It's Not Easy Being Green: The Estonian Thunderfrog

The Estonian Thunderfrog
Photo from Wrestling is Heart

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

I have done some interesting wrestling related interviews through the years.  I've talked with legends like "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, and Lex Luger.  (You can go here to see all of my interviews)  I've done interviews with current stars like The Miz, Antonio Cesaro, and Mickie James.  Recently, I had the pleasure of talkingon the phone with The Estonian Thunderfrog.

Unless you're a big fan of independent wrestling, you're probably asking, "Who the hell is the Estonian Thunderfrog?" Well, he's one of the most entertaining wrestlers on the Wrestling Is roster.  I'll admit, I don't know much about Wrestling Is, I know there are several different groups, many use the same wrestlers on there shows though.  I've seen Wrestling Is Fun on iPPV with the Frog, as well as members of the Batiri, Mr. Touchdown, and Dasher Hatfield.  There's also Wrestling Is Heart among the promotions involved.

The Estonian Thunderfrog
Photo from Chaos Pro Wrestling

The Thunderfrog as you might have guessed hails from Estonia.  He is the country's pride and joy, or so he tells me.  He's been wrestling for about a year now and is still searching for his princess.  I hope he finds her one of these days, but in the mean time, I'll enjoy this character.  My favorite quote from the interview I did with him was "Wrestling Is Fun, Intense, Heart, it is all one big juicy pancake.  I love it.  Is very good."  Great stuff.

This Sunday I will see my first Wrestling Is Intense show in Carbondale, Illinois.  The show is at the SIU Student Center in Ballroom D at 3 pm.  I can't wait.  Some of the wrestlers I worked with in All American Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Collision will be at this show and I haven't seen them in months.  It'll be fun catching up with The Daywalkers, Angelus Layne, and Christian Rose.  My dream is to have a photo taken with the Estonian Thunderfrog, Jervis Cottonbelly, and Darkness Crabtree.

Wrestling Is provides entertainment for the entire family.  I hope the show in our area is successful, because I want them to come back.  Get out there and support independent wrestling when it comes to your area.

Black Friday: Wrestling Style

Head to TheBatiri.com for details

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

Last year I wrote a post on Black Friday about the cool wrestling related items one can pick up online or in the store.  This year, I'm better versed in the world of indie (or is it indy?) wrestling, so I've moved away from the WWE and TNA shop zone sites.  Don't get me wrong, they have good stuff too, but I want to focus on some of the "outside the box" deals I've come across.

First up is the Batiri.  They of course are a trio from Chikara Pro, Wrestling is Fun, and AIW.  Two demons and a goblin who are quite the online businessmen.  Their site (click here for more) has a number of items up for grabs.  Two have caught my eye.  One being the new Batiri hoodie.  As you can see it features the members as legendary rockers Kiss.  It's an awesome design, and they're running deals with it on their website.  The other thing from this threesome that I actually bought was their Mystery Bag.  Although the experience was not exactly what I thought it would be, I did have fun with the reveal.  Check out the video below for the details.  None the less, if you do order something from them, they do a good job getting it shipped out and communicate well via email if you run into any problems.

Barbershopwindow.com

The Barbershop Window is a relatively new site, at least to me.  I discovered it about a year ago and I love their selection of tshirts.  Some of their designs and ideas are very original.  The Monsoon/Heenan 2012 was a neat idea for the recent presidential race.  They've also done fundraising tshirts to help wrestlers in need.  The Kamala one they did earlier in the year was really neat.  Co-blogger Chad picked up a couple of their shirts late last year.  He bought me the "Will You Stop" featuring Gorilla Monsoon and he got himself Vince McMahon's "What a Maneuver" design.  Even non-wrestling fans ask me about the Gorilla shirt.  It's one of my favorite shirts to wear.

coltmerch.com

Colt Cabana may be the king of merchandising.  He's a one man show, traveling city to city all over the world selling his wares.  He has a ton of cool shirts and poster designs on his website Colt Merch.  When he wrestled at AAPW's Zero Hour back in October (which will also soon be available on DVD, check here for details soon) I picked up a poster.  I had Colt sign it too.  I haven't done anything with it yet, as I plan to create some kind of My 1-2-3 Cents backdrop for the YouTube channel after the first of the year.  Colt's poster will be a part of it.  But if you're not into posters, like I said, there's plenty of other things there.  He personally ships everything himself too.  To me it's good knowing that my purchase is going directly into Colt's (or whatever indie star's) pocket and not through several other channels along the way.

I've only scratched the surface here.  There are plenty of great items out there and for fairly reasonable prices.  Good luck in your pursuits.  Thanks for reading.