Alex Shelley

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Patrick Martin
Statistics
Ring name(s) Alex Shelley
Billed height 5 ft 10 in (178 cm)
Billed weight 215 lb (98 kg)
Born May 23, 1983
Detroit, Michigan
Resides Plymouth, Michigan
Trained by Truth Martini
Breyer Wellington
Scott D'Amore
Joe E. Legend
Ian Rotten
Debut March 2, 2002

Patrick Martin (born May 23, 1983) is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Alex Shelley. Shelley currently works for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and gained fame on the independent circuit, most notably for Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling ZERO1-MAX.

Contents

[edit] Career

[edit] Early career

Martin attended St. Robert Bellarmine grade school and Detroit Catholic Central High School, graduating from the latter in 2001. He went on to study art at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan.

Martin trained under Truth Martini and Breyer Wellington until their respective schools closed down. He then joined the BCW Can-Am Wrestling School and began training under Scott D'Amore and Legend. Martin debuted in 2002 as Alex Shelley, a name he created by combining the forename of Alex DeLarge, the protagonist of the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, with the surname of Pete Shelley, the lead singer of the 1970s punk rock band the Buzzcocks. His first paycheck was for the sum of $8.35 USD as remuneration for a match that took place in March 2002 in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Six months into his career, he was hospitalized with a shattered jaw when Petey Williams botched a Canadian Destroyer, and had steel plates inserted into his jaw as a result. After eight months, Shelley joined Ian Rotten's IWA Mid-South promotion. He worked in the IWA for six months before joining Combat Zone Wrestling and Ring of Honor in June 2003.

In March 2005 Shelley joined Pro Wrestling ZERO1-MAX. He won the vacant ZERO1-MAX United States Openweight Championship on September 19, 2005 in Tokyo, Japan, defeating Sonjay Dutt. His reign lasted until November 23 of that year, when he lost the title to Christopher Daniels.

On June 12, 2005 Shelley made an appearance on the international version of WWE Heat, in a losing effort to Simon Dean.

[edit] Ring of Honor

Shelley debuted in Ring of Honor on June 28, 2003 at WrestleRave 2003, facing B.J. Whitmer, Tony Mamaluke and Jimmy Jacobs in a four way match that was won by Whitmer. He appeared with ROH sporadically throughout the remainder of 2003 and early 2004, feuding with Jacobs and Matt Stryker.

At Generation Next on May 22, 2004, Shelley formed a stable, Generation Next, with Austin Aries, Jack Evans and Roderick Strong. Generation Next, led by Shelley, spent the entirety of the event attacking other wrestlers, claiming that they were "the best that Ring of Honor has to offer". They began feuding with wrestlers with a respect for tradition such as Matt Stryker, Jimmy Rave and John Walters.

On July 17, 2004, at Reborn: Completion, Shelley lost to Doug Williams in the finals of a tournament for the vacant ROH Pure Championship. That same night, Generation Next attacked Ricky Steamboat during his confrontation with CM Punk, with Punk subsequently siding with Steamboat to fend off Generation Next. This led to a feud between Generation Next and the allies of Ricky Steamboat, culminating in a forty-five minute long eight-man elimination match at The Midnight Express Reunion on October 2, pitting Generation Next against CM Punk, John Walters, Jimmy Jacobs and Ace Steel. The match was won by Generation Next, with Shelley and Aries surviving.

On December 26, 2004 at Final Battle 2004, Shelley and Strong were defeated by CM Punk and Steve Corino. Following the match, Aries came to the ring and demanded that Shelley step-down as leader. After Shelley refused, he was attacked by Aries and Strong.

Shelley feuded with Generation Next throughout early 2005, unsuccessfully challenging Aries for the ROH World Championship at Manhattan Mayhem on May 7. On July 23 at The Homecoming, he joined The Embassy, a stable controlled by Prince Nana and then competed in a tag team match which saw Austin Aries & Roderick Strong against Shelley and a mystery partner, who many fans thought would be a newcomer to ROH or someone who was making waves in professional wrestling at that time. The fans were disappointed to find that upon joining The Embassy, his partner was that of Fast Eddie Vegas. The Embassy feuded with Generation Next throughout the remainder of 2005, with Generation Next defeating The Embassy in an eight-man elimination steel cage match on December 3 at Steel Cage Warfare.

On January 14, 2006 in Philadelphia, Shelley and Jimmy Rave attacked ROH World champion Bryan Danielson after a successful title defense. During the attack, Shelley performed a Sliced Bread #2 on Danielson, claiming it was his "Kryptonite" as Danielson's long-time rival, Spanky, utilizes the move as his signature finisher. Shelley was set to face Danielson at the 4th Anniversary Show, but lost the title shot after Jimmy Rave used his title shot earned at the Tag Wars 2006. Shelley used his title shot and faced Bryan Danielson for the ROH World title on March 11th in Philadelphia at Arena Warfare, but came up short. During that match Shelley became enraged with some fans sitting at ringside who had began a "boring" chant. Shelley grabbed the microphone and went so far as daring an overweight fan to get in the ring with him by saying "Listen here tons of fun, If you think you can do any better, then get your fat ass in the ring!", which resulted in the fans responding in a "Let's go fat guy" chant and Shelley responding with "You know what that makes you sir? A pussy". Shelley wrestled sporadically in ROH for another few months and made his final appearance on June 24, 2006 managing Jimmy Rave and Conrad Kennedy III in a losing effort against the Briscoe Brothers before leaving the company on June 26, 2006.

He has since returned to ROH along with Chris Sabin, attacking Jay Briscoe after he won the ROH tag titles at the March 30th Detroit show. Shelley and Sabin then challenged The Briscoes for a shot at the tag titles on the April 28th show in Chicago.

[edit] Pro Wrestling ZERO-1 MAX

In March 2005 Shelley joined Pro Wrestling ZERO1-MAX. He won the vacant ZERO1-MAX United States Openweight Championship on September 19, 2005 in Tokyo, Japan, defeating Sonjay Dutt. His reign lasted until November 23 of that year, when he lost the title to Christopher Daniels.

On August 25, at Korauken Hall's ZERO-1 MAX show, Shelley and Chris Sabin became NWA International Lightweight Tag Team Champions, when they defeated former champions, Ikuto Hidaka & Minoru Fujita.

[edit] Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

Shelley signed a non-exclusive contract with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling on July 8, 2004. He was paired with Goldy Locks and dubbed "Baby Bear" Alex Shelley. Shelley requested his release from TNA late that year after booker Dusty Rhodes stopped utilising him.

Shelley signed a new contract with TNA in 2005 after Rhodes resigned as TNA booker, and returned on June 19, 2005 at TNA Slammiversary, losing to Shocker. He went on to form a tag team with Michael Shane, with the duo losing to America's Most Wanted at No Surrender 2005 on July 17. Shelley entered the TNA 2005 Super X Cup Tournament, but lost to Samoa Joe in the semi-finals on August 5. He then entered the TNA 2005 Chris Candido Memorial Tag Team Tournament with Sean Waltman as his tag team partner, and won the tournament by defeating Shocker and Chris Sabin in the finals on the September 9 episode of TNA iMPACT!. As a result of their victory, Waltman and Shelley were granted a shot at the NWA World Tag Team Championships in a four way tag team bout at TNA Unbreakable on September 11. After Waltman no-showed the event, Shelley was left without a partner, but opted to wrestle alone. He was doubled teamed by Team Canada (Eric Young and A-1) for much of the match until Johnny Candido, the brother of Chris Candido, climbed on to the apron and accepted Shelley's tag. However, Candido was pinned by Young shortly thereafter, with Shelley being eliminated from the match as a result.

Throughout late-2005, Shelley wrestled in the X Division as a heel, facing Austin Aries on several occasions. In November 2005 he introduced a gimmick that saw him bring a camcorder (the "Shelley-cam") to ringside in order to film matches to study later for strategic purposes (in reality, Shelley owns over 200 professional wrestling videotapes). In late 2005, he began teaming with his former Generation Next teammates Austin Aries and Roderick Strong, feuding with established X-Division babyfaces, Sonjay Dutt, Chris Sabin, and Matt Bentley and demanding bigger roles in the company from road agent Jerry Lynn which lead to a series of matches in which the reformed Generation Next came out on top.

In early 2006, Shelley was recruited by Jeff Jarrett to obtain candid video footage of Jackie Gayda for the purposes of blackmail. Shelley went on to create the fictional enterprise "Paparazzi Productions" and obtain footage of Sting, Christian Cage and their respective families for the purposes of intimidation. Throughout April and May 2006, Shelley wrestled in the 2006 World X Cup Tournament as a member of the victorious Team USA. In May, he interviewed Kevin Nash, and aligned himself with Nash after Nash announced that he intended to destroy the X Division.

Since then the two have done several well-received comedy vignettes (some exclusive to YouTube) mostly focusing on their feud with Chris Sabin. At Slammiversary 2006, Shelley helped Nash defeat Sabin. Earlier Shelley had been ranked fifth in the X-Division after being the second person eliminated in a 6-man contender's match. In a post-match interview with Nash, Shelley claimed there was "ten guys, twenty guys- some of them had knives. I think I spotted a couple gats... guns."

On July 16, 2006 Shelley teamed up with Kevin Nash to face Chris Sabin and Jay Lethal. The two lost the bout, but would get the last laugh by Shelley, Nash, and Johnny Devine.

At Hard Justice 2006, Alex Shelley would replace Nash in a match. Shelley and Devine would move into the tag team division until they lost a Triple Chance Tag Team Battle Royal at No Surrender 2006. Shelley also appeared in Kevin Nash's Open Invational X Division Battle Royal at Bound for Glory 2006 on October 22, 2006. He lost the match to Austin Starr.

Since the creation of Paparazzi Productions, Shelley recruited former Team Canada member Johnny Devine as a production assistant. Johnny Devine was later fired by the Paparazzi. Devine has been replaced to the dismay of Shelley by former Generation Next team mate Austin Starr due to Kevin Nash's wishes. Since this, the three were seen backstage on various episodes of Impact in a tournament known as the Paparazzi Championship Series, which he won at Final Resolution

Afterwards, he would tape two kayfabe attacks by the Latin American Exchange. One on Brother Rays uncle, another on Johnny Rodz. When he showed the footage of the LAX beatdown on Rodz, he was confronted by Brother Ray. Before a fight could breakout, the LAX attempted to attack Brother Ray. However, when it seemed Ray had the upper hand, Kevin Nash distracted him. This allowed Shelley to hit him with a low blow. This led to a small feud between Shelley and Team 3D which was only escalated at the Destination X 2007 ppv. This was because he hit Brother Devon with a video camera and hit him with a Frog Splash through a table.

[edit] In wrestling

  • Finishing and signature moves
  • Nicknames
  • @LX
  • Murder City Blonde
  • Talent on Loan from God
  • The Next
  • The Prodigy
  • The Prospect
  • The Technical Messiah
  • The Student of the Game
  • Rock 'n Roll Soldier
  • Total Nonstop Alex
  • Baby Bear
  • Managers

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

  • BCW Can-Am Television Championship (1 time)
  • Great Lakes Wrestling
  • GLW Cruiserweight Championship (1 time)
  • Insane Wrestling Federation
  • IWF Cruiserweight Championship (1 time)
  • NWA International Lightweight Tag Team Champion (1 time)
  • Ontario Championship Wrestling
  • OCW Tag Team Championship (1 time, with R.C. Cross)
  • UWA Lightweight Championship (2 times)
  • Xtreme Intense Championship Wrestling
  • XICW Cruiserweight Championship (1 time)
  • XICW Tag Team Championship (1 time, with Jaimy Coxxx)

[edit] Trivia

  • Alex Shelley's TNA theme music is an instrumental version of The Fly by U2, but is often confused with "Six Barrel Shotgun" by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which was his entrance music in ROH at one point. He also used an instrumental version of Diamonds from Sierra Leone by Kanye West while in The Embassy, and currently uses "The Clap" by The Unicorns for UWA Hardcore Wrestling.
  • Due to Alex Shelley's wrestling prowess and charisma, he has been referred to "The next...", followed by several wrestlers, including Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam, and Shawn Michaels.
  • Alex Shelley's favorite wrestlers are Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho, Reckless Youth, and Kaz Hayashi.
  • Alex sells a black t-shirt on his website, which features a modified TNA logo that says 'TN@LX', representing "Total Nonstop Alex," which is also one of his patented wrestling maneuvers. The t-shirt includes the line, "Let's make history," a reference to a The International Noise Conspiracy song.
  • Alex actually hates the orange 'Paparazzi Productions' t-shirt TNA produced for him (which oddly enough became the top selling shirt in TNA at the time). He refused to wear it and was actually told by Jeff Jarrett that he had no choice in the matter and he had to wear it.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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