By Bill M. Walkowitz
Before I put the link to what Kurt Angle says about Matt Bloom, I'm gonna give some history on matt that many people may not know. Some of it is from my own personal interactions with him very early in his career.
I first saw him and met him when I went to a show put on by the late Sylvano Sousa (Atlantic Wrestling Federation) at a small place called St. Cecelia's Hall in Manchester, New Hampshire back in 1997. He was managed by Chris Grande and going by the name "The Mongolian", which he had the garb for it and did the "Huss Huss" sound like Bruiser Brody and Nord The Barbarian(Berserker in WWF) did. When I was able to work my way into actually working for Sousa behind the scenes (setting up chairs, the ring, helping my friend Dave with taping the shows, etc etc) Matt and the late Steve Bradley were my "go to' guys in that company.
That night I saw him I had a front row seat and when he came to the ring and started the "Huss Huss" me as the 'loud fan' (this was before, I was to start working for Sousa) yelled, "You're no Bruiser Brody, you're no Nord The Barbarian, and you CERTAINLY are no Berserker, mother fucker"! It got the desired reaction from both he and Chris Grande. Since I at the time was writing for monthly newsletter like Wrestling Then And Now, Wrestling Edge and couple others I was able to write reviews of these shows and highlight the wrestlers on this roster. When i was able to get an article about Sousa's AWF printed in Wrestling World magazine (with picture of me and Steve Bradley also printed in it) matt was the first one who (after I gave an advance issue to Sousa, who took it down to the locker room) came up to me and thanked me for doing that. He let me know certain things and said "Don't say anything or write about it until I tell you to, we're trying to keep this quiet", like when he went from Sousa to Fred Sparta's WWA New England because they had an agreement with WWF (WWF's Training Dojo were headlining Sparta's shows), that he got the deal for WWF's Developmental program and he was leaving for Memphis. He let me know on his last night at a show in Wittman, Mass. that he was leaving and asked my advice, since I was also trading tapes and had alot of Memphis Wrestling on tape.
Here's some footage from Bloom's time in New England indies.
This is from St. Cecelia's Hall in Manchester, N.H. Killer Kowalski is the referee in this match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=124gxyPCBbc&t=58s
This is from the very first show I locally promoted for WWA New England, in Rochester, N.H. it starts out with a Chris Grande promo that brings out Killer Kowalski, and well, you'll see what happens. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaOGjwsFFNk&t=2s
Here's some footage of Matt when he was known as Baldo, in Memphis.
Debut of Baldo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQoNTUbwNjc
Baldo vs Streak (Baldo comes out with Owner Randy Hales and manager Downtown Bruno). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8lLJfiNlZY
Streak and Bulldog Raines vs Baldo and Vic Grimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkgUbxWn1fw
Baldo turns babyface. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bqmugr4J7I
I'll throw in acouple of Matt's matches from New Japan Pro Wrestling and NOAH, where he was known as Giant Bernard.
Karl Anderson & Giant Bernard vs Takeshi Morishima & Yutaka Yoshie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zev-pt0S_ww
GIANT BERNARD vs MILANO COLLECTION A.T. (2009) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNdRtgQQjwE
NAKANISHI & STRONGMAN & KANEMOTO vs GIANT BERNARD & KARL ANDERSON & JYUSHIN THUNDER LIGER (2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-tw25Kx8M0
TNA: Footage Of Tomko & Bernard From Global Impact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rknN5USYGlI
And yes, finally.. here's the link to what Kurt Angle recently said about Matt Bloom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2We7DvA2Lio
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