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" The Gravel Pit "
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Wrestling
A personal shoot...
Posted by Brandon Truitt on Mar 6, 2004, 15:30
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I had always intended to finish and publish an article for this site besides my shoot interview reviews, but I never thought that this would be the first one to go up.
However, after the news reporting of NBC 10 in Philadelphia, www.perverted-justice.com, and the CBS Evening News story of a Perverted Justice Group Media Bust in Kansas City, I felt this needed to be written.
Also, I'll let you know going in that this is NOT a bunch of jokes at Rob Feinstein's expense. If you want those, I highly recommend going to Scotsman's site, Barbwire Mike at Lethal Wrestling, or the Death Valley Driver forums as there's some DAMN funny stuff there. (Be sure to check out THIS thread in particular.)
As many of you know, I have been a writer on this site since the middle of 2002. Before then, I was just an average message-board poster on several sites who happened to write up a few shoot interview reviews because of the information I'd gleaned out of them, and one of my readers happened to be William Helmick, who was one of the "talent scouts" for The Smart Marks at the time.
Back then, I was nervous about the change from message-board reviewer to website reviewer and not for the usual stage fright reasons that you'd think.
Instead, I was more nervous about associating myself with the primary retailer of shoot interviews, RF Video, and the company's owner, Rob Feinstein.
In the case of RF Video, I didn't want to be associated with them because of their horrible reputation in the fields of product quality and customer service.
In the case of Rob himself, there had been many nasty allegations about him, although none (publically made, anyway) as serious as the ones that emerged this week thanks to NBC 10 in Philadelphia and www.perverted-justice.com.
That is partly why I started a habit within my reviews of not referring to RF Video or Rob himself unless they were explicitly referred to within the interview.
It is also partly why I never pursued the kind of relationship other writers, such as Scott Keith, have with RF Video, as I never received free review copies from them as SK has admitted in several of his columns, including a recent Ring of Honor review.
The other part of why I did not want free merchandise was that I felt the only way to give a fair review of a product was to have paid for it myself, as I'd be evaluating it based on the bang for the buck instead of playing up the quality of a $40 two-tape interview because I got it for free.
However, I DID offer to buy items at a reduced cost at a time when their prices were much higher, but that proposal was completely no-sold by the company and haven't broached the subject with them since.
Getting back to the point, I have been writing for the site almost two years since and had seen a marked improvement in both the quality of the tapes I bought from RF Video and the customer service I received when several of those tapes were defective. Considering the number of tapes I've bought from them, I've only received about two or three defective ones as well as two DVDs that had come loose during shipping and had received severe scratch damage as a result. The company was more than glad to replace the broken items with no questions asked and without the requirement that I send back the damaged merchandise.
That was a FAR cry from most of the horror stories I'd heard about the company, as many have said the company refused to replace an order lost in transit and required that all damaged tapes be received back at the RF Video office before a replacement would be shipped.
Rob Feinstein himself had cleaned his image up somewhat in his position as the Ring of Honor promoter, although he still made an ass of himself in several instances which I won't go into here. Then Wednesday came...
On Wednesday, this story was first posted on www.perverted-justice.com, which proclaims that Feinstein had been caught in a sting operation in which he'd attempted to meet up with a 14-year old boy, ostensibly to "hang out."
Why a 32-year old semi-celebrity (who claimed to be much younger, BTW, in the chatlog posted on the site) with his kind of money was going to hang out with a random 14-year old is a question that you may want to ask yourself if you think this was an innocent thing.
At first, the story was derided as a skillful Internet hoax against an individual with more than his share of detractors. Then the NBC-10 Philadelphia news story trailers about a pedophile sting, complete with blurred-out video footage of individuals running from the bust house, appeared. Many people thought that the people in the video looked like Rob, but wanted to get confirmation because no one else had moved on the story.
When the 11PM news in Philadelphia came on, the video was shown unblurred to reveal that it WAS Rob and, on top of that, the news report named him by name and showed pictures of him from the RF Video site holding the Ring Of Honor belt. This story is video-captured here, although the host of the video may pull it if it gets too much traffic.
That's when the shit REALLY hit the fan.
Immediately after the news story aired, the Pro Wrestling Torch released a statement from Ring of Honor saying that Rob had been relieved of his duties and replaced by ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky and that RF Video was to close as of Thursday, March 4.
That last bit turned out to be wrong as there was another statement today, in which long-time RF Video employee Doug Gentry issued a press release in which he proclaimed himself the new owner and president of RF Video. He stated that Rob was no longer involved with RF Video or Ring of Honor, that he no longer held a financial stake in either, and that RF Video would continue on, most likely with a new name.
Why did they move so quick? Because the promotion has been in SERIOUS trouble since the allegations broke, as people in the business such as Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Low Ki have cancelled scheduled appearances with the company and/or distanced themselves from both RF Video and Ring of Honor. In Low Ki's case, it was not unexpected given his past friction with the company, but it is a sign of what is to come.
On top of that, the New Jersey RexPlex, site of the March 13 "Do or Die II" double-bill show (there is an afternoon card of aspiring indy talents attempting to get into ROH, as well as the main ROH show that night) has requested legal proof that Rob has been completely removed from the company before they will allow the event to take place.
Considering that the promotion already had trouble finding an arena for a recent show in the Boston area due to "concerned citizens" who called the arenas and voiced concerns about the content of previous shows, this is a sign of BIG trouble on the horizon. (The content in question wasn't named in any reports I've heard, although my best guess would be the near-riot at the end of one show that pissed off a BUNCH of people, as they felt their lives and the lives of their children were in serious danger.)
Given all that's gone on, I have to credit both Gabe Sapolsky and Doug Gentry for how they've been handling things and how the company has employed a crisis management agency in order to ensure that there IS a future for both Ring of Honor and RF Video.
However, that still doesn't stop me from making my decisions, as I am no longer spending my money on RF Video products or Ring Of Honor videos until further notice.
It's not that Doug or Gabe has done anything wrong, it's that Rob fucked EVERYBODY when he got busted.
RF Video's credibility that it gained over the past two years? Gone as soon as the story aired on the 11PM news.
Ring of Honor's placement as the most respected wrestling promotion in the US? Gone because Rob fucked up.
The careers of everyone working for RF Video and Ring of Honor from the ring-boys and secretaries to the wrestlers and management? In dire peril because their boss put himself in a situation that reflects badly on everyone he's ever met.
The consciences of anyone who's ever bought something from RF Video or paid money to see Ring of Honor? Severely sickened by the possibility that our money may have gone towards one of the most sickening and disturbing acts as far as this country is concerned, the molestation of a child.
I can barely keep myself from throwing up at the moment because of the money I provided may have gone towards such a despicable thing.
Unlike the commercials in which buying a dime bag of pot causes someone to say "I killed a federal agent and his family today", this is a direct enough connection that I truly believe this to be the case.
It makes me doubly sickened that my shoot interviews may have exponentially increased the amount of money available to him. Not only did I have to have a decent supply of shoot interviews to choose from in order to write this column, more than one person has bought tapes from him that they never would have considered buying because they liked what they read about it.
It's only at this time that I can take comfort in the fact that many OTHER readers have said that the reviews were so good that they felt they didn't have to spend the money to buy them, either because they felt that the reviews alone were good enough or because they were able to get bootleg copies from someone else.
In fact, that's partly why I'm doing what I'm doing. I am not only refusing to put anymore money into RF Video until I feel certain that Rob Feinstein is NOT profiting from it, I will make it my mission to see that no one has to buy a shoot interview again.
I will be absolutely clear on one point: I will NOT bootleg their tapes to my readers.
However, I will make it known that there are companies out there such as Highspots and Smart Mark Video which not only have some of the same shoots as RF Video, but a lot of others not available through them. I will also do my best to review any RF Video shoot I have left so thoroughly that there will be no need to EVER see a copy of the interview on tape.
As I would like to make clear, this is not a vendetta against Gabe Sapolsky or Doug Gentry. This is because their "friend" and boss, Rob Feinstein, fucked EVERYONE with his actions and, until I am satisfied that he isn't within 20 miles of a dollar made by RF Video or Ring of Honor, I will do my best to keep money from going into his hands and possibly being used for despicable acts.
The person who should actually be most thankful about the Perverted Justice bust is Rob Feinstein himself. Considering that Perverted Justice has not yet had any of the people they've busted go to trial, he's getting off LIGHTLY by being publically humiliated.
I know that if my son, daughter, sister, or brother was molested by someone, the molestor would be LUCKY if they made it to jail and, even then, their life expectancy wouldn't be very long because child molestors are notoriously unpopular behind bars.
Considering that there IS legal precedent for the parent of a molested child to kill the molestor and get off on a plea of insanity, Rob should be thanking his lucky stars that this wasn't a real kid whose dad would want to take the law in his own hands then roll the dice in court if caught.
(Specifically, there the case of Jody Plauche, an 11-year old who was kidnapped by his karate teacher in 1984, taken to California, and molested. After the molestor was caught, he was killed by Jody's father, Gary Plauche, as he was being escorted through the airport on his way to a police car. The killing was even caught on tape by the local news but the father never went to jail. Jody's story is briefly summarized here to promote an appearance he made on the John Walsh show to discuss the mindset of a kidnap victim.)
Also, because of Perverted Justice's tendency to work with TV stations instead of police, there's a significant chance that he won't be charged with anything related to this embarassing event.
That still doesn't mean that some OTHER problem from his past won't rear its head now that his reputation is destroyed, as it's a lot easier for the police or a jury to believe bad things about someone after they've had their reputation tarnished like this.
Actually, to sum up how scummy this whole situation is, Barbwire Mike at www.lethalwrestling.com threw a fake quote into his article, attributing it to XPW promoter Rob Black. "In 24 hours I went from being the scummiest promoter in wrestling to not even being the scummiest �Rob�. KICK ASS!!"
Keep in mind that Rob Black is a guy who promoted raw sewage matches, is supposedly the mastermind behind the mutilating attack on ex-XPW wrestler Messiah, and is currently under a federal indictment for shipping particularly obscene porn across the country.
And you know what? Mike's fake quote is absolutely spot-on. In one day, the most despised man in the wrestling business, Rob Black, moved up in the world not by doing something good, but because someone ELSE, Rob Feinstein, was accused of doing something worse.
Please send any thoughts to [email protected].
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