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• 1. It Begins with a Video
• 2. The Ric and Steve…er…Karl Show
• 3. The Old Country Hits the Internet
• 4. The Podcast Launches
• 5. We are Combat Hooligans!
• 6. Out with the Hooligans, in with the Blitz
• 7. The Blitz Era
• 8. Random Catastrophe is Here

It began with a video. Specifically, it all began with this video of The Iron Sheik ranting about B. Brian Blair.

If not for that video, you’re most likely not reading this now. It was a psychotic rant about humbling Brian Blair that is the starting point of: Euan Taylor, Casey Trowbridge, Alan Lee and Mark Danger coming together as the core of the website.

When the video was posted to Youtube it became a sensation in the Internet Wrestling Community. The video eventually was discussed on an episode of the former Ric and Steve…er…Karl show hosted by Karl Stern and Ric Gillespie both of whom have been tremendously supportive over the years.

When they played the video, the hosts asked for a translation of a particular section of the piece. Casey sent in an email that both Ric and Karl enjoyed. After that, Casey became a regular emailer to the show and eventually had his own segment, “The Old Country Corner”.

At about that same time, Euan Taylor began to send in emails of his own, focusing on strange videos he came upon at YouTube. A nickname for Euan was born after Ric Gillespie had trouble remembering where Euan was located. It was actually Casey that gave him the nickname “Wandering” Euan for his nomadic tendencies.

It was also through the Ric and Steve…er…Karl Show that Casey and Euan were first introduced to the likes of Arthur Shimko (who wrote The Schlock ‘N’ Hyperbole blog, The Invizible Web founder Alan Lee and David Wills the crying wrestling fan.

After a few months of emailing Ric and Steve it was actually Ric Gillespie who first made the suggestion that Casey Trowbridge should create a website. Thus, on August 13, 2006 the Old Country Corner (later to become the Old Country Times) was officially launched.

The original concept of the website was very similar to the emails sent to the show. It was written in a humorous manner meant to poke fun at some of the conventions in the Mixed Martial Arts and Pro Wrestling industries. However, it wasn’t long before Trowbridge would branch out in to posting thoughts on other subjects he found interesting – including: Movies, Television, Sports and harder wrestling and MMA news.

After about a month of the website opening, Casey reached out to Euan Taylor, Arthur Shimko and a few others to contribute content to the site. Even Ric Gillespie himself would contribute from time to time.

A short-lifed idea was to treat the Old Country like an actual country and we even had official holidays. Holidays included: Great Cornholio day,

Swedish Chef day,

Anderson Silva day,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpqhPX-wb00

Razor Ramon Hard Gay day,

and Iron Sheik day. The idea was a short-lived one, however.

On March 5, 2007 the first edition of the Old Country Podcast was uploaded to the internet. The show featured Casey Trowbridge, Euan Taylor and Arthur Shimko as regular hosts. Ric Gillespie and Alan Lee were regular guests in the earliest days of the show. Highlights of the show included Pay-Per-View prediction shows for WWE, TNA and UFC.

In February 2007, Ric Gillespie and Casey Trowbridge had a conversation that would send the site in a whole new direction. Gillespie expressed the view that in his opinion Casey could make a living from his website.

At that point, Arthur Shimko had become a bit burned out on blogging and it was decided that because the two sites were posting largely the same information it would be better to merge.

When the decision to merge was made, it was thought that it would be best to start under a new name entirely. This was in part because the website had trimmed down on types of content focusing mainly on Mixed Martial Arts and Pro wrestling. As sort of a tribute to Euan the name Combat-Hooligans.com was chosen.

The new site launched on July 22, 2007 with a new look and a new podcast. It was at that time that the team started to conduct more interviews on the podcast. Some of the interview subjects included: Daniel Puder, Sam Caplan, Austin Creed and James Hergott. One interview wubject was Atlanta Georgia based wrestling fan and David Wills associate, Mark Danger. Danger‘s appearance on the show eventually led to him becoming a member of the site and a perminent host of the audio show.

A critical aspect in the growth of the website took place on November 1, 2007 when we went from a website powered by Blogger to a website powered by WordPress.com. It was this decision that would have the largest impact on the history of this website outside of the original Iron Sheik video.

In December 2007 an anual tradition was born with the recording of the first ever Christmas Extravaganza. The show – uploaded to the website on Christmas Day – is a light hearted show covering no topic in particular and is meant to keep people entertained as they enjoy their holiday.

Alan Lee joined the regular staff of the website in May 2008. In August 2008 the website experienced significant growth with coverage of all the combat sports at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In November of 2008, Arthur Shimko caught the anger of the assistant to Jake “The Snake” Roberts for posting that Roberts was to be at an event that his side claimed was never booked. It actually became a battle between Roberts‘ assistant and the promotion (The Mallenium Wrestling Federation).

Still, the Hooligan website was soon to outlive its usefulness.

The move from Combat Hooligans to MMA Blitz in many ways, was not a move that came with a lot of warning. Several things came together at once to influence the change.

In January 2009, Arthur Shimko announced his resignation from Combat Hooligans.com. At about that time, traffic was high-enough that it was thought we could attract advertisers and generate revenue for the first time.

However, it was against the WordPress.com terms of service for us to sell advertising space while we were hosted on that site. So the decision was made to become a self-hosted website.

The final factor was a general disinterest in the pro wrestling product among members of the staff. Mixed Martial Arts had begun to dominate the news items posted to the site on a regular basis, so the decision was to make MMA the major topic of our coverage and Casey Trowbridge chose the name MMA Blitz.

The MMA Blitz era was a mixed bag in terms of successes. The site did generate some revenue from the launch on May 1, 2009 until it closed in early 2010. However, the workload to compete with larger websites was too great, especially for the amount of money that was actually being generated.

After much thought, the decision was made to shift gears yet again and almost revert back to the site as it originally was constituted.

On March 1, 2010 the Random Catastrophe website was officially launched. The site is a general interest website which covers only those topics that the contributors to the site find interesting. The aim of the website is to entertain whith any revenue generated by the website being a bonus. The website may not necessarily be updated on a daily basis but could be updated multiple times daily depending on the mood of contributors.

Also on March 1, 2010 the Random Catastrophe Radio podcast debuted. Unlike our past shows this one will be a live interactive show allowing for us to comunicate with our audience as the show takes place.

The direction of the website from this point forward is still to be determined. However, the staff would like to thank all of those that have been with us throughout our long and winding history. If you’ve been a contributor to our sites in the past, podcast listener or guest or simply a reader of the site you have our most sincere thanks.