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Small Time 'Pro Wrestling' |
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Free Mohawks |
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Top 2004 Lists |
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Pro Wrestling
for Nothing
Wrestling school shows how "professional" wrestling
doesn't always mean money and superstars
 christopher |
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The Ultimate University (UU) Pro Wrestling school in Orange County, CA, has shifted locations regularly, moving from Mission Viejo to Huntington Beach to El Segundo, its current home. These interviews about the school and its affiliated wrestling company, Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW), were taken in the winter of 1999-2000.
WRESTLING TERMS :  |
My knowledge of wrestling is owed mostly to the insight and enthusiasm of friends who are fans, and, other than having actually been to see WWF wrestling live on a few occasions, I have little experience that would justify labelling myself an enthusiast.
But I arrived early at the UPW show, eager to see wrestling up close in a small rock club and to study a wrestling company that is, compared to the monster WCW and WWF federations, a very small operation.
So small, in fact, that when I arrive, I have a pleasant but peculiar sensation of inflated status, as if I have arrived to be mistakenly announced as a reporter for Sports Illustrated or the LA Times. We received a meeting with the company's Commissioner and Director of Media, a special "press" table ringside, and were invited to walk backstage to meet and talk to the wrestlers.
I was soon reminded that I had not become bigger, not as big as the WWF-- it's that this professional wrestling is small. Sure it's still professional wrestling, a big show, of the same sort as the WWF wrestling I had seen in a huge and brightly lit arena. But this time, there was no arena-- only a big ring, the "squared circle," floating under a spotlight in the center of a club that couldn't seat more than 300 people, max.
| "There are a lot of schools in this country that'll take your money just to take your money." |
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(And we were not at maximum capacity.)This time, pretending to be on the staff of a college paper gave me a table ringside and the freedom to go backstage and talk to any of the wrestlers I wanted. And when I talked to them, I discovered a lot of them weren't being paid a thing. Some of them were putting their own money into wrestling. Some of them were still in high school. They almost all had jobs outside of wrestling. So I wondered, "How is this professional wrestling?"
"Professional Wrestling" is big money, right? It's stadiums, superstars, and millions in advertising, right? Well, the wrestlers at the UPW show, the wrestlers at the UPW-affiliated school, Ultimate University, and their fans know what "pro" wrestling means, and it's not about money and superstar status. Theirs is an unpretentious operation fueled by enthusiasm, and that's why a small fry like me could get treated like a heavyweight.
Professional or "Exhibition" Wrestling
At the turn of the century, from about 1880 to 1920, "genuine" professional wrestling had become extremely popular, but it was very different from the "exhibition" (or "fake," some say) wrestling we watch on television today. Early pro wrestlers toured with carnivals, challenging crowds and offering cash prizes to local heroes who might defeat them. But a lack of time limits on matches, coupled with old-fashioned mat wrestling techniques that involved long and grueling submission holds, led to infeasibly lengthy bouts-- even fights that allegedly lasted over 24 hours.
GUEST OTAKU
Matthew Young : |
The rising popularity of baseball as the "national sport" also spurred wrestling to become more entertaining, so, around 1920, exhibition wrestling was born. The physical ability and technique remained, but matches could be shortened and particularly exciting moves choreographed to provide a bigger thrill to audiences. The ability to plan who would win and who would lose allowed for the development of deeper stories and characters within an athletic "play," eventually resulting in the twisting plots and high drama of modern pro wrestling. Still, the evolution from old-fashioned mat-wrestling to the more dynamic and aerial matches of today did not happen suddenly-- even in the '50s, '60s, and '70s it was quite usual for the main event to last well over an hour.
Considering exhibition wrestling's 80 year history, I was surprised to be unable to find mention of any pro-wrestling school dating back to earlier than the 1970s, nor any school that confidently claimed to be the first professional wrestling school in the US. Before that, pro wrestlers did not have a formal atmosphere in which to learn the sport. Instead, many of them had begun as amateur wrestlers, studying classic wrestling (freestyle and Greco-Roman) from coaches at their high schools, colleges and local gyms. Only when they realized that they could earn money as pros would they begin training for exhibition wrestling in earnest, usually learning from other experienced wrestlers in collaborative but informal efforts.
| Considering that 80 year history, I was surprised to be unable to find mention of any pro-wrestling school dating back to earlier than the 1970's... |
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Pro Wrestling Schools and Ultimate University
The most likely first "official" pro wrestling school is Wladek "Killer" Kowalski's wrestling school in Salem, MA. As he tells the story, shortly after his retirement, he was convinced to start training at a local YMCA by a group of young enthusiasts who were putting up their own money to install a wrestling ring. Kowalski claims, "that was the first wrestling school of all, in 1978." As the school began to receive national attention-- even provoking an interview on the David Letterman show-- the school grew in attendance. Former students include Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Triple H), Chyna, and Perry Saturn.
The wrestling boom of the early '80s fueled the growth of new schools, and now there are scores across the country, primarily owned by former wrestlers or trainers who can rely on their names and reputations to attract students.
One of these schools is Ultimate University, owned and operated by Rick Bassman, former trainer of the Ultimate Warrior and Sting. Both were part of his four man team, Powerteam USA, in the mid-eighties. Bassman later moved to Southern California and founded Xtreme University, a school that taught wrestling and shoot-fighting (a style which combines kickboxing and submission wrestling, an efficient mix that allows the versatility of kicking, punching, and especially grappling, which is neglected in many other fighting systems). But soon, high demand convinced Bassman to focus on wrestling. He changed the school's name to Ultimate University and created the Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW) federation.
UPW puts on shows and entertains fans, but it also serves a special purpose: Ultimate University offers the league as a proving ground where student wrestlers can exhibit their skills to an audience and learn to work a crowd. Most pro wrestling schools follow this practice, as the psychology of playing to a crowd and learning to manipulate their responses are key to successful wrestling entertainment. But even though this knowledge is crucial, there is no guarantee that a student will be permitted to wrestle public matches-- it is a privilege earned by proving one's self to trainers and peers.
Obviously, with no assurance of public matches, or of recouping their tuition, prospective students need to be wary of schools that will accept them just to generate income, so I asked Pete Doyle, Commissioner at UPW, about the integrity of the school's admission policy. He paused thoughtfully, and told me, "We won't turn them [prospective wrestlers] away, but we'll be honest with them." Honesty, he explained, usually means frank looks at a wrestler's size and speed.
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"There are a lot of schools in this country that'll take your money just to take your money," he said angrily. "I've been to schools already, just to get a feel... there are schools on the east coast that charge $3000 a month, and even if you're smaller than me, they'll go, 'Yeah, yeah, you can be star.' You know, they'll feed you any kind of bull that they can." Doyle grimaced. "Come two years later, these guys are still putting the ring together. And they're not anywhere."
| "Once you get in the ring, you've just got to listen up, because he calls the whole match." |
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Ultimate University charges $250 a month to train, sometimes granting "scholarships" to wrestlers unable to afford the tuition. Some wrestlers view this fee as an investment because UU/UPW can be a road to the big time. The league has a special relationship with the WWF-- it is a training ground, a sort of farm for potential talent, where Bassman grooms his best wrestlers for WWF wrestling.
For these exceptional wrestlers, Bassman offers the Ultimate Management Group, a talent agency that books them for televsion and movies and negotiates entry into the WWF, a success that profits both the school's reputation and the wrestler. The feature interview I was offered was with one of the UPW's biggest "blue chips," a young man named John Cena, aka "The Prototype," [see sidebar] but there was a special duo I hoped to meet, two high-school aged wrestling students who I felt embodied the spirit of independent pro wrestling. They were fans-turned-wrestlers; not big guys out to turn muscled frames into cash, but relatively scrawny kids mad about wrestling.
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INTERVIEW WITH
John Cena : |
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Jobbers-R-Us
The tag team went by the name, "Jobbers-R-Us," a wrestling-insider joke referring to "jobbers," the jargon for wrestlers who come in every week to fight bigger names and lose, wrestlers who have no stories and no face time-- they're just there to underscore the thrill of watching the big stars.
| "It's like, Orange County, and they're just starting, and what the fuck is this?" |
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My sudden request for an interview with the "Jobbers" was a mild surprise for the promoters and for the teens themselves, but I had planned it immediately after noticing, on the day of the show, that, of all the younger wrestlers who attended the school, the "Jobbers," "Funky" Billy Kim and Troubled Youth, were the only ones who received their own billing on the UPW website. Both teens attended Saddleback Community College in Mission Viejo and were long-time wrestling fans.
It was this long-time interest that fed their excitement for wrestling-- Troubled Youth told me that he grew up watching wrestling. "Since I was three, my dad would turn it on, my dad would pretend like he didn't like it. He'd be like, 'Don't watch that garbage.'" The teen laughed. "I'd be like, 'You're the one that got me started on it! What are you talking about?'"
While wrestling was a significant part of their childhoods-- as Billy said, "That was like our cartoon show" -- neither of them grew up to think of the sport as childish. "Some people just grow out of it, they'll think it's stupid, I guess. We just didn't. Never thought it was stupid."
Many pro wrestlers of older generations grew up in wrestling families, with the influence a constant presence, but unlike these traditional wrestlers, the Jobbers got into wrestling on their own, as fans who thought, as Troubled Youth put it, "I want to be a wrestler." The two friends met on their high school wrestling team, discovered a mutual interest in pro wrestling, and began to plan a trip to a Florida wrestling school, SkullKrushers, run by an influential and extensively experienced wrestler, "Exotic" Adrian Street. "We had a whole big trip planned... we were about to go to Florida that summer, but then about a month before we were about to leave, we found out about this place right in Mission Viejo."
Troubled Youth explained, "My dad had a friend that kickboxed at this place where they were going to start doing pro-wrestling." The Jobbers spoke of their initial skepticism: "It's like, 'Uh, I don't know about that... they're just starting? It's like, Orange County, and they're just starting, and what the fuck is this?" But when they found out Rick Bassman was running the school, their worries were dispelled. "We found out that he was the first agent of the Ultimate Warior and Sting. So, we were kind of impressed."
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| "Funky" Billy Kim takes a swipe at the ref. |
I asked Billy and Troubled Youth, who were only 18 and 19, whether their classmates were aware that they wrestled, but they informed me that "nobody at school knows." Of course, Troubled Youth admitted that "everybody else that I talk to, I'm like, 'Uh, I wrestle.' That's all I talk about." Usually, people then ask them whether it's choreographed or fake. "I don't tell them it's choreographed, I tell them, basically, we go out there, we talk through the whole match," says Troubled Youth. Billy adds, "It's real, but it's not real."
Wrestling is definitely real enough to get injured, and I asked them about their experience with the painful side of the show. "You never want to tell anybody it's fake, because it's not. You go out and get hurt. But we're very lucky, we've actually been the two that have not gotten injured that bad, compared to everyone else. It's really a lot of the bigger guys who are getting hurt, you know. All the body builder guys you see out there, they've either had torn knees, torn shoulders, busted noses, broken noses..."
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| Troubled Youth commences a 'spot'. |
So why do these two teens risk injury, practicing wrestling every week, ready to put their money into it, performing in obscurity when even their classmates and peers are unaware or incapable of understanding? The attitude and atmosphere of the small schools and companies of "professional" wrestlers are perhaps the most telling. Independent wrestler Amanda Storm, former student of Killer Kowalski's school and author of "Blakwidow: My First Year as a Professional Wrestler," writes, "We small time wrestlers get our fame in Warholian doses, one weekend at a time. We are stars of the moment, from the instant we step into that ring until we leave the building and drive off in our Yugos... Then we go back to our lives as housewives, girlfriends, deli clerks..."
And there's that rub again. "Professional" wrestling isn't a profession when you're playing to fifty or a hundred people, giving up your free time while working or going to school. For these independent wrestlers, pro wrestling is an amateur pursuit, it's the thrill of working a crowd, and selling the bumps and the falls; it isn't a career or a job, it isn't about money and arenas. They feel sorry for people who think that's all wrestling is.
a-diction.com
Billy Kim still wrestles with UPW as "Funky" Billy Kim, has become adept at aerial moves, and has a new tag partner, fellow Filipino "Blazin'" Benny Chong. Their tag team is called "The Manilla Thrillas".
John Cena has enjoyed remarkable success since our interview with him. He has dropped the "Prototype" persona and emerged, upon his June 27, 2002 debut on Smackdown!, as one of the rising stars of the WWE. Fans have responded enthusiastically to his heart, dedication and ambition (and the ladies to his hunky good looks) as well as to his efforts to bring new audiences to pro wrestling. By crafting a public persona around his life-long love of hip hop music, Cena, a "small town white kid", became the self-proclaimed "Dr. of Thugonomics" and brought hip hop culture to the wresting ring, pushing pro wrestling beyond its hard rocking core fanbase. Cena began his rhyming antics by freestyling barbs at his opponents before matches, and eventually entered the studio to record his own theme song, rhyming over a beat supplied by indie-producer 7L.
As for the professional rap game, Cena has been gaining some recognition there as well: he's featured on the recently released 12" remix of Murs' track "Hustle" and his debut solo album is finished and (after being delayed) set to drop with a May 10, 2005 street date.
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