Griffin Kaye
In 1999, a little-known independent wrestler stepped into the ring for what should have been a quick squash match loss. However, when he decided to disrespect the company right in the booker’s face, he learned the hard way that you don’t cross a promoter!
The Dirt Bike Kid: Entering The Business
Real name Jason Harrison, the man who would become the Dirt Bike Kid was trained by veteran journeyman Bill Anderson. Anderson had already trained high-profile names like the Ultimate Warrior and Sting, and would go on to train Candice LaRae, TJ Perkins, and Frankie Kazarian.
He would have his first match in 1994. That same year, he would stumble upon his Motocrossing moniker, dressing in traditional dirt biking gear.
He would go on to share the ring with some of the remaining stars of the British wrestling scene such as Marty Jones and Robbie Brookside (the Golden Boys tag partner of Steve Regal). He wrestled for All-Star Promotions, competing at Fairfield Halls in Croydon, seen as the company’s spiritual home.
At the time, DBK was seen as a promising prospect amid a dying British wrestling scene.
After all, by the mid-1990s, Joint Promotions – now renamed Ring Wrestling Stars – had gone under despite being a staple of British television for over 30 years before its 1988 cancelation. Two of the biggest stars of the scene, Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, were retired, with the latter working as a debt collector. Moreover, although the British Bulldog and Steve Regal had become major American performers, their time in Britain seemed a footnote compared to their successful stateside ventures.
The Dirt Bike Kid: Overseas Exposure
In 1995, DBK hosted three wrestling events under the European Wrestling Alliance banner.
The first of these is the most notable, featuring the European debut of ECW stalwart Sabu. Taking place in Walthamstow, the event only drew about 150 fans and is thought to have made a significant monetary loss. This is despite fans being charged £20 for tickets, which wrestling historian John Lister speculates was the highest-priced wrestling event in UK history to that point.
ECW stars became the main attraction with Sabu and Mikey Whipwreck on the second card and the final event, the St Valentine’s Day Massacre, featured Sabu teaming with Rob Van Dam.
In between promoting, DBK also wrestled in ECW. He was in the opening match of the supercard CyberSlam 1996, emerging on the losing side in a short six-man tag match. The real point of the match however, was for all participants to be recipients of a caning at the hands of the Sandman after the bell.
The Dirt Bike Kid also created the EWA European Junior Heavyweight championship belt.
He lost the belt to Mikey Whipwreck at an ECW show before he lost it to Sabu in a three-way with the DBK at EWA’s second show.
The final EWA event saw DBK defeat Whipwreck in the finals of an eight-man tournament to win the British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight championship. Though created in Britain, the belt found its home in Japan Michinoku Pro, where it had been held by Jushin “Thunder” Liger, Ultimo Dragon, Tiger Mask IV, and even booker the Great Sasuke.
Backstage Belligerence
In 1999, the Dirt Bike Kid was asked to compete in Michinoku Pro’s Fukumen World League, a round-robin masked wrestler’s tournament devised the previous year.
DBK would first face the promotion’s booker the Great Sasuke, who had become a household name to wrestling fans for his 1996 J-Crown win, after which he was the holder of eight title belts.
The plan was for Dirt Bike Kid to gain an early upper hand only for Sasuke to deliver a flurry of kicks and quickly dispose of his British foe. This would allow Sasuke to look strong; at the time, he was the NWA World Middleweight champion, and keep him fresh for the other matches in the tournament.
However, DBK objected, feeling it had not been in his contract.
In a 2004 interview with Wrestle Zone that provides us with the greatest account of what happened that night, DBK explains: “I just didn’t want to go down to some lame arsed 20-second comeback that made me look like Mickey Mouse,” Mickey Mouse being British parlance for cheap or poor quality.
He further angered Sasuke by trying to negotiate pay prior to the bout, explaining: “Michinoku or not, if the terms aren’t right, I am not f**king going. I am not a wrestling prostitute.”
When DBK Met Sasuke
In the ring, DBK removed his specially made mask, throwing it at the referee, leaving his face partially covered by a black face mask.
Kid recounted: “I refused to wear the stupid mask they had made for me. Now sorry, but the DBK isn’t a masked wrestler, so why the f**k did they want me on [sic.] a masked-man tournament. I managed to compromise with them, and say that I’d wear it to the ring only, and then rip it off, where I would wear the usual biking-face mask that I usually wear during my ring entrance. They didn’t like it, I could tell… but agreed to it.”
Other than the proposed quick end, almost none of the match had been planned in advance.
Hence, the DBK unleashes a series of impressive moves, though the match clearly lacks ring psychology.
After two minutes on the offense, Sasuke fires back with a string of kicks to Kid. However, while feigning being dazed, he does not sell in the way the promoter is expecting.
Kid recalls: “he hit me with his trademark spin-kick, that should of [sic.] put me down. But I didn’t go down, because I didn’t want to.”
Kick After Kick
After refusing to go down for the kicks, Sasuke’s seventh kick knocked the Kid onto one knee. The shot caught him in the mid-section, where he was already harboring an injury from a month earlier.
“This time, his kick caught me right under my ribs, where my cartilage injury was, and I just fell like a chopped-down tree, as all the air went out of my lungs in that 100-degree non-air-conditioned hall. I knew I was seriously hurt, and just lay there as Sasuke, put the boot in – the f**king coward – and kicked me at least three times full-on in the face while I laid there, not being able to breath. I wanted to tell him, the ref, anybody…that I was hurt and to finish the match, but couldn’t get any words out at all.”
As the DBK slumped to the floor, Sasuke did not relent with stiff kicks as the biking Brit was only meekly able to defend himself against a barrage of boots.
After well over a dozen well-placed shots, Sasuke locked the Dirt Bike Kid in a front face lock choke. As the Kid screamed out in pain, the referee quickly rang the bell, though Sasuke continued the hold for a few seconds after the bell.
It was an odd finish as such a basic move rarely ends a match, but it was a shoot hold that hurts the opponent far more than it looks.
Though he may be five foot eight and known for flying across the ring, Sasuke proved he was a legit shooter when he needed to be.
After the match, a clearly agitated Sasuke remains pacing around the ring. Adopting a boxing stance when Kid recovers, the DBK offers to shake his hand, at which point, Sasuke abruptly walks to the back.
The Aftermath
DBK leaves the ring, holding onto his injured head.
As Kid reflected: “It wasn’t until the next day before my next match at the arena, that I had to go to hospital, because I started to cough up blood. It was there, that they told me that I had to have a minimum of six weeks off wrestling as my [sic.] cartilage in my chest was badly cracked over my whole rib cage.”
The cartilage on the right side of the chest, connecting the ribs to the sternum, was broken by the 18-kick barrage.
Although DBK faxed Sasuke about a potential rematch, he did not get a response.
Perhaps the whole affair put DBK off wrestling however, as he only had one further documented match.
At a leisure center in Halifax, West Yorkshire, he lost to long-time friend Sabu in a title-for-title match in which he dropped his Junior Heavyweight belt.
As for Sasuke, he continued his wrestling career, with many commentators believing he – like David Schulz slapping John Stossel, say – was in the right, protecting the business and keeping his opponent in line.
A 2009 arrest for assaulting a man on a commuter train in Tokyo proves Sasuke may be someone prone to anger, something the DBK clearly learnt the hard way!
Although it is little more than a footnote in the colorful career of the Great Sasuke, it remains the Dirt Bike Kid’s most notable contribution to the sport, appearing on numerous lists of times that wrestling got real. As author Colin Burnett notes, “today, the Dirt Bike Kid is nowhere to be found in the wrestling industry.”
Maybe DBK should have just kept the mask on – at least for his ribs’ sake!
David Fullam
Probably should have done what Sasuke booked him for.