Monday, April 17

Xtreme Pro Wrestling

By Paul Zies

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Extreme headaches, extreme nausea, extreme measures, and now Xtreme Pro Wrestling. XPW is the brainchild of adult entertainment's Rob Black and Extreme Associates, so you're basically guaranteed a heaping helping of skin on skin, sweat, hardcore action, terrible dialogue, and lots of faking.

The event took place at The Palace, a medium-sized venue located just north of Hollywood and Vine. The crowd consisted of a mixture of salty sailors, chop-shop mechanics, WhiteZombies, recent parolees, and a gaggle of teens-on-the-edge. This place was a tractor pull without the mud, lots of No Fear jerseys were draped over tattooed shoulders hoisting plastic cups overflowing with beerLord help us.

The Mad Samoan strikes

The feeling backstage was just as bizarre, yet not as creepy. There were these hulking masses of men fixing their tights, brushing their hair, rehearsing moves like Solid Gold dancers, and posing down in front of anything that resembled a lens. The most disturbing thing about all these guys were the scars and fresh wounds on their foreheads, I guess I'm lucky I learned how to type. Apparently the appetite of the crowd just isnt satisfied without a little blood and destruction. After dodging all three hundred pounds of The Mad Samoan and darting up a hidden set of stairs I found myself directly behind the ring where I could truly take in the madness of the event. Everyone in the audience had their arms up in the air making huge Xs and started chanting X-P-W, the calm before the storm.

Adult entertainment and XPWs own godfather, the one, the only, Tom Byron

Suddenly the lights came down, the smoke machines kicked into high gear, strobe lights flicked on and off, and The music boomed out of the speakersDanzig! The crowd went nuts, the noise level was almost shaking me out of my boots, and a lone figure came through the black curtain. The man was Lazie, Chief of Operations for XPW, he made his way into the ring with a microphone and a piece of paper.

""I'm holding a letter sent to us from ECW,"" his fully tattooed arm held the letter high and the crowd booed, ""it seems that the folks over at ECW don't like us using the word 'extreme'."" Lazie put a hand to his ear and leaned out towards the crowd, they responded in turn by cursing ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) and threatening the lives of anyone associated with that league. Like any good cult leader, Lazie raised his hands to quiet the crowd and continued his warm-up speech. ""Let me read you their first mistake...'gentlemen', "" the crowd again erupted into hoots, howls, X's, and unintelligible four and even five letter words. I could only pray that no one would discover that I had graduated high school and college.

The chest-beating and taunting continued, Lazie read the letter aloud and even went as far as to suggest that ECW send three of their guys to fight three of his guys to determine who would have the right to own the title of Extreme. The horde lost it, they were at a boiling point. Lazie is definitely a great showman and he could sense that the lions were ready for the raw meat.

Tools of the trade

I had to hand it to Rob Black and Lazie, they were putting on a fantastic show. The music was fast and furious, Lazie worked the crowd into a frenzy, they paraded scantily clad porn girls around the ring, and while the gladiators battled it out right in front of them. I'm no moron, I knew that everything that was happening or going to happen in that ring was planned and staged.

Lazie and Rob Black ran around backstage with headsets directing lights, wrestlers, and music all to create an illusion for the audience; although, the outcome of each match was a sure thing.

So is this really a sport, or is it just staged entertainment? Of course the fights were fake; however, the hits were real and hard. Does that constitute a sport, hard hits? Does it really matter? I guess it's not really important, as long as those suckers keep buying tickets and enjoy the show everything will be fine. With my mind made up that I was no sucker I decided to just sit back and watch.

In one match, I watched in horror as one guy poured a sack of thumbtacks out onto the mat and proceeded to slam his opponent, face first, into the pile. That, I knew, had to be fake, my guess was that the supposed tacks were nothing but little pieces of tin or perhaps silver sequins. I had to see for myself so I went backstage and witnessed one guy pull five thumb tacks out of the back of his head. Leaping lizards, the tacks were real! I asked the poor fellow, why would he do such a thing? Why would he subject himself to such pain? His answershow business.

Chair to the face

And what a show it was, wrestlers smacked each other over the head with chairs, they were thrown into the metal railing separating them from the audience, they were beating each other with bamboo canes, and all of this to the tune of thrash rock accompanied by the intermittent display of female porn flesh.

But flashing lights and flesh don't always last, the crowd was getting bored. They wanted more, they were booing, they were yelling out boring, boring, boring, they began spitting at some of the wrestlers. Not even the freakish masculine madness of female wrestler Nicole Bass could satisfy their blood lust. Guys in the crowd started taunting the wrestlers, and you could tell that the wrestlers were dying to jump out of the ring and crack a few skulls. When the crowd realized that no matter how hard they tried no wrestler would snap, they turned their abusive slogans on the guys sweeping up the ring. Sweep it up a**holes, sweep it up, a proud fattened father and son chanted.

I was ready to pack it all up and head back home, the action was definitely Flat. Thats when the barbed wire came out. A fat and bleach-blonde distant relative of Dusty Rhodes ambled out into the ring holding up an ax handle covered with barbed wire, the crowd clamored to their feet. The portly blonde was named Axl Rotten and I guess this was the moment everyone had been waiting for.

Homeless Jimmy and Cane

Axl was joined by two other viscous looking scoundrels in the ring and the match was announced as an ""anything goes"" event. Oooh, anything goes, maybe they'll kiss? My skepticism went quickly by the wayside when Axl smacked this one poor mohawked-slob in the face with the barbed wire. His forehead split wide open, finally, the blood lust would be satisfied.There was a brief moment of silence when Axl was thrown out of the ring and into the audience, the silence was shattered as the other two wrestlers followed.

The match had turned into a bare-knuckle brawl. The ring was empty, all of the action was now taking place in the middle of the audience. Security moved quickly to encircle the fight, keeping the crowd at a distance and moving chairs out of the way. Blood and spit flew into the air with every wild hook thrown. Each wrestler would briefly appear over the sea of clamoring fans and then disappear under a chair, blood dripping from their foreheads.

The crowd chanted all sorts of evil things, they had their blood and they needed a sacrifice. Dun-dah-dun! A spotlight flooded the second floor balcony where a bloodied wrestler suddenly appeared with his arms spread and ready to jump. Axl and the mohawk guy were down below, curious that a table was right behind them. The crowd counted down and erupted into a symphony of chaos as the bloodied wrestler did a swan dive off of the balcony and crashed into Axl and the table below. Now that was impressive, I knew it was staged, but it was still impressive.

OUCH!

And now the stage was set for the final bout, the title match. They'd had their blood and now this one would set up the grudge match for next month's event. Homeless Jimmy and Supreme were to fight it out for the title, everybody rushed the stage. They duked it out, they did cartoon falls, they smacked each other with chairs, one of the porn girls jumped in and added to the mayhem, and finally Jimmy was subdued.

Game, set, and match, everybody go homebut wait, there's more! Supreme's good buddy, Shane Powers, is in the ring. He's hugging his buddy, he's congratulating his buddy, he's got more gold chains than Mr. T, and now he's beating his buddy down.

Say it ain't so, Shane Powers pulled a double-cross on his pal Supreme. The crowd lashed out with threats, security had to hold them back all the while Shane brutally mauled Supreme. Rob Black and Lazie ran out, I knew this was part of the show, they started pushing people around, and a melee between the wrestlers started up. The smoke cleared, Shane stomped Supreme, Shane grabbed the microphone, and the challenge for the title was set for next month's event. Nice and neat, a beautiful story, good rise and fall of conflict and action, a surprising turn of events at the climax, and now a nice little teaser for next monthnot exactly the Capulets fighting the Montogues; nonetheless, a good show for the masses.

I started for the door because I wanted to beat the rush to the parking lot, there was no rush for the parking lot. I turned around and saw that no one was moving, they were all crowding the ring. Supreme was still on the mat and some guy was holding his neck still. I couldn't believe it, an actual injuryno way?

I went to backstage where the scene was unsettling. The porn girls were crying, production assistants were running back and forth, someone actually said, ""call 911"", and then The Fear hit me. I ran to the ring and couldn't believe what I saw, Supreme actually looked frightened as two guys held his head still and people scurried around frantically. Lazie and Rob Black got guys to dismantle the ropes around the ring so they could let get him out of there. I could actually hear sirens from outside, security was getting everybody to leave the building, the other wrestlers were standing around with that ""Oh Christ"" look on their faces.

Cane smacks Jesus

This was real now and for some strange reason my first aid experience came to mind. I started yelling at production assistants not to touch him, to stop bouncing around on the mat, and let the EMT's get him tied down before they tried to move him. I couldn't believe that no one was listening, the other wrestlers brought down a table to put him on, they were going to move this guy with a severe neck injury!

No way, I thought that these people must be insane. I actually pushed Lawless, a very large man, out of the way as I tried to get my point across to Lazie. ""You can't move this guy..."" I was cut off, not by words, but by a wink. Lazie winked at me and then continued with his work. I'd been had. This was still part of the show, the injury, the sirens, the running around, the lines coming down off of the ring, the crying girls, the urgency, the security hurrying everyone outside (duh, so they can watch the ambulance show up), the wrestlers carrying their fallen comrade off of the matit was all a big hoax. My cheeks were flushed, I felt that sick sensation creeping up from my stomach and up around my neck, ""I've been had!"" They got Supreme backstage and waited until the venue was empty before the laughs and the high five's began.

Wrestling is a show and XPW was definitely an interesting show to experience. I can't say that I am now a wrestling fan; however, I can say that I would like to find out what happens at the next event. P.T. Barnum said it best, ""There's a sucker born every minute"". Well, this sucker was born 14,716,800 minutes ago, damn it.

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