. “I got out of Rochester and away from Robert [Black] and his family and all those screwballs,” Ralph tells me explaining that he came doen to Florida several winters in a row doing some work for Dominic Zicari but not at a princely sum by any stretch. That way Ralph was able to make some contacts on his own.
“I went and did some work for a couple of guys and they loved my work. They asked me to come down full time.” Ralph says he hasn’t talked to either Rob Black or Tom Byron in years. “After I told them to go fuck off.” I seemed to recall that all of this came after the steel cage fiasco. Ralph says Kevin Kleinrock, the former general manager, was making him the fall guy. “I got sick and tired of all that B.S- we’ll get you this, we’ll get you that, then at the last minute they hang you out to dry. If you’re going to run a show you got to do your shit right.”
XPW subsequently crumbled and many of the wrestlers went to an organization that’s now selling out the Olympic- something XPW couldn’t even come close to doing. “Everybody that used to wrestle for Robert wrestles for this company,” Ralph says. “I guess they’re doing really good.”
Ralph also remembers a to-do he had with Jon Blatt. “I almost whupped his ass one day- that was it.”
Ralph explains that he was unloading trucks after the steel cage show. “I was doing 25 hour days for that show, and I wasn’t getting paid for it. I was going to go home and take a nap. I was tired. And Jon Blatt started giving me shit about not having something done. So we walked up into his office and he’s going you were using my computer to look at porn. I was looking for a rental truck- I was making a new set for the Philly show. Somehow that link links to porno. John’s, like, you’re in here wasting time looking at porno. I was like, dude, fuck you. I’ve got nothing to do with the porno. I don’t even let the girls suck my dick for the freakin’ blowjob movies. What are you talking about?” Ralph says they had more words with Blatt telling him this is what he saw. “What you’re going to see is an ass-whippin’,” I told him. “Then Robert said something to me- a real smart ass comment. That was it. That’s when I wrote my little letter to him and said this is how it is. This is fucked up bullshit. Everybody else was afraid to say something to him. When I did that everyone was, like, holy shit. I stand my ground. I don’t let no one walk on me. I didn’t need that bullshit. I can always find work because of the work I do.”
Ralph then went back to Rochester and started doing carpet installation. “But during the winter you can’t install because it’s so cold out.” Ralph says business is good in Florida and gets time in the afternoons to go kayaking. “It’s beautiful- they’ve got a lot of wildlife refuges down here. So you can get to see the dolphins and the manatees. “I get to live my life the way I want to live it. I love it and the women are awesome down here.”
Ralph also remembers the days of Kendra Jade over at Extreme. “Robert’s giving her an apartment and furniture- I was, like, dude, what are you doing?”