The NWF Timeline of Events
A short introduction…
In early 1984, two young kids decided to form their very own professional wrestling league. Shawn Crossen (aged 14) and Charley Lane (aged 12) began producing a weekly cable program titled "Kids Pro Wrestling", and for the next five years, the show would gain huge success with national exposure all across the country. As they Started out on bed mattresses in Shawn's basement, in just two years time, they were promoting live public events at the Anoka Armory in a full sized professional wrestling ring. By 1986, "NWF Kids Pro Wrestling" had quickly gained a reputation for harnessing a very talented group of youngsters where hundreds of fans would pay admission to attend the live events that they promoted.
The story of "Kids Pro Wrestling" is truly a remarkable accomplishment by a small group of kids that only had a dream to do what they loved, in running their very own professionally wrestling league. But the pioneering efforts that this young group achieved certainly did not come without a host of obstacles and challenges all along the way that at times would nearly end this league of theirs on more than one occasion. In addition to the ups and downs of their roller coaster ride to success, what makes this story truly so unique is that it all took place nearly twenty years ago, long before the existence of backyard wrestling which is now so commonly seen in today's times.
But unlike backyard wrestling, "NWF Kids Pro Wrestling" was truly on a different playing field. The NWF was a group of kids that worked together to put on a great wrestling show, and never did they attempt to harm one another for real. Where Backyard Wrestling showcases itself on violence, blood, and pain. The NWF was based on sportsmanship, teamwork, and showmanship. "NWF Kids Pro Wrestling" truly captured the art of professionally wrestling, where backyard wrestling is more or less a mix of dangerous and sometimes idiotic stunts with violence. Throughout the 1980's during the NWF's existence, there was never a negative article or story written about them, as all press coverage was on a positive note. The same cannot be said for backyard wrestling.
So whatever became of this remarkable league? A new book has come forth written by the one who was responsible for this entire league, Shawn "Crusher" Crossen. "Pro Wrestling Kids' Style" gives readers an in depth look at the league they created from beginning to end, and gives us all something to think about in the end. In addition, four new dvd's have been released by NWF Films in a series known as "The Anoka Armory Series", that showcases the leagues biggest live events from 1986 and 1987. The following information is a summary of the highlights and events that took place in this truly incredible league.
SHAWN “CRUSHER” CROSSEN
CHARLEY “LUXURY” LANE
MARCH, 1984 After taking production courses at Group W Cable, Shawn Crossen and Charley Lane began producing a weekly cable tv show titled "The Kids Quad Cities Pro Wrestling Show". The program was taped out of Shawn's basement in Anoka, MN and featured a half dozen kids wrestling on bed mattresses. Although the setting was somewhat amateurish, the concept itself was very entertaining. Kids such as "Crusher Crossen", Luxury Lane", "Killer Kampa" and "Tuffer Daniels" strutted their stuff as they all acted out their heros of professional wrestling, while developing their own unique characters themselves. And after a few weeks of airing over community television, the show had a growing audience in the four small communities of Anoka, Champlin, Andover and Ramsey.
JUNE, 1984 Wanting to improve the look of their show, Shawn and Charley decided to take the "studio production" course at Group W Cable. This now allowed the boys to be able to produce their weekly wrestling show from the production studio located at Group W Cable. This meant that they now had access to a full control room equipped with ¾" video decks, video mixer, audio mixer, and character generator for text graphics. The studio itself had two stationary cameras on dollies for multi camera action. But best of all, the studio had a wooden stage that was roughly 9 feet by 13 feet and 2 feet off the ground. This stage would now serve as the new "wrestling ring" so to speak. This along with the "blue and black" production curtains in the background was a great improvement over the basement setting they were using prior to this.
AUGUST, 1984 After producing 12 shows thus far, all the kids involved were about get some shocking news. Shawn's best friend and league co-founder Charley Lane was about to move 800 miles away to Omaha, NE. Because Shawn and Charley had worked so well together in starting the show itself, at first, Shawn thought this would be the end of the entire show. But Charley made it clear to Shawn that he should keep doing the wrestling show, and after much advice and pressure from Charley, Shawn agreed to keep doing it. It was hard on Shawn to have his best friend move away, but he had promised charley he would keep doing the show, and so he did. After Charley left, Shawn picked both Mike Ackermann and Rob Jacob to help him as co-producers of the show. Many new wrestlers were now on the roster including "Muscular Mike Rudnick", "Heath Pain Petersen", "Mad Man Nash" and "The Dynamite Dude".
CHARLEY LANE AND SHAWN CROSSEN
OCTOBER, 1984 Shawn had gotten to know several of the cable company employees down at Group W Cable, and they all enjoyed his wrestling show. All that is, except for one, and that was Scott Tronson. Whatever the reason was, Scott just did not like the show that Shawn was producing. He would do whatever he could to make things difficult, going as far as shutting off the lights in the studio while the kids were trying to finish up their show because they were over 5 minutes on their three hour block. It was around this time that Shawn thought up a new plan that would help grow his league. After making a few phone calls to nearby Twin Cities cable companies, Shawn set up additional timeslots throughout the remainder of the suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul. So now, the wrestling show was being seen in about 70 percent of the entire metro area, covering over 70 plus local communities. It was a pretty simple process, when one cable company was done airing their program, they would send it off to another, and so on, until all cable companies had aired the show. Subsequently, Shawn changed the name of his league to the "TWA Twin Cites Wrestling Association". Shortly after this, Shawn had noticed a flyer on the bulletin board at Group W Cable offering a $500.00 grant. Shawn figured if they could get the grant, then they could convert the stage they were using into an actual professional wrestling ring by adding four posts with three sets of ropes. That way, it would actually "look" like a wrestling ring. So he filled out an application and handed it to an irritated Scott Tronson. Despite Scott's wishes, the cable commission awarded the grant to Shawn and his league, and this marked a new era to their wrestling program, as it now featured an actual "wrestling ring" or at least what looked like one.
SHAWN CROSSEN AND MIKE ACKERMANN
NOVEMBER, 1984 With the ever growing popularity of the wrestling show, the Twin Cities Reader, a local publication, had contacted Shawn to do a feature article on his league. It was a very well written piece that gave a positive look on the league of kid wrestlers, and this only added to the popularity of the show. The only down side to the article is that it attracted the attention of Trans World Airlines, and they politely asked Shawn to change the name of his show by not using their trademarked initials. So Shawn went from the TWA to the "TWF Twin Cities Wrestling Federation". New kids were joining the roster as well with the likes of "Kid USA Kelsey", "Brian Peterson", "Superfly Rich", and "Andy the Ripper".
JANUARY, 1985 At the beginning of 1985, a major conflict finally came to a head, as Shawn had butted heads with Rob Jacob for the last time. They were not getting along for months, and after a heated disagreement over the show, Rob quit. At the time, Shawn did not care. But he later would learn just how valuable of an asset Rob was to his show and would regret this entire incident. With the exception of that, Shawn did come up with another mind-blowing idea. He wanted his show to go national. So with that, he picked up the phone and called the cable companies of twenty or so major cities all across the country and set up weekly timeslots. And shortly after, the wrestling show was now being aired all across the country. Shawn then changed the name to "NWF National Wrestling Federation". New kids that joined the league at this point were "Ace Andrew Karlsen", "Rough Ryan", "The Super Ds", and "Roughhouse Roberts". The sky seemed to be the limit as this league was growing at a record pace.
ROB JACOB
MARCH, 1985 As things were going very strong on the weekly cable show, Scott Tronsen decided to make things difficult on the league. He informed Shawn that he could no longer use the stage at Group W Cable because they needed to get rid of it due to space limitations. This was disastrous for the league because without that stage, they did not have a ring. This could have very well marked the end of the show, but Shawn was not about to go down that easily. After getting permission from his parents, he converted their family garage into a new production studio. By building a new wooden wrestling ring in the garage and hanging "blue tarps" on all the walls as backdrops, this new "studio" would serve as the new home of the NWF.
APRIL, 1985 The NWF taped it's first cable tv taping out of the garage using the new studio. Although they were back to one stationary camera, the new ring was a step up as it actually had working turnbuckles which meant that the kids could actually hit the ropes with full force and jump off them as well. Charley Lane was back in town for a visit and made a special guest appearance on the show. Charley was very proud and impressed with all of what Shawn had accomplished with the league thus far. Several new kids joined the league and one in particular who was brought in by Mike Ackermann was Steve Engstrom. He was a bit older stating he was 16, but he had a great costume with a mask calling himself "Mr. X". Shawn was very impressed with him at first, and he was a real natural in the ring as far as doing the moves.
MAY, 1985 The NWF got some great exposure as KSTP Channel Five came out to the garage to do a feature story on the league for the evening news. It was a nicely produced piece that once again gave enormous publicity to the league that Shawn was running. With all this success that the NWF was getting, Shawn was becoming somewhat of a power-head. And after a few weeks of bickering back and forth, Shawn went ahead and fired his only other co-producer, Mike Ackermann, from the show. Like with Rob, this again was something Shawn later would regret doing, but at the time, he just could not see it.
JUNE, 1985 The NWF continued on with some very well produced shows out of the garage studio. Steve Engstrom had become very good friends with Shawn by making several improvements to the wrestling ring and by making very attractive title belts to use on the show. Shawn soon asked both Steve Engstrom and Matt Kelsey to form his "producers counsel" sort of a "board of directors" for the league. But then Shawn learned something very surprising about Steve Engstrom. As it turned out, he was not 16 years old, he was in fact, 26 years old, married with a wife and two kids! Although Shawn was mad at Steve for lying, he had become too good of friends with him to get rid of him, and allowed Steve to be the only exception to the age limit of the league.
STEVE ENGSTROM
SEPTEMBER, 1985 This marked a special time in NWF history, they had now produced 50 shows. So for the 50th show, Shawn invited several of the former kids from the leagues history to come back to the show, including Rob Jacob and Mike Ackermann. After apologizing to both of them, Shawn asked them to come back to the show. Although Mike and Rob passed on the offer, Shawn felt at peace with the whole situation by apologizing to both of them. The 50th show saw the return of such NWF greats as "Muscular Mike Rudnick", "Keith Wild Wiltermouth", and "Brian Peterson". In October, Matt Kelsey brought in a new kid to show named Jason Clauson. At first, Jason was known as "Corporal Clauson", but Shawn soon recognized great talent in Jason as both a co-producer and match commentator. And soon enough, Jason was a part of the "producers counsel" as well as the leagues new ring announcer and match commentator, while still doing his wrestling characters as well.
NOVEMBER, 1985 While all the NWF matches were predetermined, Shawn always felt it to be fair to have title matches "real", so the only way to win them was by pinfall or submission. So in November, Shawn was in line to get a title shot from his friend Matt Kelsey. The match was a brutal one in that both were going strong to win it, and in the end Shawn won the belt, but a defeated Matt Kelsey was hurt both physically and emotionally. That incident marked the end of title matches being "real", as Shawn learned that friendships were far more important then title matches being real or not. The Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote a featured article in the Sunday paper on Shawn's league, which gave them really good publicity. As great as the piece was, it also had a negative side affect that once again would strike disaster for the league. The family insurance agent on Shawn's property also read the article in the paper, and he immediately threatened to cancel the insurance policy on the entire property unless the wrestling show stops using the family garage to produce shows. Once again, the NWF was on the brink of extinction.
KELSEY VS CROSSEN FOR THE TITLE IN 1985
FEBRUARY, 1986. One day while walking downtown, Shawn asked both Matt and Jason what they thought about holding a live event at the Anoka Armory? They both thought he was nuts. But Shawn was serious, and after getting a tour of the facilities and thinking it through, Shawn decided to move forward and book the NWF's first live event at the Anoka Armory for Friday, May 9th, 1986. There was much work that needed to be done. Besides coming up with the rental fee of $350 for the armory, they had to build a working wrestling ring that would be suited for a large event like this. In order to raise money, Shawn printed up flyers and tickets for the upcoming event and gave them to all the wrestlers to sell to friends and family members. In addition, Shawn went to several local businesses asking them to sponsor the event by selling ad space in a planned program guide to be sold at the event. And each and every week, Shawn plugged this "mega event" on his weekly cable tv show, billing it as "Superstars Spectacular '86". All the hard work finally paid off, as the kids raised enough money to pay for the down payment of the armory as well as fund the construction of their new wrestling ring, being 16 feet by 16 feet and 2 feet off the ground. The week prior to this event, Shawn was both excited and nervous, as this would be the first time his league would be exposed to a live crowd, and what were they going to think?
JANUARY, 1986 Not knowing where to turn, Shawn consulted with Jason Clauson to try to figure out what they could do. After a few days, they decided to try and get use of the boxing ring that was located in the basement of Fred Moore Jr. High. Because Shawn had already tried this back in 1984 by asking the community school director at Fred Moore with negative results, this time Shawn went right to the school district headquarters. The plan worked, and the league was given a 6-month pilot to be able to use the boxing ring at the school every Saturday morning. In the meantime, Shawn had to produce makeshift shows to fill the weekly timeslots all over the country by using old matches with updated interviews. The first show at Fred Moore went off very smoothly, as a host of new kids were now in the league. Wrestlers such as "Tough Tony", "Sgt. Smash", "The Invaders", "Slick Steenerson", and "The Barbarians" just to name a few.
MAY, 1986 Finally the night they have all been waiting for was here. And to their surprise, over 350 fans showed up to witness this history-making event. The night was filled with great matches from top to bottom, and the entire event went off like a charm with tremendous fan reaction. By the nights end, they had made enough money to cover all their expenses with nearly $1000.00 to spare. The only bad part was their new ring design lacked any give to the matt whatsoever. So with all the slams and suplexes during the night's event, one of the sections ended up snapping causing the scheduled main event "battle royal" to be cancelled. But otherwise, it was a very successful night of kids pro wrestling action. The kids were so excited that they felt they could go on tour all across the country. Shawn immediately set a date with the Anoka Armory to return on July 26th. This night was surely a highpoint in NWF history.
MAY 9TH, 1986 ANOKA ARMORY EVENT
JUNE, 1986 Shawn knew that something had to change with his wrestling ring design, and as luck would have it, Shawn received a phone call from a former promoter from Hutchinson, MN who had an old wrestling ring they were no longer using. Unlike Shawn's ring, this new ring was a real one, made of steel and featured a center spring in the middle to help absorb all the falls. Plus it was much bigger in size, being 20 feet by 20 feet. The guy only wanted $500 plus Shawn's old ring in trade, and Shawn did not hesitate to accept the offer in using a portion of the May proceeds to pay for it. As good of news as that was, Shawn received some bad news from Fred Moore Jr. High. The school had decided to not allow the NWF to continue to use the boxing ring in the basement. So to continue to make weekly shows, Shawn decided to sneak his new ring in his backyard while his parents were at work so they could film matches for their weekly show, then tear it all down before they got home. This worked fine in the summer months, but they all knew that come wintertime would be another story. Shawn had just started to promote the July armory event on his weekly show, when he suddenly learned that Scott Tronsen was suspending the entire league from Group W Cable because he felt they were "advertising" on community television, which would be against the rules.
JULY, 1986 Shawn was counting on the wrestling show as the only means for advertising the upcoming July event, so that suspension by Scott was certainly devastating to say the least. Shawn knew that Scott was wrong, so Shawn decided to take this issue to the cable commission down at city hall. And after hearing Shawn's case, they agreed that Shawn's league was self-promoting and not advertising, and so the suspension was lifted. But by the time the wrestling show got back on the air, there was no time left to promote the July event. Shawn was once again a nervous wreck leading up to the event itself. On the night of the event, only 50 or so fans showed up, as the entire place was dead. Shawn was devastated. He could not understand how they went from 350 fans to 50 fans in two months time. Although there was a small crowd on hand, the NWF had some of the greatest matches in league history on that card.
JULY 26TH, 1986 ANOKA ARMORY EVENT
AUGUST, 1986 Learning from his mistakes, Shawn soon realized that in order for an event to work, he needs to promote it very heavily. And in comparing the May event to the July event, he soon realized what he did wrong. He didn't put up flyers, get sponsors, or sell advanced tickets. So Shawn booked the Anoka Armory for October 18th, 1986 and he set a goal to sellout the Anoka Armory with all 450 seats available. To make the event even bigger yet, Shawn agreed to let Steve's friend L arry Rhode wrestling in the main event against Steve at his request. Larry was a big huge body builder who loved professional wrestling. So Shawn hyped up this new added attraction as the next "big thing" for the October event. For the next two months, the NWF weekly show continued to promote the upcoming event each and every week and advance ticket sales were looking good. With a week to go, they had sold over 200 tickets in advance, as things were looking very good.
OCTOBER, 1986 October 18th, 1986 marked a truly remarkable night, for the first time in NWF history, the Anoka Armory was sold out with over 450 fans in attendance. And what a night of kids pro wrestling action it was. Besides all great matches with the kids, Larry and Steve's main event went over very well. The fans were all very pleased, and the night could not have gone any better. This was without a doubt the highpoint of the league's success, as they took in over $2000.00 in profits from that one event. About a week later, as a show of thanks to all the kids involved, Shawn held a pizza party at Del's Pizza in downtown Anoka for the entire league. A private screening of the October armory event was also held at Del's that same night for all the kids to enjoy.
NOVEMBER, 1986 After recently meeting former wrestler and local promoter Eddie Sharkey, Shawn had agreed to promote a dual event with Eddie's PWA promotion at the Champlin Legion. This event would feature matches from both the NWF and the PWA. The event went over very well, and both Shawn and Eddie were very pleased with the results of the event. Shawn then decided to book an NWF event in another nearby town, Brooklyn Park at the Brooklyn Park Armory. For the main event, Shawn once again wanted to continue the Steve and Larry angle. But this night would mark the change that Shawn would begin to notice with both Steve and Larry. Steve and Larry started to dictate what they were going to do with their matches without discussing it with Shawn, including bringing in other bigger and older friends of theirs into the league. This all started to bother Shawn has he felt betrayed by his friend in Steve, and overwhelmed by the aggressive attitude with Larry.
JANUARY, 1987 It was in the middle of winter, and the NWF had no location to tape weekly matches for their cable tv show, which resulted in Shawn having to use old matches to fill in the timeslots. Noticing their opportunity, Steve and Larry proposed a location where Shawn could set the ring up at to do weekly shows. However, they had two conditions. First and foremost, that Shawn agree to let Steve and Larry have their own league, the NCWA, which would be for all their older counterparts. And secondly, that Shawn would eliminate the smaller kids (aged 9-12) from the NWF completely. As much as Shawn hated the idea of getting rid of those smaller kids, he agreed to their demands in thinking it would be the only way in order to keep the NWF alive. New wrestlers joined the NWF in 1987 that included "The Destructors", "The Irish Terror", and "The Mystery Man". But the NWF lost some of the best lightweight kids such as "Rough Ryan", "The Super Ds", and "The Rough Russians" due to Steve and Larry's demands.
MARCH, 1987 With two leagues now working together, Shawn continued to promote the major events for both leagues. In March, Shawn set up another Anoka Armory event that featured matches from both the NWF and the NCWA. Shawn did all the work in promoting that event by printing up tickets, posters, and funding the down payment for the rental of the armory. Steve and Larry did absolutely nothing other than provide four or five matches for the event itself. The March armory card went over well as an event, there was close to 400 fans present, which was a near sellout crowd. But at the end of the night, Shawn got a real surprise. As it turned out, Steve and Larry took all the proceeds from the gate sales and packed up the ring as well, and drove off with their NCWA buddies, leaving Shawn and the NWF with absolutely nothing. Shawn was furious. He could not believe that his former friend Steve Engstrom would tum his back on him like that, and just walk away from the NWF.
APRIL, 1987 Immediately Shawn attempted to get his ring back from Steve and Larry but neither one of them took him very seriously. Because Shawn had every piece of the wrestling ring serialized with the Anoka Police Department, Shawn decided to get the police involved and only then were Steve and Larry interested in wanting to talk. At first, Steve and Larry attempted to buy Shawn out so they could keep the ring, but Shawn would have nothing to do with that. In the end, they had no choice but to return the ring back to Shawn. But at that point, Shawn had gotten burned out over the entire ordeal. And having no place to setup the ring to do new matches, Shawn decided to take a break from the NWF. So for the first time in over three years, Shawn had stopped producing his weekly show, both locally and nationally, as the NWF was at a momentary standstill. It was in April of 1987.
JUNE, 1987 In June, Shawn received a phone call from Greg Buschman an Scott Doztler. These were the guys that Shawn had used to actually film the armory events with remote cameras. They told Shawn that they could now use the mobile production van to tape NWF events, and wanted to know if Shawn would be interested in doing another armory card. So after giving it some though, Shawn agreed and booked the Anoka Armory for August 23rd, 1987 and billed the event as "Superstars Spectacular '87" making it a sequel to the NWF's very first event back in May of 1986. To promote the event, Shawn started producing the weekly cable show again using old matches from 1986-87 with updated interview segments.
AUGUST 23RD, 1987 ANOKA ARMORY EVENT
AUGUST, 1987 Posters were printed up and hung all around town. And Shawn also decided to try something new, he placed NWF commercials on the cable channels during the regular wrestling programs of the AWA, NWA and the WWF with two weeks leading up the day of the event. The one thing Shawn did not realize was that the NWA was coming to town on the very same day, and because the NWA rarely comes to Minnesota, that would result in a low tum out on the NWF's card, with maybe 60-70 fans showing up. But what a great night of wrestling action it was for the NWF. The big match for the night was Crusher Crossen defending his title against longtime friend and then enemy, Kid "Hot Stuff'' Kelsey.
SEPTEMBER, 1987 Even though the NWF had a great return to the Anoka Armory, they still had nowhere to tape regular weekly cable tv shows. And with that, some of the old NCWA guys had approached Shawn and asked him if he would be willing to sell his promotion to them so that the NWF could continue on. These guys were no longer associated with Steve and Larry anymore, and Shawn was getting tired of running the NWF full steam himself, but his main concern was for the guys that were in the NWF. The new owners promised they would keep the NWF kids in the league and run it the same way it was before Steve and Larry had taken it over. And so Shawn agreed to the deal, and the NWF then went under new management.
APRIL, 1988 Despite all the promises that the new owners made, slowly but surely, they phased out all of the old NWF guys until all that was left were just a few including Shawn from the original NWF. And once Shawn seen what they had done to the league, he realized that it just wasn't fun anymore, so with that, Shawn retired from the NWF for good. But it would not be the last time he would set foot inside a wrestling ring.
AUGUST, 1989 Over that summer, Shawn and his friend Troy Steenerson (a former NWF wrestler) decided to buy back the old ring from the former owners of the NWF, who had stopped doing the NWF altogether. Not sure in what to do with it, they set up the ring in Troy's pole barn, and did some pilot shows for a potential NWF reunion. Sometime that fall, Eddie Sharkey had contacted Shawn to see if he and Troy would be interested in working some matches for his PWA promotion. Because Shawn had known Eddie for years, he agreed to do it as a favor to him and thought it would be fun to do some matches in front of live crowds again.
JANUARY, 1990 Shawn and Troy worked several matches for Eddies PWA promotion in which they went over very well with the crowd. But in February, Shawn got a new job in Wausau, WI and had to move nearly 200 miles away. Because of this, Shawn could not meet all the dates that Eddie wanted him to do for his PWA promotion. So at that point in time Shawn and Eddie decided it would be best to part ways with the PWA and that marked the end of Shawn's wrestling career with his "Crusher Crossen" character. Troy Steenerson would continue on for a few more months with the PWA before he too would end up leaving the PWA.
But that incident with the PWA should certainly not tarnish the reputation of Shawn Crossen or Troy Steenerson. Nor should it affect the influence they had on the world of wrestling. Wrestlers getting cut from small time indy organizations come as a dime a dozen, but kids starting their very own pro wrestling leagues and running them successfully for years and years back in the 1980's are very rare indeed. As a matter of fact, there was only one league that had kids in pro wrestling back in the 1980's, and that was Shawn Crossen’s "NWF Kids Pro Wrestling". As kids from the 1980's, they managed to accomplish more success as a wrestling league back in the day than do a lot of indy promotions that have come and went since. And that is what makes this entire story so interesting.
Relive this incredible story by reading the book "Pro Wrestling Kids' Style". It is a very entertaining and informative story that really does show how one can accomplish his dreams if he really wants to bad enough.
See all the incredible action from all the major NWF events on the "The Anoka Armory DVD Series" or on the “NWF Video Network”. From bodyslams to drop kicks, you'll be sure to enjoy all the action from the NWF video archives.
SLICK STEENERSON AND CRUSHER CROSSEN PWA PROMO SHOT