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1. WRESTLE AT HOME!

"Half the fun is hurting your friends--the other half is hurting yourself." - Matt Schalk

There's a riot going on in backyards, basements, fields and barns across North America. Rowdy youngsters (and not just rednecks!) are taking the renewed popularity of professional wrestling to new heights, staging their own matches in their own backyards and basements. Not for money, not for fame, these kids risk crippling physical injury for the sheer love of rasslin'.

2. THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PRO WRESTLING

Wrestling is bigger than ever. Seven of the ten top-rated shows on cable are wrestling programs. Both of the two major federations (WWF and WCW) are Fortune 500 companies. The WWF recently paid $1 million for a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin T-shirts sell at the rate of one every 40 seconds. It's not all roses, though--wrestlers sacrifice a normal home life, usually spending at least 250 days every year on the road. And "success" in the wrestling industry is determined by many chance factors; for every Hulk Hogan, there are dozens of others wrestling in bingo halls and gymnasiums, waiting for their chance.

The sport has changed a lot in the last ten years. The lumbering bodyslams and elbow drops of Paul Ormdorff and the Honky Tonk Man have been replaced by graceful acrobatics learned from Mexican Lucha Libre, and, more interestingly, "extreme" tactics, from Japan's FMW and W*ING organizations. These groups, playing upon the Japanese penchant for ridiculous personal injury, have introduced things like baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire, light bulbs, fire, and explosions to professional wrestling matches, often with horrific results. This style was brought to America by Philadelphia's "Extreme Championship Wrestling," where it flourished.

Oh, by the way: wrestling is fake. Therein lies the artistry. The real assets of good professional wrestlers aren't steroid-enhanced bodies or colorful costumes, although those certainly help. To succeed in wrestling, you must be able to convincingly fake being in pain when you aren't, and to ignore pain when you are. The people in the ring aren't actually "fighting" each other, but the moves executed by wrestlers are forceful, and often painful. It's not an easy job.

3. HOW BACKYARD RASSLIN' GOT STARTED

Backyard wrestling started in relative isolation; until the rise of the Internet, most backyard federations had no idea that others existed. There are over 100 backyard/basement groups in the U.S. and Canada--and those are just the ones with some sort of internet presence. No one knows how many other groups are wrestling away in obscurity, with no goals other than their own entertainment.

Most backyard feds start with a video camera. Whether in an attempt to imitate what they see on TV, or just to blow off steam, the filming of the match is essential to the backyard concept. Usually the person running the camera will provide commentary, count the pins, and ring the bell to start the match. The cameraman is most often also a wrestler. Backyarders perform as several different characters, wearing masks and costumes, to flesh out the rosters and make the shows more entertaining. The shows are often a funhouse-mirror version of "real" pro wrestling--even more exaggerated than the pros, the gimmicks and characters made up by backyarders are entertaining before they even hit the ring. Some of our favorite backyarder names are: "The Man With One Buttcheek," "El Pega De Monos" (Spanish for "The Spanker of Monkeys"), and "The Crazy Arabian."

Recently, the pSyChO Fed held "Supercard 8," a multi-promotional backyard show with wrestlers from the SWA (Scrambled Wrestling Association) of Fenton, Missouri and the GEW (Garbage Everywhere Wrestling) from Cincinnati, Ohio. Backyard wrestlers from the Midwest gathered in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and wrestled in inter-promotional matches. This kind of cross-promotion is a new thing in backyard wrestling, mostly brought on by the advent of the Internet.

4. WHY WRESTLE IN YOUR BACKYARD?

"The President of the United States can't bleed for a living, but pro wrestlers can!" - Mick Foley

When you ask most backyard wrestlers exactly why they do this, they're fairly vague. The appeal of putting your body on the line for nothing but your own amusement is the root of many "extreme" sports, but wrestling, especially backyard wrestling, is difficult to even categorize as a sport--it's more like performance art. Basically, these people go into the "ring" knowing that they're in danger. Unlike the professional, the backyarder does it in front of maybe five of his friends and a video camera.

Many backyarders want to go pro. And occasionally one does. A shining example of this success is Mick Foley, from New Jersey, who now wrestles as Mankind in the WWF. Foley, a self-described "kid who ate worms in school," started out as a backyarder. Back then he was probably most famous for jumping off the roof of a two-story house onto a pile of mattresses and shitting his pants on the way down. He later trained professionally, wrestling in the indy circuit before heading to Japan. In Japan, he cemented his reputation as "hardcore," wrestling in barbed-wire, thumbtack, and other "death matches." He returned to America and now wrestles in the WWF, fulfilling his childhood dream, and making nearly $500,000 a year.

It's not easy, and it's not common to break through to the pros. Many promoters look down upon backyard wrestlers because of their lack of training, preferring to employ those who have had instruction at one of the many schools run by former wrestlers. But backyard experience is often used to move up into one of many independent wrestling groups that put on shows in school gymnasiums.

5. WHY NOT WRESTLE IN YOUR BACKYARD?

Even in the tightly controlled environment of "real" professional wrestling, injuries are a fact of life. The need for realistic and exciting performances equals catastrophic physical tolls on the performers. Several years of suplexes and bodyslams are more than likely going to destroy your neck and back, resulting in virtually constant pain. Professional wrestlers are trained to deal with it, and have the services of trainers and physical therapists when things go wrong. And, inevitably, things do go wrong.

Matt Schalk "got powerbombed through a garbage can" and dislocated his shoulder.

The WWF's main draw, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, was paralyzed from the neck down for a full minute following a botched piledriver in 1997. Mick Foley has suffered dozens of injuries, including having countless thumbtacks stuck in his body, being thrown off of the top of a twelve-foot cage through a table (breaking three ribs and losing three teeth, one of which was later found in his nose), and having his left ear ripped off in Germany. Nobody has been killed in the ring yet, but there have been close calls, and as pro wrestling gets more and more "extreme," it may happen someday.

There was a rumor on the Internet about two Michigan backyarders, Mark Moore and Justin Tomis. Tomis allegedly put Moore in a piledriver, (a maneuver where you place your opponent's head between your thighs with their body vertical, feet upwards, and then drop to your knees, giving the illusion that you have dropped them on their head). Tomis allegedly dropped Moore directly on his skull, injuring his spine--an injury which led to his death. The truth is that neither of these guys exist. Actual backyard injuries are rarely this severe, but broken bones and back damage are certainly not uncommon.

Which is why many independent federations require the performers to sign a pre-wrestling waiver, absolving them of any responsibility. Most backyard wrestlers, however, are close friends, and usually simply resort to calling 911 or toughing out injuries. Thankfully, most of these injuries are cuts and bruises; however, anything can happen when you're hitting people with fluorescent light bulbs, jumping off roofs, or driving people into the ground.

6. THE FINAL BELL

Backyard wrestling is pure expression of unique personal obsession; the drive, intensity and skill of these people, most of whom are not even old enough to get drunk and dull the pain, is miraculous. Pushing their bodies to extremes that most humans couldn't even imagine, suffering injuries, and putting on an entertaining show--for nothing. For fun. Maybe if more people had the guts to try a little bodyslamming in their backyards, we'd be a happier world.

LINKS/RESOURCES

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Arena/9752/index.html: The New Underground, Backyard, Basement, Teen and Li'l Indies, by Philip Stamper. Stamper wrestles in backyard and indy feds, and took it upon himself to compile this listing of backyard feds all across the U.S. and Canada. An invaluable resource for anybody interested in backyard wrestling.

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/4693/faq.html: The rec.sport.pro-wrestling FAQ. Everything you ever wanted to know about professional wrestling but were too embarrassed to ask.

Wrestlers from the following federations assisted in this article:

http://members.aol.com/swablader/SWA.html: The Scrambled Wrestling Association is disbanding this year, as its members are going off to college. They offer two "Best Of" tapes, both of which are well worth your time and money.

http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/krazy/: The Krazy Wrestling Federation, located in San Ramon, California, wrestles wherever and whenever they can - playgrounds, garages, backyards, you name it. So krazy, they deserve the "K."

http://w3.one.net/~dragen/index2.html: Garbage Everywhere Wrestling. Never has a name been more appropriate. A huge variety of items are used as weapons in this federation; everything from tree branches and garbage cans to "Lego sculptures" and bottle rockets. All over the place, and vastly entertaining.