More than six years ago I offered to officiate a wrestling match between Buffalo Jim Barrier and Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo.
Never mind that the match existed only in the entertainment center that serves as Buffalo Jim’s brain. I did offer my services as a novice but highly motivated referee, if the bout were to ever come off. Which it didn’t, unfortunately.
This concept was (alliteration alert!) broached by Buff as he was announcing a Buffalo Wrestling Federation fight card at the Beach. The card was to be called (another alliteration alert!) “Bash at the Beach,” and was staged at the Beach following the Las Vegas Outlaws-Memphis Maniax XFL game on the club’s big screen TVs. So long ago was this event that the Beach, the BFW and the XFL all no longer exist. Nor does Rizzolo, at least as the Crazy Horse Too owner and a citizen free to roam the streets of Las Vegas.
Scheduled to appear on the fight card that night was a 6-foot-11 inch, 625-pound mixed martial artist known as Visira. Also that night, for the first time, Buffalo Jim pulled the tarp off his Buffwagon, a customized four-wheel motorcycle decked out as a buffalo. The nostrils on this $27,000 motorcycle/conversation piece emitted real smoke. Unfortunately, there was no red-carpet rolled arrival scheduled so paparazzi could record the historic event.
It was during the lead-up to this show that Buffalo Jim, who operates Allstate Auto and Marine next door to the Crazy Horse Too building, broached the idea of fighting Rizzolo. It was fairly early in Buffalo Jim’s legal battle with Rizzolo at the Industrial Road parcel (Rizzolo had been trying for months to muscle Buffalo Jim off the property, an effort that proved futile). Buffalo Jim’s plan, as are most of his plans, was brilliant in its simplicity: to tussle with Rizzolo in a no-holds-barred, steel-cage match. “I’ll settle this once and for all,” Buff said. “I’ll challenge him to a match. If I win, he has to vacate the premises within two years. If he wins, I’ve got to leave.”
“I’d like to be the referee,” I blurted. “I’d make sure no one entered the cage with a foreign object.” To which Buff shouted, “You’re on, baby-doll!”
But Rizzolo never responded to the challenge. It might have been because, at about 5-9, 220, he would have been dwarfed by the 6-2 Buffalo Jim, who at the time weighed a nickel short of three bills.
The proposed bout was certainly Buffalo Jim’s way of garnering publicity for his night at the Beach, but the cage match certainly would have precluded several years of litigation. In 2002, Buffalo Jim filed a $1 million harassment lawsuit against Rizzolo. In January, Rizzolo pleaded guilty to conspiracy to evade taxes and has been sentenced to one year and one day in prison. Tuesday, a District Court judge ordered Rizzolo to sock away $1 million in an escrow account pending the resolution of Buffalo Jim’s case.
And in the end, Rizzolo wound up in a steel cage anyway.
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Last week the Miss America Organization announced its new cable home (TLC) and that it would hold next year’s pageant at Planet Hollywood, on Jan. 26. Simultaneously, my friend Norm Clarke reported that negotiations between Miss America officials and Planet Hollywood Chief Executive Officer Robert Earl were still ongoing and no host city had been announced.
I say, wha-a?
The back-story here is that Miss America Organization spokeswoman Sharon Pearce did confirm via e-mail that Planet Hollywood would be the site of next year’s pageant. That information was noted in the news release trumpeting Miss America’s partnership with TLC. Meanwhile, Planet Hollywood spokeswoman Amy Sadowsky said no papers have been signed, and until those papers are signed there will be no official announcement from the hotel that the pageant will return to Planet Hollywood. What would be interesting here is for negotiations to crumble, and for Miss America to be left with no host city five months before the pageant. But that would never happen. I don’t think.
Oh, and former Miss Oregon and current embattled former Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs has finally been removed from the Miss America Organization Board of Directors. This, according to the MAO website, which without a peep dropped her name from the list of board members.
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During an episode of “The O’Reilly Factor” last week, recurring body-language expert Tonya Reiman was led to the studio to dissect the tape of Karl Rove’s announcement that he is resigning as White House chief of staff. Reiman told the increasingly portly Bill O’Reilly (whose body language seems to be saying, “I’ll have the white chocolate cheesecake”) that the halting in Rove’s speech indicated he was genuinely emotional during his address. But Reiman also pointed out that the president, standing at Rove’s side, kept looking behind Rove’s back and seemed oddly indifferent as his friend spoke. “I’m sure he was distracted by something behind there,” O’Reilly, always ready to apologize for the president, quickly reasoned. “There must have been something back there.” Yeah, a WMD, probably.
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A black tarp is covering the tropical aquarium behind the lobby at the Mirage. The tarp informs that the aquarium will be under wraps until a major renovation is completed in October. I expect the hotel to come up with something, uh, splashy.
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We’ve been getting all sorts of unique mail at our new house, stacks of coupons and overtures from nearby businesses eager to make friends with the new kids. One was sent by Central Christian Church, which has given us a coupon for a complimentary beverage or message CD at the Two42 Café & Bookstore. Apparently Central Christian has built a pretty extensive database. I’m holding out for a home visit.
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Word around the Orleans casino floor is that the machines at the once locals-friendly casino are getting pretty tight. The theory is that the hotel is upping the profits to build Echelon Place.
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Vegas moment: More like a Boise moment, while flying back to Vegas from Boise to Las Vegas on Monday morning, I was pulled aside by a stern and concerned TSA representative at Boise Airport and led to a metal stand-up cubicle. Pulled from my carry-on bag was an 11-ounce jar of Idaho huckleberry jam wrapped in bubble wrap and a T-shirt reading “London. Paris. Rome. Boise.” I was given a series of options: mail the jam to myself, check my bag with the jam tightly packed, or surrender the jam. I am not surrendering the jam! So I checked the bag and the jam.
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PL8 in my head: No make or model reported on the vehicle carrying the plate STR8DG.
Fabulous Las Vegas appears at this Web site. John Katsilometes can be reached at 990-7720, 812-9812 or at [email protected]