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SEE VIDEO OF THE ACTION BELOW.
Even with a lightning-streaked rainstorm causing momentary hydro-planing across a rural route, it only took about an hour to reach Red Bud, Ill., from south St. Louis this past weekend. That’s gotta be considered a perfectly timed little sidetrip when the ultimate destination is a night of seeing-is-believing fun, brought in the delirious form of semi-pro wrestling in a small town bar.
Located in the center of Red Bud, the expansive V’s was the venue of choice this past Saturday evening, as the Independent Hardcore Wrestling promotion took over the main floor of the hall. Seating around 125 often-agitated fans, V’s was running at a high boil for most of the eight-bout night, as fans launched invective (and just a hint of praise) at the wrestlers from the opening bout to the final bell. Ostensibly also a fundraiser for a little girl with neuroblastoma, a few nods were given to the night’s charity component, like the 50/50 raffle. (The winner suitably gave the winnings back to the cause, to deserved applause.) But the focus was clearly on the in-ring action, as a parade of semi-professional grapplers took to the ring, none of them more than a couple dozen feet from the farthest-off fans.
Culled from the small towns surrounding Red Bud, the audience was made up of the usual suspects and then some. Fathers brought their sons. Grandfathers brought along some lads, too. A row of tween girls sat ringside, screaming for the pretty boys. Heels that waded into the crowd were greeted with catcalls and the occasional, menacing cane, raised in semi-serious anger. Babyfaces were a bit less successful in generating heat, giving the bad guys the starring roles, for the most part. Wrestlers of a Latina/Latino persuasion were told to clean some rooms, or make some tacos. Classy? Mmm, no. This kind of group often veers away from the term. But everyone, from spectator to participant, played a role in the action, to some degree.
Even the venue was a part-and-parcel of the experience. The nominal “locker room” dominated the scene behind the ring, with two large, blue, plastic tarps serving as the only block between fans and athletes. In the basement, a small bowling alley wasn’t in use, though the bar and grill portion of V’s was, with a rock band setting up for the night’s concert, which unexpectedly began during the seventh wrestling match upstairs, only ratcheting up the sensory overload that was taking place in the main hall.
Sitting ringside, heels got in the face of crowd members, who hurled every insult in the book back at them. With scads of children present, wrestlers were invited by the promotion to not engage in heavy uses of obscenity. They (mostly) complied. It was the audience, instead, that worked blue, with even the kids unloading every and all manner of feedback at the ring warriors. Often it was returned, the cycle completed. Unlike major-league promotions, wrestlers at this level are more human-scaled and in your face; the good guys can work the crowd at intermission, signing autographs and selling merchandise, children asking them to pose for pictures. And they’re literally more like us, physically—instead of the sculpted, chiseled bodies of full-time, elite-promotion pros, the grapplers who toil for outfits like IHW are naturally built. Most are gym-strong, sure, though some come with a hint of extra weight, and none look like the “after” shots of a steroid poster.
Maybe that reason makes them more likeable, somehow. They’re working Joes, attempting to scale their way up an impossibly high ladder. Or they’ve found contentment in working the myriad small town promotions, an hour or more from the city’s bright lights. For those reasons, you want them to execute a particularly tricky off-the-top-rope jump, or to hit the wooden floors without breaking bones. For relatively little money, they’re up there for you, playing the leads in a wacky kind of uniquely American theatre, putting their bodies through tests that few of the yowling rabble would have the courage or pain tolerance to endure.
At the worst moments—when the xenophobic taunts arrive, or the teen girls start f-bombing with abandon—you wonder if there’s a weirder place to find yourself. But you have the same thoughts when a moment of sublime perfection occurs, two wrestlers pulling off a neat bit of choreography with nothing more than a quick nod or hushed whisper. Bodies collide, a mat is tapped three times, a crowd collectively loses its mind, then everyone resets for the next match. Nothing else in town on fight night can compare. Heck, nothing else in Red Bud, on Saturday, April 23, 2011, could have possibly competed with this.
Ringside in Red Bud from Thomas Crone on Vimeo.
