Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of reality television. In fact, I despise the genre. With that being said, I have to admit that I am excited about the debut of the reality series Anchorwoman on Fox tonight at 8.

The premise of the show is that a blonde bombshell with no reporting experience is hired to be an anchorwoman at a Texas television station to spike the ratings. Hilarity ensues.

What has me interested is that the show has a connection to pro wrestling. No, I’m not talking about model-turned-anchor Lauren Jones, who was a WWE diva for about five minutes. I’m talking about Chad Damiani, who is a co-executive producer and writer for the series.

Damiani’s name might not be familiar to a lot of fans, but he worked for WCW for several years and is a former colleague. In addition to writing for the magazine (which he really had a flair for), he also was involved with WCW’s Web site and hotline, did some work as an on-air talent and even helped lead the direction of WCW’s syndicated Worldwide show. Damiani always had the best gossip in WCW, as well. There is a great story involving Damiani and a former WWE diva that is right out of a Seinfeld episode (more on that later).

After WCW was sold, I figured he would end up working for WWE in some capacity, but we kept in touch sporadically and I knew he had aspirations in the entertainment industry beyond pro wrestling. I also knew with his talent, drive and work ethic that he would eventually find success.

I spoke with Damiani on the phone earlier today and he told me that he spent four years in Los Angeles pitching projects before finally getting a show on network prime time. He mentioned that his next project is a movie for Sony Screen Gems that he co-wrote called American Kamikaze. Directors are being interviewed and production should be under way at the end of the year, he said.

I applaud him for his perseverance and realization of a lofty goal. Now, onto the story.

One of the things I admired about Damiani during our WCW days was his confidence. Despite the fact that he had a thinning hairline and spare tire while in his late 20s, he aimed high when it came to pursuing women. Fortunately for him, that confidence combined with his sense of humor and charming personality made him desirable to attractive women who were interested in nice guys rather than muscled-up bad boys.

One of the women he was smitten with back in 2000 was a WCW talent (who shall remain nameless) who went on to work for WWE. After months of trying to get her to go out with him, he finally won her over. Hours before his big first date with her, Damiani, Jeremy Borash, myself and a couple other WCW Magazine staff members sat in the office of the magazine’s art director for a closed-door meeting. You’ll understand why the door was closed in a second.

Rather than having a conversation about some top-secret WCW business, we were engaging in an, um, intellectual discussion regarding the merits of noted Thespians of adult films. At some point, the names of several WCW divas were introduced into the conversation, including Damiani’s date. He went on to make a bold prediction in graphic detail about how his evening would conclude.

What Damiani didn’t realize, however, is that he had accidentally hit the redial button on his cell phone, and the entire conversation was – you guessed it – recorded on his date’s voicemail.

Needless to say, she didn’t think it was funny, and the date was permanently canceled. Hopefully, Damiani will have better success with Anchorwoman.