Name: 'Swiss' Tony Warner
Age: 26
Hometown: London born and raised
Known For: IRL for being a new a dad and serial joker, IWC for starting King Bingus Wrestling as platform to start discussing wrestling with as many people who I can and learn as much as I can about the best form of entertainment in the world.
1. When did you first get into wrestling and what drew you to the sport?
Wrestling was introduced to me as a very young kid by my entire family really. They were all fans of Ol' English wrestling, not that "Fake American crap" as they would put it. I never remember when or who started me watching wrestling, but I do remember some time in 1989 or 1990 that an Uncle of mine gave me a copy of SummerSlam '88. I became obsessed with that tape and took it to anyone's house for them...me to watch.
From then I would ask for more tapes for any occasion like birthdays, Christmas, Easter, summer holidays any time. As Sky TV took off in the UK I was able to get more up to date and more frequent with the WWE, for a couple of years through the early 90's I was watching new shows almost every week and was becoming a big fan.
By '94-95 I had kind of lost touch a little bit and was just drifting in and out, its not that I was going off it but I wasn't bugging people to tape it for me as much.
Then in early 1999 we got Sky at our house and wrestling was back in the home! The first WWE show I saw live was Royal Rumble and I saw The Rock vs Mankind in a brutal I Quit match and a huge chapter in the Austin vs McMahon story take shape.
After watching the Rumble I was back being hooked on the WWE after a few years in a bit of a twilight.
Originally I started watching wrestling because it was something I grew up doing almost by default, but after seeing this new extreme, edgy, louder, sexier wrestling how could I not be hooked? I was a teenager and it was a little bit of everything I wanted to see all in one show and I haven't looked back since.
2. Tell us a little about King Bingus Wrestling and how it all came about?
King Bingus Wrestling came about because a handful of factors. I had been using Twitter as extension of my Facebook profile and just following friends of mine, a couple of celebs and a few funnies but never really made full use of it until WWE started promoting it so heavy. It was then I realised that I could talk with hundreds if not thousands of wrestling fans from all over the world.
After gaining a small handful of followers just by exclusively talking about wrestling I started to get wound up by the 140 character limit because sometimes it just isn't enough. More often than not I found myself rewording and rethinking my tweets to fit the limit. Around this time I started talking with Erik from thewrestlingchronicle.com. Erik is a really genuine, and knowledgable fan of wrestling and just wants wrestling fandom to be more positive and wants to just help promote others with the IWC.
After talking with Erik for a couple of weeks I took inspiration from him and decided to start a blog (full site in the works) and tweeting as King Bingus Wrestling. I am slowly getting used to other social platforms such google+, tumblr and pinterest, I'm also looking forward to starting a podcast and a video show.
My aim and goal for King Bingus is to get as many people to talk with and learn from about the whole wrestling product from all over the world.
3. If you were to book a dream card, featuring wrestlers from any era, how would it look?
I'd have to make it a Wrestlemania just so The Undertaker could defend the streak, as it's pretty much the most important title in WWE right now.
I would love to see to held at Wembley or The Olympic Stadium in Stratford so I could experience Wrestlemania on home turf and actually have a chance of seeing it in the flesh.
Now considering all the names I pick here are in their prime and height of popularity or the equivalent in heel heat and have been booked so every match has a some momentum and interest going into the night.
So without further ado Wrestlemania Wembley starts with the British national anthem performed by Queen and goes onto
European Championship Fatal 4Way
(Vacant title)
Sheamus VS William Regal VS Magnus VS The British Bulldog
Regal def. Sheamus
Tag Team Championship Match
New Age Outlaws(c) VS Bret & Owen Hart
N.A.Os def. Harts
Money In The Bank Ladder Match
Edge VS Jeff Hardy VS RVD VS AJ Styles VS Daniels VS Eddie Guerrero VS Dolph Ziggler VS Kane
Edge wins
US Championship Submission Triple Threat
Kurt Angle VS Chris Benoit VS Daniel Bryan
Bryan wins
Intercontinental Championship Match
Ric Flair(c) vs "Macho Man" Randy Savage
Randy Savage def. Ric Flair
No DQ Match
The Rock VS Mick Foley
Foley wins and gets his Mania Moment
The Streak VS Career
The Undertaker VS John Cena
I'm going to have to leave this one open. I think I might have to write a piece about it.
World Heavyweight Championship
Shawn Michaels(c) VS CM Punk
Michaels def. CM Punk
WWE Championship
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin(c) VS Hulk Hogan
Hogan def. Steve Austin.
Edge cashes in MITB
WWE Championship
Hulk Hogan(c) VS Edge
Edge def. Hulk Hogan
4. What are your Top Three matches of all time and why?
Wrestlemania XX
World Heavyweight Championship Triple Threat
Triple H VS Shawn Michaels VS Chris Benoit
This match was just amazing from the Royal Rumble of that year. The whole Benoit build was solid and with Michaels already in the fray, things got all Wrestlemaniary. The past history between Triple H and Michaels made for some real depth to the build and gave the match that extra boost in drawing power that in all honesty, Benoit may of lacked with the younger audience.
By the time Wrestlemania actually went live the magic was buzzing all around. The milestone event was a true supercard, star studded throughout. The night was themed around a new start, a new era, "where it all begins again" and personally it really was giving that feeling.
Everything from the video packages and promos to the feuds and the matches made for a real history making night, with returns and departures from several top stars and matches that had real meaning gave us reason to pay attention.
Come main event time I was buzzing. I wasn't suffering that all too familiar PPV-fatigue (watching live PPVs in the UK can be hugely tiresome due to the time difference). But every now and again WWE really just does it right and this was one of those nights.
So the the triple threat it self commenced and my living room really became front row of the Garden, me and my friends were all pulling for Triple H, Michaels and Benoit with the latter actually being the favourite of the majority. As the match went on with some of the best ring work I had seen in the WWE for months if not longer, we were marking out all over my living room.
One of the moments that got me bouncing was shortly after hitting a banging Sweet Chin Music and getting a near fall on Triple H, Michaels was catapulted into the ring post by Benoit and became a crimson mess in no time at all. This was followed by a Crossface on the bloodied HBK and it was looking like a tap out right there until Trips grabbed Shawn's arm and stopped the submission just in time.
This is just one example of many perfectly executed sequences from all three throughout the entire match. The whole thing swung back and forth with seamless in and outs to allow a smooth flow to the epic battle.
Being a Triple H fan and thinking I knew so much about the inner workings of the WWE that when Benoit dumped Michaels out of the ring after a SCM attempt and ended up putting Hunter in the Crossface I was sure he couldn't win. I was all too sure that Hunter was the egomaniac backstage puppeteer who wouldn't lose on a stage as grand as this one, but after a roll through counter Benoit still was clinging on.
Oh Hell was I wrong! Chris Benoit had Triple H tapping clean, in the middle of the ring, in the main event of Wrestlemania XX and in the words of good ol' J.R "finally become the Heavyweight Champion of this world!".
Not only did this match live up to its huge build and then some, but it was just a complete surprise to me. It got my friends bouncing off the walls and just left me gobsmacked and realising what I read on dirt sheets isn't always gospel.
Aside from the tragedies that now go in hand with Benoit's name this remarkable match and his crowning as top guy will always be one of my prominent memories of Chris Benoit.
Wrestlemania X-8
The Rock VS Hulk Hogan
I grew up absolutely idolising Hulk Hogan and he is one of the reasons I became such a huge fan of pro-wrestling in the first place.
When I started getting back into wrestling full time The Rock was the new Hogan for me. They had many things in common despite the generation gap, they both had fans by the ship load and helped bring WWE into a new mainstream audience. These were two icons who some of us often talked and dreamed about squaring off.
When WWE purchased WCW we all knew the dream became a real possibility and when Mr.McMahon introduced the nWo onto WWE television it was on! The Rock and Hogan came face to face and I could have just punched myself in the neck with excitement and once the match was set I was in full kid at Christmas mode.
So here we have my childhood idol vs my teenage idol at Wrestlemania. I still feel grateful that I was able to see it, especially as I don't see this situation happening again for a long long time, if ever.
Even before the bell was rung the Canadian crowd was half past bonkers, completely nuts. Both men had every single person in the arena in their palms, the only night in recent memory that has provoked a reaction like that was the post-mania IZOD Raw.
Every single action in the ring was met with a huge reaction from the crowd and I feeling it like I was there, believe me or not I really got goosebumps and was in complete awe at what I was watching.
Royal Rumble 1999
WWE Championship I Quit Match
The Rock VS Mick Foley
This is the match that got me hooked back into wrestling. I had been without any form of satellite or cable for a long time and couldn't watch wrestling anytime I wanted. But in the new year of 1999 we got Sky TV and I was able to watch WWE again!
The first match I was able to watch in my own room was this match and what a match it was!
I was aware that WWE was in this edgy, extreme Attitude era but never really got it until I saw this brawl. I could not believe the beating Foley was taking in the match and just was instantly amazed by The Rock, no one had ever made swinging a chair look that good before. Just as well really, because The Rock swung for Mankind's head no less than 78,000 times!
I really feel that by this being the first match I had seen in awhile and the first time I was able to watch wrestling as it was broadcast in the UK have made me the fan I am today. Now I don't mean this would be a favourite match of mine solely because of those reasons, I mean The Rock and Foley really had a now famously brutal outing that night and it was a spectacle to see.
5. Where can our readers find your work and what have you got coming up?
I have started a blog at www.kingbinguswrestling.blogspot.co.uk which has been stemmed from my twitter account https://twitter.com/KingBingus.
In the last week I have been asked to provide some articles for http://www.getrealwrestling.com/ and hope this will become a new platform to talk more journalistly about wrestling.
King Bingus can be found on Facebook, Tumblr and Google+.
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We'd like to thank Tony Warner for this fantastic interview.
Next Time: True God Immortal from Wrestling Heels Radio
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