New songs on OrangeNoiseRadio


We’ve got new tracks being added to OrangeNoiseRadio all the time, including the latest songs from Thaxton. The Midlothian based rocker’s got some great music coming out on his next EP release.
Check him out and our other top 10 requested songs (including a tie for the number six spot) at OrangeNoiseRadio.com. And be sure to click Submit Request on our website to request your favorite songs on OrangeNoiseRadio.

1. Mirac – Take A Stand
2. Need to Breathe – Shine On
3. John David Webster – Made to Shine
4. Thaxton – Best Of Me
5. Weird Al Yankovic – White And Nerdy
6. Dave Barnes – I Have and Always Will
7. U2 – City of Blinding Lights
7. TobyMac – Made To Love
8. Spur58 – Sleepwalkers
9. KJ-52 – Rock On
10. Jack Johnson – Good People

OrangeNoiseRadio::True Music

Friends of God

We watched Alexandria Pelosi’s documentary, “Friends of God” Thursday night on HBO. The Christian Wrestling Federation was featured for a full 1 min and 50 seconds. I thought it was a very fair portrayal.

Sure I’ve read a number of comments online with people laughing at the idea. But they’ve been doing that for the last seven years.

I believe our spot on the 56 minute documentary was the only one with an actual Gospel presentation. Pelosi said in an interview with the San Fransisco Chronicle that as a “lapsed Catholic” a number of evangelicals tried to convert her to Christianity off camera. I’m sure that was frustrating to her.

What would you have done in her shoes or if she was doing a story on you?

I also thought it was interesting that she said no one really made the connection about her and her mother (Nancy Pelosi) but once Jerry Falwell did he kicked her off his bus. Gotta enjoy that Christ-like love.

More coverage:
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
ABC News

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

World Class Championship Wrestling: Heroes of World Class review

Who were your heroes?

Originally published in the Waxahachie Daily Light

Jonathan Blundell
Staff writer

Mention professional wrestling to anyone in the Dallas area and one name will always come to mind — the Von Erichs.

People all over the Metroplex tell tales of tuning in every Saturday night on KVTT Channel 11 to watch three dashing young brothers take on the world, from their home in the squared-circle.

Stories of drama, action and excitement played out weekly on television sets around the world, as people tuned in to the weekly syndicated show featuring Fritz Von Erich (Jack Adkisson) and his sons, Kevin, Kerry and David.

It was the mid-80s and Fritz’s World Class Championship Wrestling was king.

Stories have been told of families across the world gathering on hillsides just so they could get a good reception and tune in to watch championship wrestling from downtown Dallas.

Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, and even Hulk Hogan were still years from becoming household names, but wrestlers like “The Gentleman” Chris Adams, Bruiser Brody, Kabala, The Fabulous Freebirds and even NWA World Heavyweight Ric Flair entertained the world from Dallas’ own Sportatorium.

But along with the rise to success, came the fall of defeat.

Some say it was a Von Erich curse, others say it was Fritz’s stubbornness to change.

Whatever the cause may have been, fans of WCCW began to watch their heroes crumble and fall as tragedy struck the Von Erich family and WCCW over and over again.

Once the brother to five and now the brother to none, Fritz’s eldest son Kevin is all that’s left of the wrestling dynasty.

Former WCCW wrestler and manager Scandor Ackbar said he knows of 18 young men involved with WCCW who have died since the promotion’s prime in 1982.

“At first I thought it was coincidence,” Ackbar said. “But then after a while — what’s going on?”

And as the city of Dallas condemned and began to tear down the famed Sportatorium in 2003, filmmaker Brian Harrison spent three years made it his mission to tell the story of his childhood heroes in “Heroes of World Class: The Story of the Von Erichs and the Rise and Fall of World Class Championship Wrestling.”

The film released June 15 to DVD details the stories of WCCW, starting with the early 1980s when Fritz Von Erich purchased the Dallas-based Big Time Wrestling and transformed it into one of the premiere wrestling promotions in the world.

Footage and photographs from WCCW and the Von Erich family are well used throughout the documentary as Kevin and a number of the remaining WCCW players tell the rise and fall of Texas’ great wrestling promotion.

“What took us eight years to build, took two years to take down,” former WCCW wrestler and manager Gary “Playboy” Hart said.

The stories told on the DVD encompass all sides of the WCCW rise and fall.

Kevin talks greatly about his family’s history, including his grandfather, a Texas sheriff.

According to Kevin, his grandfather would take Fritz to town as a young teen, just to make him fight other boys his age.

Kevin’s grandfather would then take bets on the fights for extra money.

Kevin shares the grief of losing each of his brothers, including three to suicide.

“The thing about grief is that it never gets better, it only gets worse,” Kevin said on losing his brothers and friends.

He also shared his father’s grief and rapid transformation when he was diagnosed with brain cancer in the late 1990’s.

“Dad told me I didn’t have the courage to kill myself like my other brothers,” Kevin said. “I know dad loved me but he wasn’t in his right mind. I think he just looked at me and saw all his other sons.”

This two and a half hour documentary does a great job of telling the Von Erich story and the story of WCCW.

And while the Von Erich’s were often the driving force behind the promotion, Harrison makes it a point to tell the entire WCCW story, not just the Von Erich’s.

The video montage in tribute to David Von Erich, who died while on a wrestling tour of Japan in 1984, was well edited and set to the song “Life by the Drop” by another Texas legend, Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The entire documentary, with its vintage video and honest interviews, is a great to watch for the avid fan who watched every week on Channel 11, or just the casual observer wanting to know more about Texas’ first family of wrestling.

After watching the documentary, my only wish was that there were complete matches added to the DVD, especially the famous championship battle between Kerry Von Erich and NWA Champion Ric Flair at Texas Stadium after David Von Erich’s death.

We’ll now have to wait now for Vince McMahon Jr. and WWE to release the old footage after McMahon’s company purchased the WCCW video library from Kevin in early June.

“Heroes of World Class: The Story of the Von Erichs and the Rise and Fall of World Class Championship Wrestling” can be purchased online directly from the documentary’s producers, Right Here Pictures, at www.rightherepictures.com or from Amazon.com.