William Perry Blake III, better known by the ring name "Hard Rock" Ricky Blues, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler and trainer who competed in the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic independent circuit during the 1990s and 2000s.
He was an instructor for the Baltimore Monster Factory, the MCW school Bone Breakers, and Gillberg's Academy of Pro Wrestling.
Trained at the Baltimore Monster Factory beginning in February 1990 by Barry Hardy, Duane Gill, Axl Rotten, Rip Sawyer and Dave Casanova, Ricky Blues made his professional debut on August 3, 1990 in promoter Jim Kettner's Delaware based East Coast Wrestling Association as part of the tag team The Chicago Hitmen with Steve Valentino.
On October 23, they unsuccessfully challenged Leather & Lace (Rich Carlisle and Adrian Hall) in Essex, Maryland for the then vacant MEWF Tag Team Championship, however, they won the titles a month later in Gaithersburg.
[2][7] Over the next few years, Blues would have memorable bouts against some of the region's top stars including "Stone Cold" Chad Austin,[8] Corporal Punishment, Georgia Lightning Jimmy Jannetty and Steve Corino.
In the mid-1990s he briefly donned the Watsumi mantle again, which the Japanese wrestling press called Akuma Bushido, and had a brief feud in NWA New Jersey with Abuddah Singh, who later became Balls Mahoney in ECW.
[2][5] Around this time, creative differences and salary disputes with the MEWF[11] caused Corporal Punishment and Mark Shrader to leave the promotion and took half its roster with them to form Maryland Championship Wrestling (MCW).
Though Blues and The Bruiser headlined the show, WWF legends George "the Animal" Steele, Mae Young and The Fabulous Moolah made an appearance as did Xtreme Pro Wrestling valet Chastity.
Blues accepted and was welcomed into the manager's "heel" stable, The Congregation, with The Holy Rollers (Earl the Pearl & Rich Myers).
[23][24] In 2011 Ricky Blues was inducted into the Maryland Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, at a special event in Dundalk, Maryland, alongside fellow inductees Tom Brandi (Johnny Gunn/the Patriot), Pro Wrestling Illustrated luminary Bill Apter, the Holy Rollers tag team Earl the Pearl Hart and Ramblin' Rich Myers, and Dan McDevitt (Corporal Punishment).
[26] It is a video-webisode series published weekly that is the living embodiment of the novel, To Kill The Town, and is specifically dedicated to archiving and reliving the magic of the promotions, wrestlers and stories of the mid-Atlantic Indies from their birth in the mid 1980s through the heyday of the early 2000s.