Former Coal Township resident Rob Naylor is quickly establishing a reputation within the independent pro wrestling community.
The 32-year-old Lourdes Regional and Shippensburg University grad has been a wrestling fan since the age of seven when he discovered the magic of squared circle action. Early on, he followed the WWF (now WWE) and NWA promotions that appeared regularly on television and attended a couple of house shows in Shamokin and Hershey.
Naylor was perhaps permanently corrupted when someone showed him a copy of Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter and the genie was out of the bottle. Quickly becoming a diehard fan of the renegade ECW promotion and getting involved with tape trading expanded his rapidly growing hobby.
At Shippensburg, Rob wrote a wrestling column for the school paper and co-hosted a wrestling talk show on the university's radio station, along with covering the more traditional sports at the school and honing his skills at tape editing. Before long, he was creating wrestling videos with highlights set to appropriate background music of his choice.
After making numerous contacts over the Internet, chatting with fellow wrestling aficionados and re-directing much of his energy to the indy scene after the demise of the original ECW, Rob began sharing his insightful observations about young talent. It wasn't long before numerous people in the business were chatting with him, some novices and others a bit more experienced, caught up with his enthusiasm for their professional development.
A photographic memory, self-deprecating sense of humor and high-energy personality that seem to serve him well in most areas of life, have recently caused business to pick up substantially for him with respect to wrestling. His networking has lead to all kinds of incredible experiences meeting some of the most unique characters in wrestling history.
After being asked to call the action from ringside for two EWE shows in Virginia and the Super Indy tournament for the IWC out of Pittsburgh a few short years ago, Naylor has recently been doing iPPV work for CZW in South Philly, NWA Force One in New Jersey and former ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky's new Evolve promotion in New York City.
During his spare time, Rob has also been one of the American voices of the German based WXW promotion that has visited the United States for spot shows, but has a more prominent European presence. Some indy enthusiasts have been paying Naylor the ultimate compliment by referring to him on tweets as "a pocket-sized Jim Ross". Pretty impressive praise for a hard-working and popular non-wrestler on the indy wrestling scene.
Two major titles changed hands at last Sunday's Extreme Rules pay-per-view on a show that might have contained better overall wrestling action than WrestleMania did last month. John Cena emerged victorious in a three-way over John Morrison and the defending champ the Miz in a cage bout to regain a belt he has held on numerous occasions. Christian bested Alberto Del Rio in a ladder match to win the Smackdown version of the world title vacated by Edge due to his recent and sudden retirement.
Randy Orton defeated C.M. Punk in a very good last-man standing affair that opened the show. Kofi Kingston beat Sheamus to capture the United States championship. Rey Mysterio upended Cody Rhodes and the former Awesome Kong debuted as Kharma. Michael Cole pinned Jim Ross in the tag match also involving Lawler and Swagger.
Monday's Raw was dominated by the Rock's birthday party. There was little actual wrestling of note. Not exactly being a big Rock fan myself, nor a fan of the dumb skits that seemed inevitable, I confess that I spent most of Monday evening wasting my time watching the Flyers go down the drain in overtime.
Tuesday evening's Smackdown tapings saw Randy Orton defeat Christian to capture the brand championship. Christian held the belt all of about 48 hours after winning it at Sunday's ppv.
TNA has decided to re-brand itself as Impact. And to celebrate this they brought Chyna in to renew her old WWF feud with Jeff Jarrett. There go the buyrates through the roof - NOT.