Moo Moo-What are your physical statistics and what do you like doing besides wrestling?

Firestorm- I am 6’0”, 230 pounds. Things I love to do besides wrestling are: Christian Religious studies, Drawing, Playing Video Games: MEGAMAN, FirePro Wrestling, PS2, soon to be gamecube and xbox, making my own games in both C++ and Visual Basic, learning more about programming, Music and ill fated attempts at guitar (don’t worry though, I’ll get good and one day you can pick up a firestorm and devilman CD), I am newly addicted to watching pride fighting championship tapes and dvds after devilman got me hooked (from now on in this interview im referring to devil man as just Russ) I also haven’t missed a raw or smackdown yet, pretty much, that’s dating back a long way. Lets not forget the ladies either. And finally, sports, lifting weights, being an ass, and all other sorts of teenage hobbies.

Moo Moo- How did you get interested in wrestling, and then later become a member of GEW?

Firestorm- Very long story, but I’m very bored so here we go! (There where occurrences up to 4 months before this, will be discussed in next answer) It was like march of 99, and I was surfing the net and reading a message board from a hardcore indy fed here named REAL DEAL PRO WRESTLING, they sucked, but I was hooked, on this bored where a few guys that posted a lot and in one of the posted they mentioned their backyard fed and how they where finally getting to wrestle in a ring, the people where the camera men for RDPW, Hamilton’s PCW’s SHADE, KARNAGE, and RAGE. I posted my AIM name on the message board and told them to get a hold of me so I can talk to them about joining, I also left Firestorm’s Profile so they could awee all over how cool I was.

Well Karnage gave me a call and talked to me about this fed called GEW who had a ring and how they where on Inside edition and REAL TV, and how they where doing shows together now, PCW wanted me to check these out so I got on the backyard link and found GEW’s site and did the same thing in their guest book, left my name, number, AIM name, and profile. This was also very close to the time of their big open event, Back yard fest 2 which is held every summer. So they decided they would come to my house and fool around on my trampoline and get to know me and if I was close to good I could come to one of their house shows before backyard fest. They came over and I showed them my tape of stuff I had done on the tramp and they all laughed really hard, then they showed me their tape and I wanted to cry I was so em-bar-assed, literally. So we went out side and did two matches before it started to rain, I was in a tag match with chester bittle and we faced funcoland, sean Monroe and trailer park seth.

In this match which wasn’t on the tramp, it was in my back yard and a deck my dad had built over my creek in the back yard, I did a lot of dumb shit, I tried to power bomb sean who was a good 200 pounds back when I was 185, and he just fell on me, then I fisherman bustered seth on just ground, speared sean really really hard against ground, and then did an elbow drop off the deck which hit seth in the face. Match was still good though. Next was devilman vs matt vs Hollywood blonde on the tramp in a wepons match (both of these can be seen on bonus volume 2 available at gewwrestling.com, just ask for it.) their match was outstanding and I was so jacked up about everything, it started to rain halfway threw the match so we ended it and went inside to watch and record the tape, we where all sitting in my house, (no parents at home) when all the sudden my dad walks in the door and looks at the TV and is like, “BRIAN!! WHATS GOING ON!” then he sat there and watched the whole thing while all of GEW sat there frozen in fear and hysteretic while the matches finally ended, every move on the tape was followed by a hissssss, or grunt from my dad just sitting there boiling over, at one point in my match 200 pound sean Monroe was wiped into the railing of the deck and my dad just foresaw it snapping into, but it never did, but his reaction was immense. He then walked outside just to make sure his deck was in one piece and we took this moment to gather everything they had and run to their cars as fast as possible, they got away before he got back in but I knew I was in deep shit.

I was wrong; he came in and didn’t say anything. What he saw on tape was a bunch of kids getting brutally hurt and almost killing each other, but he had the proof sitting right in front of him that this was ok, cause we where all sitting there smiling. So I went up to my room and got on the computer and talked to the guys about it and they admitted they where scared and said if I wasn’t grounded for life I could come to 98* the show before BYF2, I wasn’t going to be a part of GEW, but I could come to the shows. I wrestled unmasked as I did in the week before, in a 6 man tag, me and two pcw cruisers against sean, blonde, and vince. I was getting a bad feeling that PCW had talked to GEW and had told them that I had talked to them first and that I had actually joined them, so this is why I was part of their team. We got killed and I really sucked except for my raging inferno, which was impressive. Gew and I didn’t really talk until the next week which was backyard fest. I went there and met the greatest guys ever, SWA, they thought I was pretty cool too, and I had just gotten my first mask so firestorm was complete. I got to beat josh “Awesome jimmy Austin” (who is now a indy wrestler and is going to be a teacher,) ‘s jobber gimmick, BIG stupid, in one of the funniest matches ever, one of everyone’s fav’s from BYF2.

It was huge, I was so jacked. I knew now that I was in. We then had a show called mortal kombat appreciation show and this is where some bad things happened, first off I was so jacked for this event that I left for matt’s at 11, I live 30 minutes away so I got there at 11:30, no one was home, I was so let down, so upset and so confused, I instantly pictured them all laughing at me and making up fake days and times of us wrestling just to see me show up and no one be there, so I went back home. I stepped in the door and looked at caller ID to see matt had called so I called him back and he was like “hey dude, I called like at 11:45 when I got home from picking up russ to tell you to come over, are you still coming?” it was 12 and I was relieved/mad/and excited, so I hopped in my truck and headed back over there, we started the show as soon as I got there and it was a really good show, PCW was still there, but it was good, I was in a 3 way match with matt and havok (another new comer about a month before me) Havok did the job to me early in the match and left matt and I to start a feud that would last for a year. Matt beat me with the shooting stat press in a great match.

Then two weeks went by and two shows went by that I was never told about. I talked to everyone about what had happened that morning and how I didn’t know when to come (I still wasn’t part of GEW yet) so they all agreed I had improved enough to be considered one of them. Also they said they hadn’t invited me to the other shows because they lost my number (funny coincidence later). So I was satisfied. Firestorm was GEW now and I made my official debut at a memorial show to our ring, for it was the last card we could have in it, being as how the zoning commission said it had to come down. I fought Sean and matt in another great triangle match which saw me lose to the shooting star press followed by a star dust, sean and matt then finished the match in about a minute or so. Earlier in the day I was also picked as Wooper Jr.’s tag partner against funcoland and I did something really funny, I came to the ring with a torch and a mouth full of rubbing alcohol, and I spit a huge fireball!!! But then had no clue as what to do with the torch so I threw it at the creek, it was august now so it was filled with dry leaves and there was now a little bit of a problem. Fire was starting to go up everywhere, but we got it under control and it ended up being a very funny tape to watch again.

I then came over the next weekend and Russ, Matt and I took the ring apart in the rain, we finished and I felt like crying again, but we said we would keep wrestling come hell or high water. WE then pulled about a month without wrestling until PCW gave us a call and wanted to return the favor for having them over and wanted us to come wrestle at spears gym that they had rented, these matches are documented on a tape on our website which is a very good buy. I think personally if PCW didn’t keep us going in the winter we would have folded right there, matt was kinda losing interest. But come spring we decided we didn’t need PCW anymore and that we would only run the big shows with them form now on, so we started having house shows in matts side yard, this lasted for about 6 cards, in one of the last ones is my big win over matt. Which is match 11 on the 2000 compilation tape found at gewwrestling.com.

After this show we headed back across the street to a little distance beyond where the old ring was and we have evolved from there. WE started with just the matts and then we rented pro rings for backyard fest 3, we bought steel cages and we built make shift rings that exploaded when big moves where done, I allowed people to jump into and off my truck, and we finaly built a sturdy platform for backyard fest 4, throw in a few more matches at PCW shows, and there is Firestorms almost complete history in backyard wrestling.

Oh yeah I won the championship while I was already a tag champion in the first 12’ steel cage match against Matt schalk in early October of 2000. I then “lost” it / got it stolen and then handed it over to matt after he won it back for GEW, at the SWA show this past June, so that is like a 8 month title reign!

Moo Moo- Tell us a little about Dave “Mean” Maynard, and how he got into GEW with your assistance? Where did you get the name Firestorm?

Firestorm- Ok, this is the story about the 4 months I didn’t tell you about before. It all started when I meet the kid back in 97, we both loved wrestling and where very much alike. We are a year, 2 months, and 1 day apart in age. We could have been brother, well really we are, anyway story time. I had him over to play in the snow on a great January day. My trampoline was frozen over with about ¾ inch sheets of ice, the first thing dave and I did was have me throw him onto it to break it all. After the fun in that wore off I grabbed a big sheet of it and remembered back to a classic karate kid memory where he punches threw it, so I challenge dave to do the same and he winded up big for it, so big he even turned his head around to get momentum, well he got it all right, when he turned his head back around with a nice hook coming toward where the block once was, all he saw was the sheet coming right for his forehead with no time to react, it sent him to the ground instantly almost unconscious. I then dubbed him ICEBLOCK, for surviving that and as kinda like a joke.

I then named myself Firestorm because it was cool, (dating back to MEGAMAN 1’s FireMan’s special attack called the firestorm, and not to mention the old school super friend member, firestorm) because fire and ice are naturally enemies and if dave and I where going to get serious about wresting we where gonna have to get good characters. I don’t think dave ever liked Iceblock, even after I got him his mask which was at about the same time as backyard fest he barely ever wore it (it was a real cheep blue el santo mask). He has also made many references as to how gay it was, must be from the trauma he suffered while getting the name. Dave then got ideas for us to tape us wrestle, so we did, but first came our youth groups ski trip where dave tore some shit up doing all kinds of stunts, on one of his last ones though, he landed wrong on a snow ball, got his feet tangled, and face planted into the ground, I thought he was just joking when he laid there, but I skied on up the hill and realized he was clutching his arm, he had broken it and wrestling was now on a halt.

He ended up wrestling a little while he had it on, and there are good memories of those days, but non on tape. It was about a week though before he got it off that I decide I was going to invite friends over to my house and wrestle with them on the tramp. These ended up just being shoot matches which I was undefeated in, my neighbor andy was the announcer and was hilarious, he grabbed a 2X4 out of my back yard and came running in front of the camera going “HHOOOOOOOOO!” so we named that card Hardcore Hacksaw Wrestling. Then like two nights later I made a championship belt, called the fed MTW (milford trampoline Wrestling), the belt was an old canteen belt so it was adjustable, it then had a center cardboard piece with a computer print out on it, followed by two small squared on each side with computer print outs on them. I was so proud of it. I showed dave and we booked out first match for 2 weeks after the cast came off.

We did one match in which I dragon suplexed “PPV DAVEY” on his head which caused us to pause the tape for at least a half an hour and then resume having him beat firestorm for the title. A week later my other “Hardcore” gimmik, The back alley crack daddy, took on ppv davey in a hardcore match where I was defeated, thus leading to the worst thing ever, Dave’s first interview and promo. Firestorm then interrupted this and a challenge was issued, Firestorm killed PPV Davey and walked away a champion. AT this point I was just getting into GEW, I had already had them over and Dave opted not to show because it was “really gay” and I was hanging out with “Trash from Cleves” in fact it wasn’t until after backyard fest 2 that I had enough evidence to get dave interested. He kept telling me he would come now but never did, deep down I think I know why, because he didn’t want to be embarrassed by his not so good abilities. So I took him in under my wing and trained with him a lot.

We did get in some fights on whether I was being to ruff on him or not or whether I was just using him as a practice dummy, but in time I got better and he started to as well, I got him doingevery aerial move by spring of 2000 and he was hooked now that he could 450 and shooting star (both of which I had been using on the tramp for ages) so in time and after about 4 more MTW cards we finaly got him to show at the last PCW spears event, he had a new mask which I had bought at a costume store for like 10 dollars and a pair of windpants, the mask didn’t fit and kept turning side ways on him, the match was me him and devilman, vs sean seth and Hollywood blonde. Everyone was really good, even dave but he botched all his moves and hurt everyone with them. He was a bundle of nerves and wanted to shoot himself after the match, then he saw a pcw match and was like “well him not that bad atleast” J, anyway we trained more and he made his GEW debut as the holocaust kid with the EL masco mask and matching gold sabu pants, at the show before byf3, (kinda odd, I debut a week before byf2, he debuts a week before byf3) his match with matt was awesome, and he was not GEW for life, he loved being around all the great people in the fed and he made so many new friends.

It was like a whole new family (bad story from his past, but it really made him secure in that he wanted to be there) Dave then helped me form the Elements of Destruction and capture the tag gold at backyard fest 3. he also had a best 2/3 falls match against duff and matt where he did a 450 splash from the top to the outside threw a table, everyone loved it. He then had a great match against havok in the opening round of the swa tournament, which can be seen on 2000 compilation at gewwrestling.com. the EOD ruled the summer of 2000, nothing but wins for the both of us and we had a blast, then two weeks after I became champion in the 12’ cage match, we had the 6’ cage match show and dave wrestled duff and lost. I was too concerned about being the world champ to help him and it was the beginning of the end of the EOD, then a few days later dave was in gym class jumping off a friend’s back trying to dunk and fell wrong and broke his arm again. It’s a good thing he did it them because it got real cold in November and we didn’t wrestle again until early January at Season’s Beatings, dave was 100% and this was his last match as my partner and last match in the EL masco mask, he caused me to be pinned and lose the tag belts to super vertigo and hung wi low, and we had our first fight right there which would start a 6 month rivalry, I won this time.

We wrestled again two weeks later, he had the new Agula mask and I had a pro rendition of my solar mask, and he beat me, 1-1. then damnit rolled around and we did best 2/3 falls where the score became 2-3, then matt and dave beat devilman and I in a dream partner match making it 2-4, so I needed some serious revenge, and so came SWA card, last battle, mask vs mask, double knock out, we both unmask, and he starts his new character while I contemplate retirement. Then backyard fest 4 rolled around and Firestorm called it quits, to leave Mr Maynard for his last year in gew. Some other side notes are that meanwhile MTW went down the dump even after we brought in lots of new stars, well these new stars started their own fed and called all of themselves JIBS after a famous line in Starcraft. They called it JWA or something, talk to dave about it, they never invite me because I might hurt someone they think.

And you guys might remember dave and I “fighting” for a while there after swa and before and after byf4, just ignore that, most of it was gimmicked even though we where both swearing it wasn’t. truth is dave knew I was going to college and he had to branch out and make new friends and the more time I spent with him the less time he had to make new friends, so we used that as a good reason to get emotional with each other, and so that is what all of you put up with for a couple weeks, hehehehe sorry J all fun and games.

Moo Moo- What is the difference between Firestorm and Brian McGee?

Firestorm- Anything and everything. Firestorm swears a lot, and I can’t really stand hearing people spurt them off like they where nothing, Firestorm is overly aggressive while I am more laid back and collected. Firestorm also is a control freak and has to have supreme power, and I , oh yeah that’s the same J. Other wise it’s more of a spiced up version of how I get before a big football game.

Moo Moo- Whats the deal with you and your obsession to choke people?

Firestorm- Shut up or your next. When I was 14 I had a friend I would hang out with that did a lot of dumb stuff and one of his things was he liked making people pass out and then having them make him pass out, so we did it a lot for fun, it was just funny to see someone wake up from the daze and literally have no idea where they where for the past 5 minutes. I know your talking about Jason Sailor here so here’s the run down, I did it because I had no other way of saying, hi welcome to GEW, and I watch way too much Pride FC now. So the result was him stumbling around unconscious and eventually falling over into the steal cage, it was really funny for like 5 seconds until he woke up all steamed up J, oh well that’s what you get for wearing a pink shirt in the Nati, I’ve done this to numerous people, mainly friends or teammates at weight lifting and they all get up and think it’s the awesomeest natural high they have ever had and most ask for more, which is really sick come to think of it, anyway it is just an over aggression complex I sometimes forget, mainly rooted in football and how your never suppose to give up. Longer story, not enough time or interest.

Moo Moo- How did you learn to do so many high flying moves for being such a big guy?

Firestorm- I started competitive diving at my local pool, which is the same one all you peeps saw in the clip of dave doing the double reverse flip, (Shooting Star) at the age of 9. I was very small, skinny and flexable back then and learned all the dives and flips I can do now including a front 2 ½ and a back 1 1/2 , reverse 1 ½ and inward 1 1/2 , not to mention a front full twisting 1 ½ flip. Now im big, husky, but still flexable so it all comes to me naturally.

Moo Moo- What has been your finest match, and who do you like to work with the most and why?

Firestorm- Can’t really call, all my matches with dave where suppose to be dream matches and where awesome, but never lived up to what I really wanted, Matt, the best person I wrestled against, (he just brings out the best in every wrestler and sells so damn good you sometimes think he’s hurt for real) and I had great matched every time and if I had to pick it would be our first round match at SWA tournament. But also my favorite match was with Devilman at the show before back yard fest 3 when dave debutted. It was awesome and can be seen on the 2000 compilation at gewwrestling.com

Moo Moo- What were your impressions about Skillz, Jason “The Sensation” Sailer, and Trevor Lee at GEW’s Backyard Fest?

Firestorm- Skillz was my invitation, the only one who really knew him besides me was dave, skillz was just like me in almost every aspect in life, we could relate to everything, we had a blast, really great guy, a new friend for life, if I can ever get him back from matt J

Firestorm- Jason I thought was gay at first, but still a good guy, a little moody, but dedicated non the least. Hard worker, tried his best, botched a few moves, didn’t really play fair all the time, but still pulled it off when it really counted, and he took a shooting star to the nuts, couldn’t have been happier he came, he did ride a bus for 25 hours both ways and only stayed here for like 46.

Firestorm- Trevor lee, I made a jingle up about him from the old Sarah lee commercial, NO Body does it like Trevor lee! He hates it but its so catchy and so true, he was a great guy with no ego at all (uhmmm Jason) and really put his all into everything, his match was spectacular and I can’t wait to wrestle with him again, whether it be in a month or two or at BYF5.

Moo Moo- You have had many different costumes in your time, tell us a history about them and what do you think a good costume and gimmick does for a wrestler?

Firestorm- I’m including an evolution pic of firestorm. Note on my latest costume, The shit was ripped before backyard fest so I turned it into shoulder pads, and the pants got too dirty at byf so they are now in the trash can. Firestorm left GEW anyway and the new mask was too precious to even think about wrestling in. so its just brian mcgee from here on out. I’ve posted on the BYWL about my costumes before and so everyone knows the story, but a real quick version is here: started out with dumb rugby shirt and dumb pants, they used tye dye shirt from chemistry class, but sleeve off for mask and wore same dumb pants, got mask, same shirt, and new sparyed flames pants. Then got better mask, and new shirt with gloves. Then made new pants got new shirt and new pro mask. Finaly stitched new shirt, made new pants, and ordered new mask and made new gloves, threw in trash besides mask, now just me.

The best part about being in costume and not just street clothes is it allows for you to set your two people apart and really get motivated for matches. It tells the story a whole lot better two and helps with gimmicks, plus if your costume rocks you get noticed like I did. I could do 100’s of super german’s and no one care, but make a new costume and I was famous all the sudden.

Moo Moo- What do you think of being so well known for what you do just with your friends, and do fans ever bug you at all?

Firestorm- I like having people talk to me on AIM about backyard wrestling, I don’t like my friends who don’t understand wrestling not to mention BYW know about it but some do anyway. And I never really get bugged by fans unless im real tired or they’re really hard to deal with. Or are just complete marks.

Moo Moo- GEW is well-known over the Internet, but do many people in your town’s and family know about your federation, and if so, what do they think about it?

Firestorm- Ok funny story, one kid who was in MTW and is one of my best friends, Justin Gradolf always knew about firestorm. We play football together, and I had just started earning my teams respect, I guess they only respected people who abused women and drunk them selves unconscious on the weekends, but I was showing them that I was the real deal in the weight room and that turned some heads. They started accepting me, they had always like Justin cause he was drop dead funny and one day he took a friend of ours too the firestorm web site for a good laugh, I was two computers down and all I herd was paul stand up and go “FIRESTORM!!!” no one got it but by the end of that day that picture of me posing with the fire behind it was the wallpaper on about 4 or 5 computers and was the joke of the day among most of the people at the school, mostly football players and a few cheerleaders, I took it the wrong way and got mad at anyone who mentioned it, besides Justin, and just denied it, I wish I would have been able to just laugh about it because it would have saved me even more humiliation. Plus it didn’t help that dave was so proud of what he did he told everyone any way.

But yeah school mainly knows, (except most girls thank god) and I’ve gotten comfortable enough now to show the tapes to most people who I have over. My dads knows and my mom knows but they just act like they don’t to save an argument, he brings it up everyone in a while but I just say, your gay shut up and leave it at that.

Moo Moo- What instore for Brian McGee’s future in wrestling and your career once GEW is done and you go to college?

Firestorm- I’m going to the university of Dayton to major in computer science and computer engineering, I will play division 1 AA football while im there too and make it back for GEW whenever I can, matt turns 18 in October and him, me and russ hope to get pro trained at les thatchers main event camp sometime either this winter or this summer, we are still deciding, les runs such a good school but you know how GEW is, we would jump at a chance to get trained by dory funk junior. If pro wrestling is too much for me then look forward to seeing my name at the end off a lot of best selling video games by either Capcom or THQ (yeah I’ll try and sneak a few BYW’ers into the big wrestling games when they come out as fictional characters)

Moo Moo- Any final words or plugs