Canadian Wrestling’s Elite is returning to Plaza 88 on June 2 for their Point to Prove Tour with featured performer former WWE and TNA Star Chris “The Masterpiece” Masters.
Masters, real name Chris Mordetsky and alias Chris Adonis while he performed in Impact Wrestling, was a replacement for original booked guest James Storm who had other commitments arise.
This won’t be The Masterpiece’s his first tour with CWE, having done some work in the mid-2010s. Masters said he has toured Canada so often that he could not remember the exact number, including his tours with WWE.
“We went to a ton of places, right, and it was happening so fast so there’s some of those I don’t remember,” Masters said. “Then, obviously, just through the years I did a lot of indie shots, but it definitely doesn’t stand out for anything particularly. I just feel like I know I’ve gone there for something.”
Masters was born in Santa Monica California and loved pro wrestling as a child. The only other sport he liked was basketball.
Masters said that when he was thinking about what he wanted to do with his life in Grade 10, he knew wrestling was it.
“It just seemed like wrestling was the right idea because I was so obsessed with it and I needed to know if I had the tools to do it,” Masters said. “It just seemed like this was my passion.”
Masters started training when he was 16-years-old with Ultimate Pro Wrestling in California run by Rick Bassman.
“I was doing backyard wresting. Me and my friends, we were having events, we had music for the guys and people coming out and watching,” he said.
He explained that his mother saw one of the tapes and he was taking a bump that did not look safe. His mother than said that he should start training properly if he wanted to do it.
“She kind of encouraged me, and I had a friend who was already wrestling,” Masters remembered. “He had already started training there (with UPW) so he already had some experience.”
Masters knew that Ultimate Pro Wrestling had some connections to WWE when he walked in and saw Japanese booker Simon Inoki, who worked out of Los Angeles, and some future wrestlers training.
“I’m a kid at this point, I’m like 16 so I didn’t know too much about him, but I definitely knew enough to know this guy is a big deal and he’s a legend,” Masters remembered. “(I thought) what the hell is he doing here?”
Masters said the training was aggressive and future WWE Champion John Cena began training around the same time.
“About four months in, I got hurt, I fractured my ankle on a leapfrog that I think there, and it was kind of messed up,” Masters said. “You don’t know the difference between hurt and injured.”
The injury gave him time off and he used it to work on his body, which would become his calling card in his career. Masters said Cena and other wrestlers were getting more attention
“Those guys were getting all the attention because they worked so well. And then I started working out but I wasn’t at that level yet. I was still like in my early stages and now I got hurt and injured and I ended up having that surgery,” he said,
“I needed to take a couple of years off and just focus more on the bodybuilding aspect myself.”
While Ceno and others received contracts, Masters took the time off to heal and work on his body before coming back to give wrestling another try.
After signing with WWE, Masters worked for Ohio Valley Wrestling for a couple of years before getting his debut. At the time of his debut he got a significant push with the so called Masterlock Challenge, where members of the audience and fellow wrestlers were challenged to break a full nelson. He said that the concept came after some experimentation.
“We tried around with different moves, bumps and all kind of stuff,” Masters said.
Though he could not remember specifically who thought of it, Masters said Arn Anderson or Triple H who came up with the Masterlock. He said that the idea was to change how people thought of and old fashioned finishing hold like the full nelson.
“I think they were really focusing on getting that kind of stuff over again. They’re trying to kind of reach this to the fans,” he said. “That’s one thing in my career, I made the full nelson legit.”
He said that if he was a child at that time he would have probably been challenging other children to get out of the Masterlock.
“The combination has found a way to stand the test of time because I still get people who know about that hold to this day,” he said.
While in WWE, Masters was one of the few people whose finishing hold knocked out Cena.
“It’s crazy because life moves so fast from that time that sometimes there’s stuff that you don’t even recall or remember all the stuff that,” he added.
Masters said that time moved so fast that he is sometimes seeing things for the first time.
“I I’m not saying there’s a lot of that, but every once in a while you come across something in the age of social media and you are like’ oh my God. That’s right’ that I was involved with that,” he said.
Masters said he recently saw a piece where he was involved with Cheech and Chong.
“I had completely forgotten about that and I couldn’t believe I forgot about that,” he said. “I was like, ‘hey, that’s Cheech and Chong that’s kind of a cool thing that you shared some your time with those two guys.’
“We were on the road so much that life just moved really fast and I really should have taken the time to smell the roses.”
Masters had the chance to work with several people over two runs in WWE and could recall a few favourites.
“There was quite a few of them, Carlito was one I liked to work with, he always made me laugh,” he said.
He and Carlito remain great friends to this day. He said another favourite opponent was Drew McIntyre. He said he liked several matches.
“There was I think it was a 90 second match on Smackdown and I think you can probably find it. I think that has to be the best 90 second match in the history of wrestling. It’s hard to leave the guy that’s losing with credibility. Our whole thing was to try and make it competitive and just a good match for 90 seconds. I definitely would put him on there,” he said.
Masters said that getting to work with Shawn Michaels was also a huge deal for him.
“I think that the only thing that would be any bigger than a winning the title but next to that the biggest thing to me was working. Shawn Michaels on a Pay Per View I mean, because I just looked up to him and like he was the guy,” Master said.
“If there was anybody you wanted to work with (it was him).”
Masters said showing that he could hang around with someone like Michaels was also important to change his reputation as just a bodybuilder type.
“I wasn’t one of those body guys or big guys that was robotic, I could bump around with people and that Shawn Michaels Pay Per View helped launch me because there’s not a lot of those big muscular guys like that who can do things like that.”
After leaving WWE, Masters worked for TNA/Impact Wrestling and on the independent circuit. He said that his career was not without ups and downs.
“There’s a lot of disappointment there too though,” he said. “I wanted to do a lot in WWE and I definitely couldn’t say that I would have predicted that it would have turned out like this. I’m going to say that there’s a lot of positive stuff too. Everything’s working on the independent scene is a good experience.
“The independent scene, I have been doing that stuff for a long time. I would have liked to have been in WWE for longer and I would like to be back at some point, but then again who knows that could happen,” he added.
“Since I was a kid I loved this and it was all I really wanted to do. There is a lot of success in the fact that I did accomplish what I did, not everybody gets to do that,” Master said.
Masters will be facing CWE Champion ‘Chizzled’ Chad Daniels on June 2. Other matches include a CWE Central Canadian Championship Match between champion CAM!!ikaze and CWE Tag Team Champion Ronnie Attitude, a Loser Eats A Can Of Wet Dog Food Match between “Crude Oil” Cody Mac and “The Headline” Shaun Martens, Former CWE Champion “The Zombie Killer’ MENTALLO faces “Lion Warrior” Bobby Sharp and “Tornado” Tony Kozina faces “Hotshot” Danny Duggan.
The Meet and Greet is at 6 p.m., doors open at 6:30 p.m. and bell time is 7 p.m. at Plaza 88. Advance Tickets are available at Colette Portamedic Services or online at cwetickets.com.
Masters remains a big supporter of Canada and Canadian wrestling.
“I would just like to voice my appreciation for Canada,” he said. “I mean, I think honestly, post pandemic, I’ve been to Canada, gosh, maybe 30 times and I’m not even exaggerating.”
He said that he worked for Dungeon Wrestling, CWE, CEW and Destiny Wrestling in Toronto.
“I just really appreciate the Canadian fans and how much I’ve been able to come up there and work and don’t listen to Trump,” he added.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
