OK, so picture this. You're standing at the foot
of a massive mountain. You've got the right gear.
You've done all the training. And you have the
absolute perfect partner. Right. You start climbing.
And you're both moving at the exact same speed.
You're matching each other step for step. But
then right about halfway up, an avalanche hits.
Just total chaos. Which you can't plan for. Exactly.
And when the snow finally clears, your partner
is on a helicopter heading straight to the summit
to plant a flag, and you are all the way back
down at base camp. Just sort of dusting yourself
off, wondering what on earth just happened. That
is honestly, that's a terrifying image, but it
is a surprisingly accurate metaphor for the professional
wrestling business. It really is. And we love
to talk about the people on the helicopter, right?
The household names, the ones on the lunchboxes,
the video games. selling out the massive stadiums.
The ones that get the documentaries made about
them. Exactly. But for this deep dive, we are
doing something totally different. We want to
look at the guy who got left at base camp. We're
diving into the career of a professional wrestler
named Air Paris. Real name, Frank Paris. And
I'm really glad we're digging into the sources
on this one, because usually history is written
by the winners. Right. And in wrestling, that
means the global champions. Yeah. But the industry
is actually built entirely on the backs of guys
like Air Paris. He is, in a lot of ways, the
ultimate what -if story. And the what -if here
isn't just some vague, abstract, philosophical
question. It's incredibly specific. Because Air
Paris wasn't just some random wrestler working
in a gym somewhere. For a very critical blink
-and -you -missed -it window of time, he was
the tag team partner of AJ Styles. Which adds
a whole other layer of tragedy or maybe irony
to the whole story. For you listening who might
not follow wrestling super closely, AJ Styles
is... arguably one of the top five performers
of the entire 21st century. Yeah, he's a global
icon. He's been the world champion literally
everywhere. WWE, Japan, TNA. And in early 2001,
he and Air Paris were on the exact same line
on the graph. They were absolute equals. So that's
our mission today. We aren't just going to read
down a Wikipedia page of match results. We want
to understand the alchemy of success in this
business. Why does one person become a billionaire's
favorite and the other becomes a regional hero?
Like, is it luck? Is it politics? Or is it really
just timing? It's usually a very messy combination
of all three of those things. Plus just a little
bit of magic. Let's test that theory out. We
have to start where every single wrestler starts.
The absolute bottom. And in this case, the bottom
is Somerville, Georgia in 1979. That's where
Frank Parris was born. Fast forward to April
20th, 1996, and he makes his professional debut.
He was just a teenager. And you have to remember,
1996 is a very specific time in wrestling. The
independent scene was not the polished product
it is today. It was gritty. It was rough. It
was. And he debuts with a very, well, a very
specific ring name. Kid Ego. Oh, you just have
to love the 90s indie scene. The name Kid Ego
implies so much, doesn't it? It really does.
He's young, he's probably playing a very cocky,
arrogant character, and he probably has just
terrible neon colored gear. Well, the results
seem to back up his rookie status pretty clearly.
His debut match is a tag team match. It's Kid
Ego and a guy named, I love this, Mark Payne.
P -A -I -N. Mark. That is incredible. That sounds
like a name randomly generated by a video game.
And they lose. They lose to a team consisting
of Dusty Dotson. And wait for it, Nasty Critter.
Wait, Nasty Critter. Nasty Critter. That is in
the historical record. See, those names just
paint such a vivid picture for you. This is the
southern independent circuit in the mid -90s.
It's low budget, the lighting in the building
is probably awful, and the ring almost certainly
squeaks when you hit the ropes. Oh, absolutely.
And losing your first match is practically mandatory.
In wrestling culture, you have to pay your dues.
You do not walk in winning. You walk in staring
at the ceiling lights so you can learn some humility.
Well, he definitely learned humility. A week
later, he makes his singles debut, loses to Mike
Golden, and he didn't actually get his hand raised
in victory until about two months later against
a guy named Kenny D. So that's two full months
of losing every single time he went out to the
ring. That grind right there is the filter. Most
normal people quit during those first two months.
It physically hurts. You're driving four hours
in a cramped car to make maybe 10 bucks, and
you're losing every night. If you stick around
through that, it means you actually love the
business. He clearly loved it, but he also realized
he needed to evolve. The source material notes
he took a three -year hiatus not long after this.
Maybe to train more, maybe life just got in the
way. But when he finally comes back in 1999,
the kid ego persona is dead. he returns as Air
Paris. And that name change signals a massive
shift in his in -ring style. Calling yourself
Air Paris tells the audience immediately look
up, this guy's gonna fly. This is the era where
the cruiserweight style was really taking off
globally. Fast pace, high risk, lots of flips
and dives. And he lands in a promotion called
NWA Wildside, which was based in Georgia. Just
how important was this specific place for the
industry? crucial, absolutely crucial. NWA Wild
Side was essentially the laboratory for the future
of professional wrestling. It wasn't the big
leagues. I mean, they were still running shows
in a literal warehouse. But it was the exact
place where the big leagues looked for new talent.
To scouting ground. Exactly. It was a hotbed
for young, athletic guys who were figuring out
the modern, fast -paced style that we see everywhere
today. Well, Paris was definitely in the mix
there. But looking at his championship history
in Wild Side, there is a really frustrating pattern.
It's almost spooky when you look at the dates.
Let me guess. The stripped title pattern. Yes.
It is maddening. May 1999, he wins the Junior
Heavyweight Championship. Huge milestone. He's
the guy. But October comes around, he gets injured,
he can't defend the belt in 30 days, so the promotion
strips him of the title. That's the double -edged
sword of that high -flying cruiserweight style.
You get the crowd on their feet, you do the crazy
dives, but you absolutely destroy your own body
in the process. But he doesn't give up. He actually
fights his way back and wins it again in November.
So redemption art complete, right, wrong. May
2000, he is stripped again. It's like the universe
was telling him, you can hold this, but do not
get comfortable. It creates a very specific narrative
around a performer when that happens. You become
the hard luck guy. The guy who has all the athletic
tools in the world, but just cannot catch a break.
The snake -bitten champion. Speaking of breaks,
both good and bad. There is one specific night
in Wild Side that honestly reads like a scene
from a movie. And this establishes the relationship
that really defines his entire career. January
6th, 2001. The television title match. Exactly.
Air Paris defeats Eddie Golden. He wins the NWA
Wild Side Television Championship. The crowd
goes wild. He's the champ. And he loses it. That
exact same night. That exact same night. To who?
To his future partner, AJ Styles. That is just
brutal. I mean, try to imagine the emotional
whiplash of that. You win the belt. You're celebrating.
You're probably in the back looking for a marker
to write your name on the strap before you even
leave the building. Styles takes it off you.
It is harsh, but it's also just good wrestling
business. Doing that established that these two
were the undisputed top dogs in that territory.
They were trading wins. They were constantly
pushing each other to be faster, to be sharper.
Iron sharpens iron. Exactly. They were the standouts.
And frankly, that chemistry they had, that fierce
rivalry, is exactly why they ended up getting
the call to the big leagues. And this is the
part of our deep dive where the stakes change
completely. We are officially leaving the high
school gyms and the squeaky warehouse rings.
We are talking about world championship wrestling,
WCW. The only company that ever truly threatened
the dominance of WWE. But we need to set the
scene for you listening. This is late 2000, early
2001. If you were backstage at WCW at this exact
point in history, what is the vibe? absolute
frantic desperation. They are losing money hand
over fist. The creative direction of the shows
is a complete mess. The old established stars
like Hulk Hogan and Rick Slayer are getting older
and they are way too expensive. The company desperately
needed something fresh. They needed spark. Right.
They needed cheap, hungry, exciting talent to
revitalize their cruiserweight division. They
were basically throwing spaghetti at the wall
to see what stuck. So Paris signs a developmental
deal with them in 2000 and then The real call
comes. He debuts on national television. WCW
Thunder, February 14th, 2001, Valentine's Day.
And who do the Bookers pair him with? It had
to be AJ Styles. It makes perfect sense. They
already know each other's movesets perfectly.
They trust each other not to drop each other
on their heads on live TV. So they debut against
Evan Karagias and Jamie Noble. Now, they do lose
that first match, but... Reading the old reports
and looking at the dirt sheets from the time,
it sounds like they made a massive impression.
They looked like they belonged on that stage.
And you have to understand, making an impression
in WCW at that specific time was incredibly hard
because backstage, nobody was paying attention
to the young guys. The political environment
was toxic. Right. But Paris and Stiles were flying
around that ring with this sheer urgency. They
knew they had a tiny microscopic window to get
noticed before the whole ship went down. And
they absolutely smashed that window. Just a week
later, on the very next episode of Thunder, they
get a massive win. They beat a team called the
Boogie Knights. Which I know sounds funny now,
the Boogie Knights. But that was Disco Inferno
and Alex Wright. And they were deeply established
television veterans. They were former champions.
They're local indie guys. No, these were made
men. So for two rookies to come in and... beat
them clean in the middle of the ring. That was
the office saying, we see money in these kids.
We are going to push them. They were climbing
the ladder so fast. By March 5th, they make it
to WCW Nitro. That is the flagship show, the
one that aired live on TNT. And they're put in
a major tournament for the brand new Cruiserweight
tag team titles. Now they lost in the quarterfinals
of that tournament to Elik Skipper and Kid Romeo.
But honestly, Just being included in the bracket
was a huge statement. They were being positioned
to the foundational future of that division.
And then comes the moment that makes this entire
story so tragic. The moment where the real what
if of Air Paris begins. March 21st, 2001. WCW
Thunder. They get repackaged. The corporate glow
up. Yes. They get a cool new team name. They
are now officially Air Raid. AJ Styles is even
renamed to Air Styles. So you have Air Paris
and Air Styles. They come out in matching flight
jackets. They have this whole Top Gun aesthetic
going on. They looked incredibly cool. It worked
perfectly. They looked like stars. They had the
gimmick. They had the athletic ability. They
had the coordinated gear. They were completely
ready to take over the world. And that specific
episode of Thunder, it was the last one ever.
History is so cool. Just days later. WCW is bought
by the WWF, which is now WWE. The entire company
effectively ceases to exist overnight. Just think
about that timing. Really sit with that for a
second. You get your brand new name, you pay
for your expensive custom gear, you get your
push on national television, and literally days
later, the multi -billion dollar company you
work for is sold for scrap. So now we enter the
survival portion of the timeline. The WWS picks
up select contracts from the WCW roster. They
take the big stars, the Booker T's, the Diamond
Dallas Pages, and they take a few promising prospects.
Did the phone ring for Air Paris? No, it didn't.
And here's the real kicker. It didn't ring for
AJ Styles either. Not for the WWF. They were
both left completely in limbo. That is the part
that people always forget. Styles didn't go straight
to WWE to become a superstar. They were both
cut loose at the exact same time. Exactly. The
floor just completely dropped out from under
both of them. One minute you're air raid on national
TV with matching jackets. The next you're completely
unemployed and the company you worked for is
just gone. So they both have to go back to the
independent circuit. But this is where the paths
finally diverge. This is the avalanche moment
we talked about at the start of the deep dive.
Right. Styles eventually finds his way to a new
startup promotion called TNA Wrestling. He essentially
becomes the face of that entire company. He travels
to Japan. He becomes an international legend.
Paris returns to the Georgia scene. He goes back
to the grind, NWA Wild Side, Music City Wrestling.
He's back in the armories and the high school
gyms. That has to be a heavy mental load to carry
to go from the catering tables and the massive
TV trucks back to setting up the folding chairs
yourself. It is incredibly difficult. You've
tasted the steak and now you're back to eating
Bologna sandwiches. A lot of guys just cannot
handle that ego blow. They just quit. I look
in the mirror and say, I made it. I lost it.
I am done. Well, Paris didn't quit immediately.
But he did step away for a bit. The source material
notes he officially retired in December 2005.
But, like any true wrestler, retirement is a
very loose term. It's more of a suggestion. The
itch always comes back. There is simply no cure
for the professional wrestling bug. That's the
truth. So he returns in 2008 for a promotion
called Nahquire Ring Champions. But this time
around... He's wearing a totally different hat.
He isn't just wrestling anymore. He's booking.
And for those listening who don't know the terminology,
the booker is the head writer. They are the person
who decides the storylines, who wins, who loses,
and how the drama unfolds. The fact that he was
given that role shows Paris really had a mind
for the business. He wasn't just a stunt man
doing flips. He deeply understood narrative and
crowd psychology. And the narrative he wrote
for himself was so juicy. There's this one specific
angle in Nadawa that I absolutely love because
it's pure soap opera. So the commissioner of
the promotion, a guy named Ted Guinness, gives
Air Paris a golden ticket. It's a guaranteed
match for any championship he wants at any time.
The classic wrestling trope. It's the money in
the bank idea. You hold the ultimate power over
the roster. Right. So later on, Paris gets attacked
by a villainous tag team called the Exotic Ones,
Simon Sermon and Rick Michaels. And because of
that attack, Paris has to team up with the cruiserweight
champion Chris Gans to fight them off in a tag
match. OK, so he's teaming with the champion.
The classic enemy of my enemy is my friend's
setup. Exactly. They wrestle the match, they
win, the bell rings. But immediately after the
bell, Paris turns on him. He viciously attacks
his own partner, Chris Gantz. The classic heel
turn. He cashes in his golden ticket right there
on the spot, beats up the guy he just tagged
with, and steals the Cruiserweight Championship.
That is just brilliant booking. It shows how
much he had evolved as a performer. In WCW, he
was the plucky, high -flying baby face, the good
guy who smiles and high -fives the fans in the
front row. Here, he is becoming a villain. He's
manipulating the rules. He's showing real theatrical
range. It gets even more dramatic when he moves
to Perkz International Championship Wrestling
a little later, around 2009. He starts off there
as a bad guy. But then he wrestles a match against
the Steiner brothers. Rick and Scott Steiner,
absolute legends of the industry. That is wrestling
royalty right there. He loses to the Steiner's,
but after the match is over, he shakes their
hands in the middle of the ring. He shows respect
to the veterans and the crowd absolutely goes
nuts for it. Boom. He is a good guy again. That
mechanic is called the rub. When legendary guys
like the Steiners shake your hand in front of
a crowd, they are effectively transferring a
bit of their own credibility to you. They are
wordlessly telling the audience, this kid is
okay. You have our permission to cheer for him.
But the feud that really dominated this specific
era for him was with Bobby Hayes and David Young.
And reading about it, it sounds brutal. There's
a specific moment in April 2010. Paris is in
a tag team match, and his partner is, wait for
it, Kevin Nash. Big sexy. See, this is the wild
thing about the indies in the late 2000s. You
have these local stalwarts like Paris suddenly
mixing it up with absolute global superstars
like Kevin Nash, who are just passing through
town for a weekend payday. It creates such a
weird visual in your head. You have Kevin Nash,
who is nearly seven feet tall, and Air Paris,
the cruiserweight. Anyway, they win the match.
But after the bell, Hayes and Young attack Paris.
They hit him with a piledriver. And then, just
to make absolutely sure, they piledrive him again.
That is the classic injury angle. It's how you
write a character off the television show for
a few months. Maybe Paris needed time off to
heal up some real nagging injuries or maybe he
just had personal commitments. So you have the
bad guys break his neck in the storyline so he
can disappear and make a huge triumphant return
down the line. And he does. He comes back in
June, still selling the lingering effects of
the injury to help a guy named Chris Harris win
the title. It's really great long term storytelling.
But amidst all this gritty indie drama, there
was one reunion that really jumps off the page
in the sources, the one that brings our whole
story full circle. I know exactly the date you're
gonna say? March 6, 2010. Perks International.
Air Paris versus AJ Styles. We really have to
pause and look at this. Think about the context
of the larger wrestling world here. In 2010,
AJ Styles isn't just doing okay for himself.
He is the TNA World Heavyweight Champion. He
is arguably the single best in -ring wrestler
on the planet at that exact moment. He is at
the absolute peak of his physical and creative
powers. And yet he comes all the way back to
this smaller promotion in Georgia just to wrestle
his old partner. It speaks volumes about the
mutual respect they had for each other. Styles
certainly did not have to do that. He was main
eventing massive pay -per -views on cable television.
But he came back to stand across the ring from
the guy who was right there at the start with
him. The match actually ended in a no contest,
which I have to assume was booked that way to
protect both of their reputations. Of course.
You can't have your visiting world champion lose
to a local star, but you also don't want the
hometown hero to look weak in front of his fans.
But the actual result of the match doesn't matter
at all. It's about the image, the collision of
these two incredibly divergent timelines. The
guy who conquered the world and the guy who held
down the fort at home. And I think it is so important
that we don't frame Paris's career as a failure.
We keep naturally comparing him to Styles because
of the air raid connection. But when you actually
look at the raw stats, the guy had a seriously
impressive run. Let's run through the hardware
real quick. He was the NWA North American tag
team champion twice, once with Castee O 'Reilly
and once with Big Bully Douglas. He was also
a two -time NWA Wild Side junior heavyweight
champion. And this is the big one for me. In
2001, during that peak WCW run, Pro Wrestling
Illustrated ranked him number 195 of the top
500 wrestlers in the entire world. Being ranked
in the top 200 wrestlers on Earth, that is legitimate
validation. That means you are an elite athlete.
Absolutely. He was world class. The difference
between number 195 and number one often isn't
raw talent. It's just the roll of the dice. It's
avoiding that one catastrophic knee injury. It's
having the right person in the front office happen
to like your look. It's whether the billion dollar
company you work for gets bought out on a Tuesday
or a Friday. And it seems like there really is
no bitterness there between them. Air Paris actually
contributed to AJ Styles' autobiography, Phenomenal,
which came out in 2013. They are linked forever
in the history books. You simply cannot tell
the origin story of AJ Styles without talking
about Air Paris. And in a broader way, you can't
tell the story of the chaotic death of WCW without
talking about air raid. That's the thing that
really sticks with me after reading all of this.
They were quite literally the last hope for that
division. They represented a future that we never
got to see happen. Just think about it. If WCW
manages to stay in business for just six more
months, do Air Paris and Air Styles become the
greatest tag team of the 2000s? Do they stay
together for five years? Do they eventually headline
Starrcade against each other? It's a fascinating
thought experiment. The multiverse of professional
wrestling. It really challenges our fundamental
understanding of success. We love to think of
these industries as pure meritocracies. Hard
work equals fame and fortune. And sure, you have
to do the grueling work just to get your foot
in the door. But once you are finally in the
room, it is pure chaos. It's who buys the company,
who tears a quad muscle, and whose phone happens
to ring. Air Paris is the ultimate reminder that
for every single superstar you see on the poster,
there is someone just as talented, who worked
just as hard, who simply took a different path.
And frankly, if you have a subscription to a
wrestling network, or if you can just find the
old clips online, you owe it to yourself to go
watch that final episode of Thunder. Watch Air
Raid come out in those matching jackets. It's
like peering into a timeline that got deleted.
It's wrestling history frozen in amber. History,
Frozen and Amber, I really love that. Air Paris
might not be headlining WrestleMania, but his
footprint is permanently there, right alongside
the biggest names in the business. Leaving you
with a reminder that sometimes the difference
between the base camp and the summit is just
an avalanche you didn't see coming. That does
it for this deep dive. Thanks for listening.
Always a pleasure.