Dean Ayass

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may not meet the notability guideline for biographies. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.
This article has been tagged since February 2008.
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)

Dean Ayass (b. May 8, 1976) is a British wrestling manager and commentator, known in wrestling as "The Twisted Genius".

Contents

[edit] Getting into the wrestling business

Ayass grew up as a wrestling fan: in interviews, he has stated that some of his earliest memories involving watching wrestling on ITV's World of Sport programme with his father. In the early 1990's, Ayass ventured into the world of tape trading after seeing an advert in Superstars of Wrestling magazine (later Power Slam). Through his tape trading, Ayass made contact with wrestlers and trainee wrestlers, most notably Robbie Brookside and Alex Shane. It was Shane who got him into the business, when in the summer of 1993, he asked Ayass to join him at a trial training session at Andre Baker's Hammerlock School of Wrestling in Folkestone. Although Ayass decided that physical wrestling was not for him, he stayed in touch with Shane and Baker, and when Hammerlock started to promote shows locally to give trainees experience, they contacted Ayass and asked him to take on the role of ring announcer.

Ayass acted as Hammerlock's popular ring announcer from 1993 until 1998, when he decided to leave the wrestling business.

[edit] Return

Ayass travelled with friends to an FWA (Frontier Wrestling Alliance) show in Portsmouth, called No Surprises 3. It was at the show that Ayass says he was "bitten by the bug" again. After approaching his old friend Shane, he soon joined the FWA. Ironically, he was originally intended to come in as a commentator, but it was decided to first debut him as a manager, to get fans used to his character, before joining FWA commentator Mark Priest in a two-man set-up. Ayass joined the FWA officially on November 10, 2001, at FWA Back to School, when he jumped the guard rail after sitting in the audience and offered his managerial services to Justin Richards, whom he had known from their Hammerlock days. By the end of the night, both Ayass and Richards had joined the Old School faction.

Ayass continued to work as a manager in the FWA until 2006, when the promotion moved its base north to Morecambe, where Ayass's use was discontinued for what the FWA described as "geographical reasons". Ayass managed the Old School faction until 2003. The main stars of this faction were Flash Barker, who won the FWA British Heavyweight Championship at this time, Drew McDonald, Dino Scarlo, Robbie Brookside, Richards, Mark Sloan and Karl Kramer. Ayass was such a prominent part of the FWA at this time that fans online even voted him their Heel of the Year in 2002, despite not being a wrestler!

Ayass was also a regular presenter on TalkSPORT radio station's Talk Wrestling show on a Saturday night, along with Shane and Simon Lilsboy. During this time, Ayass issued an on-air challenge to Jody Fleisch for the forthcoming No Surprises 4 show in Portsmouth on July 28, 2002. Ayass said that if Fleisch could get to the venue before the final bell, then he could have a title shot against Barker, knowing full well that Fleisch would be travelling back from Japan at the time, where he was touring with Michinoku Pro Wrestling. Barker defeated "Solid Gold" Scott Parker at that show, and as the final bell sounded, Fleisch appeared and had an impromptu match, which Fleish won. However, in the ensuing controversy over whether or not the final bell had sounded, the title was held up and a ladder match was signed for the vacant title, for FWA's biggest show to date, British Uprising, at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, on October 13, 2002. Ayass, suffering badly from flu at the time, was barred from ringside to minimise his involvement in the show, and Fleisch won the title officially this time. The Old School finally disbanded in 2003 at the New Frontiers show in Walthamstow on February 9, 2003.

[edit] Managing Paul Birchall

During the latter half of 2002 and into 2003, a monstrous new competitor had been running in during other wrestlers' matches, and laying out all competitors for no apparent reason, starting at No Surprises 4. It quickly became known that this man was Paul Birchall, a trainee of Mark Sloan's FWA Academy. Birchall was finally signed to an official match at the Frontiers of Honor show co-promoted with the American Ring of Honor promotion. It was to be a two-against-one handicap match with the team of Double Dragon (Ross Jordan and Raj Ghosh). Before the match began, Ayass came out and announced that he had been sending Birchall down all along and that Birchall, who had never interfered in any Old School matches, was his new client. Birchall destroyed Double Dragon in a matter of minutes, with a dive from inside the ring to the floor, over the ringpost, became one of the most repeated clips of FWA TV.

Ayass and Birchall soon became embroiled in a feud with Hampton Court, the team of the Duke of Danger and his butler Simmons (Andy Simmons), culminating in another handicap match at British Uprising 2 at the York Hall. Birchall remained undefeated in the FWA, with the exception of a countout defeat at FWA Carpe Diem at Brent Town Hall, caused by interference by Ayass's old client, Drew McDonald. McDonald was now a part of a new faction, The Family, led by another manager, Greg Lambert.

Ayass and Lambert engaged in a long and heated war of words, with each man wanting to prove himself as the best manager in contemporary British wrestling. The feud culminated in a huge six-man tag team match at the FWA's British Uprising 3 event, held before 2,000 fans at the Coventry Skydome. Lambert's team was his stable, now called The Triad, of McDonald, Raj Ghosh and Thunder (Darren Walsh). Ayass's team was Birchall, Paul Travell and American wrestling legend Terry Funk. The guest referee for this match was WWE Hall of Famer, Jimmy Hart. Ayass's team won a wild, arena-wide brawl.

Prior to this match, Birchall had received, and accepted, an offer from World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Fans chanted "Please don't go" at Birchall at the beginning and end of the match. Ayass and Birchall's last match together was at FWA Gold Rush in Broxbourne, on November 28, 2004, where he was finally pinned by Alex Shane, after copious interference from one of Shane's security, Stixx. Birchall then left the UK to head to America, leaving Ayass without a client.

[edit] Managing the British Tag Team Champions

Ayass soon found himself new clients, as ironically, Shane sold the contracts of two of his security team, Stixx and Martin Stone, to "The Twisted Genius". Ayass debuted his new team of Stixx and Stone at FWA New Frontiers 2005 on February 26, 2005, where they crushed the Manchester Massive. Ayass soon led them to the FWA British Tag Team Championship at FWA NOAH Limits show in Morecambe on June 18, 2005, where they defeated Ayass's old foes, Hampton Court. This was the first title gold that Ayass had led a client to since Flash Barker's FWA British Heavyweight title reign in 2002. After winning the titles, Ayass spoke intensely on the microphone, challenging any other tag team champions from any other promotion to a unification match: the challenge was never accepted by any other team. Stixx and Stone defended the belts in a series of matches with former long-term champions, The New Breed, but eventually they were stripped of the belts by the FWA on October 20, 2006, after Stone was unable to commit to a mandatory defence the following month in Worcester, as he was already booked on a show for IPW:UK on that date. This was the last involvement that Ayass would have in the FWA.

[edit] 1PW

Ayass started commentating for Doncaster based promotion, 1PW, his first show being "Know Your Enemy" on May 26, 2006. He was originally joined by Joe Dombrowski but commentated on future events alongside MC, Stevie Aaron. Promoter Steven Gauntley had been looking for a British commentator and Ayass was recommended to him by Ulf Herman, who had wrestled on the Tommy Boyd promoted Revival show in Crystal Palace in 2002 that Ayass commentated on. When Steve Corino quit the promotion as both wrestler and booker following a falling out with Gauntley, Ayass was asked if he would like to take over as booker. Ayass, in his own words, "jumped at the chance". As it turned out, Ayass only booked one show, Fight Club IV in Doncaster, on November 26, 2006, which saw Pac crowned as the inaugural 1PW Openweight Champion after winning a battle royal. On January 5, 2007, Gauntley announced that 1PW had gone into liquidation. Ayass discovered this by logging onto the 1PW website.

In the aftermath, Ayass left 1PW following 3CW's "...Will Not Die" show and did not return when the company was resurrected, with both parties cited mutual reasons for the separation. At 1PW's Second Anniversary Show, Ayass returned to 1PW and said that he would be involved in the 1PW Tag Team Title Lumberjack match to manage the Dragonhearts against Damned Nation, who were usually accompanied by Gabriel Grey. Ayass promised to counteract the influence of Grey, but instead betrayed the Dragonhearts, aiding Damned Nation by hitting Spud with Grey's cane. Afterwards, Ayass posed with Damned Nation following their official win of the Tag Team Titles.

[edit] RQW and elsewhere

Ayass has been the voice of Real Quality Wrestling since August 2006 after promoter Len Davies heard his work on 1PW. Ayass continues to commentate for RQW alongside co-host Dann Read. Ayass has also managed regularly in Herts & Essex Wrestling (HEW) and managed Erik Isaksen to the WAW World Heavyweight Championship in his first appearance for WAW at their Fightmare show on May 12, 2007. Ayass managed Flash Barker on a TWA show in Southampton in 2002 to crown a Universal British Heavyweight Champion, and also managed Baxter Burridge (Darren Burridge) on an All Star Wrestling show at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon in the same year. Ayass also appeared in Hull for an IWP show in 2004, managing Rob Hunter against Spud. He has also worked for Varsity Pro Wrestling previously in 2006., managing Joel Redman.

In May 2007, RQW appointed Ayass as their new Head Booker, with June 16th show at Colchester being his first in charge.

[edit] Outside of wrestling

Ayass was born and bred in Brighton to an English mother and an Arabic father. He was born a month and a half prematurely and nearly died several times during his first few days of life.

He was educated at Brighton College and Royal Holloway, University of London, where he received an Honours degree in History (Medieval and Modern) and was one of the founder members of the award-winning student radio station, Insanity. Here, Ayass hosted the breakfast show "The Morning After", which once famously involved a prank phone call utilising the talents of contemporary André Walker, which ended up inadvertently getting through to Downing Street. The show was originally going to be called "Dean Ayass's Breakfast Jihad" but the Royal Holloway Student Union refused to endorse this.

Ayass later went onto work for Brighton-based radio station Juice 107.2 on their Saturday afternoon sports show from 2000-2004. He is a lifelong fan of Ipswich Town F.C.. Ayass married FWA ring announcer Jane Childs in 2004, but the two divorced the following year.

[edit] Wrestlers managed

[edit] External links