The Unofficial History of EPWNCOD
In 1989, Ricky 'RimRod' Ballantine was sick of being the opening-match curtain-jerking jobber in struggling regional fed ICPW (Iowa Championship Pro Wrestling). After dropping a Loser Leaves Town Match (since the town in question was Des Moines, this match was a shoot in which both participants tried their best to lose), RimRod left ICPW and started hawking around his plan for a new wrestling promotion which he wanted to base in the wrestling hotbed of Holland, MI.
After being turned down by most of the local businessmen (including Ned Kelly's Egg Repository, who were initially interested in RimRod's proposal that they cross-promote the wrestling and egg-storage as Wrestling And Ned Kelly's Egg Repository), RimRod turned up on the doorstep of old schoolfriend Jimmy 'Jet-Poop' Van Hackenbacker, who had made his fortune as Michigan's Sofa King. Jet-Poop loved the idea of putting his money into something quite as idiotic as a wrestling federation with one wrestler, and EPW was formed.
The early years were hard for the EPW, as their first show was watched by a record low of 3 paying spectators, 2 of which were a pair of escaped convicts who were only looking for a place to hide out. The two criminals, seeing RimRod's patented diamond-studded wrestling thong, got into the ring and tried to steal the pants right off the EPW champion. RimRod (who was a heel until this impromptu mugging and consequent face turn) not only delivered stereo Rimmendrivers to the two, but also signed them to contracts as his top two bad guys. The two criminals? None other than 'Mad Dog' Hal Holliman and 'Orange' Julius DeNucci. As the super-over 'Node Warriors' tag-team, Holliman and Orange Julius put EPW on the wrestling map, their feud with RimRod culminating at the promotion's first Pay-Per-View, Write-Up Smack-Down! at the EPW Arena in January 1993.
After emerging victorious, RimRod announced to a stunned Arena crowd that he was hanging up his thong for good. However, nobody knew his real identity until the main event of EPW: The Night The Node Was Chinged!, where he screwed number one, Swanton Bombing babyface Devon 'Hitman' Hart out of the EPW Title (ordering referee Mitch 'Mitchevious' Hasselhoff to ring the bell even though Hart had NOT tapped out) and, shouting "Don't downvote the writer, downvote the node!", revealed that he had been the owner of EPW all along.
In early 1995, Shermer, IL's Nodes Of Doom Wrestling (NODW) superstar Ivan 'Bol' Bolshevik invaded the ring during an EPW Monday Night /msg taping and announced that NODW was taking over EPW. After laying out Orange Julius with a steel chair wrapped in barbed wire, he won the EPW title from Holliman thanks to bent officiating from the newly-revealed NODW owner Mitchevious, who had only been pretending to be a referee all along! Renaming himself 'Hollywood' Bol Bolshevik, he promised that EPW was about to die.
As the interpromotional war heated up, RimRod turned to Mexico for help. It arrived in the form of insane Anglo-Mexican luchador 'Fast' Eddie Fernandez Hernandez Gonzalez. However, RimRod made the horrible error of giving Eddie the gimmick of Stephanie McMahon's obsessed fanboy, and while Bol distracted Eddie with pictures of Stephanie getting up close and personal with a candle, RimRod himself was the recipient of salt in the eyes from NODW's token mid-80's era Japanese Manager 'The Japanese Nail File' Akira F Hayashi.
The EPW-NODW feud looked like it would tear both federations apart, such was the brutality and violence of the matches, but an even larger foe reared its head. For Ted Turner had turned his attention to the Midwest battleground and launched a hostile takeover of both EPW and NODW. There was only one solution - at NoderSlam '01, the two promotions joined together, forming the EPWNCOD. The roster of the new federation is stronger than ever, even down to sexy and talented ring announcer Davidian Garcia. The future for wrestling in Holland, MI and Shermer, IL is brighter than ever. As long as there is a node to be written, you can count on the EPWNCOD boys to get the job done 1-2-3 in the middle of the ring. Oh, it's true. It's damn true.