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Early internet wrestling personality and website pioneer Rick Scaia passed away on July 16 after a long battle with cancer. He was just 49 years old. You can read his obituary by clicking here.
I first came in contact with Rick in the early days of the old Usenet group rec.sport.pro-wrestling. For you younger folks, this was the early 1990s and it was before the message board/AOL Grandstand days. Usenet featured what were called “news groups,” which were used by colleges and professionals at the time to share high end information on different subjects from people in the know of the subject matter. As time went on, more groups were added as more people had access to Usenet and the wrestling group was born. As some of you reading this know, that’s where we first became aware of each other.
For a good period of time, the group was the place to go to get immediate news and views on the wrestling business, as well as interact with informed fans. Rick was one of those people who would offer news from his area and post his views on the business. He was in the upper pantheon of what I would call “preferred posters”.
As some of you know, I was active on the group as well. In a lot of ways, it was my internship for what would become my new career a few years later.
Even though another person took over the process because he lived to do it and I just wanted to help fans get together and check out a show, I was the person who did all of the logistic work for the first ECW fan convention in 1994. I got to meet Rick in person then and found out the guy was even better in real life than he was online. That isn’t always the case of course. Rick was what I call “Good People”.
I started my newsletter in 1995 and started spending less time on Usenet since I was working all the time between the newsletter and my real life sales job. We fell out of touch at that point.
in 1997, the web started blowing up. I joined up with Bob Ryder and formed 1Wrestling.com. Rick formed his Online Onslaught website and later joined up with Mike Samuda, who owned a site that got news from hotlines and newsletters (with full credit give) called Micasa. They formed a relationship with CBS Sportsline and ran the new WrestleLine site. It was revolutionary at the time because a real news outlet actually got involved in the reporting of the pro wrestling business. Boy, times were really changing.
I got back in touch with him then as the web was the wild west and I loved bouncing ideas and sharing thoughts with people I trusted who were also pioneering this new wild west. We were doing something that hadn’t been done before so it was great to get perspective from a peer.
Rick did a great job at the site because he was smart and had a passion for the business. At some point, I forget why, CBS pulled the plug on WrestleLine and we fell out of touch again but memory of him will always be his passion for the business.
I was truly saddened to hear about his passing today. He was one of all of us, someone that loved this business and shared his talent with us all. RIP buddy and know that you made a difference in the way that this business would be covered. That’s a hell of a legacy.
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