Emma Tocci/Collegian
Emma Tocci with The Patriot and Nikoli Volkoff.
To raise money, some go door-to-door selling candy bars and asking for donations. Others go to “The Bounty Hunter.”
At 7 p.m. on April 30, 12 wrestlers and 200 fans eager for entertainment gathered in the Hillsdale High School gymnasium for a fundraiser for the local Relay for Life team. The “Smackdown on Cancer” raised $600, for the team whose total goal is $3,000. In addition to raising money for the team and its cause, however, the evening also brought a bit of the super-heroic to Hillsdale.
Dominating the gym was a wrestling ring bound with yellow ropes and lit with a spotlight. As the popcorn enthusiastically bubbled inside its lit glass box, one line of fans formed near the concessions and more clustered near the merchandise tables across the gym. Many wrestlers manned their own figurine, t-shirts and glossy photograph-laden tables before the subwoofer's throb and flashing lights drew them backstage.
Kalya Morris and Marcie Springborn are high school volunteers who said they watch pro-wrestling every Monday and Thursday night when “Raw” or “SmackDown” air.
“I've been a huge wrestling fan forever,” Morris said.
Springborn said some Monday nights she sleeps over at a friend's house because no one in her family likes to watch wrestling.
Springborn said she loves it for “the action: watching people fly through the air and land on each other and beat the crap out of each other.”
“And the storylines,” Morris added. “Who's dating or hates each other. It's just like a soap opera except people beat each other up.”
Morris explained that her favorite wrestler, Lita, had a boyfriend, Matt, but she slept with another guy, Kane, and so the two had to battle for her. Kane won and impregnated Lita who later miscarried—possibly attributable to one of her injuries, such as the broken neck.
Springborn explained that her wrestler of choice was Randy Orton (“he's so cute”) who had been in Evolution (a group of bad-guy wrestlers) but then Randy was getting too popular so HHH (another member) turned on him. Ousted from evil Evolution, Randy turned “face,” a character in favor with the crowd, but lately has reverted to the role of villainous “heel.”
Over loudspeakers typically used to announce basketball scores, “Let's Get Ready to Rumble” began to play as the Queen of Smackdown, petite Debbie Proctor-Bigelow, took the microphone to thank people for coming.
Stepping away, the waxed and tanned body of Dave Duponte took to the ring first. He successfully established his heel role by ripping off his Hillsdale Hornets T-shirt, wiping his derriere and stomping on the discarded shirt.
The crowd booed.
His opponent, Tommy Titus—more taut, more tanned and waxed to a sheen—acknowledged the crowd as he stripped down to a tiny, shiny red brief marked with a cupid's arrow across the backside.
The two engaged in a series of slap-hits, stomp-kicks, athletics and acrobatics that characterized all the evening's encounters. Each match fought through a count to two at least eight times. In the quest to provoke audience response, blind or unintelligent referees made poor calls, while victims cried out to heaven and victors gloated.
In the midst of one passionate struggle, Titus took care to preserve his posterior modesty.
“Tara, don't be lookin',” one teacher good-humoredly recommended.
Music, clapping, stomping and calls from the crowd mingled with the sounds of “agony” or extreme exertion from the ring and rebounded through the gym.
The next wrestler strode across the floor, announcing, “You are the luckiest people in the world because you get to sit in front of me…”
The wrestlers appealed to the crowd directly by taunts and theatrics making the spectacle almost a type of Shakespeare, albeit with dramatically reduced plot and character, and much more violence and spandex.
During intermission, some wrestlers returned to the booths.
With chests confidently thrust out, they signed autographs, posed for pictures and shook hands while dressed in remarkably little costumes. Years of wearing a singlet around peers as an adolescent, however, seasoned them.
With his black Underarmor clinging to his muscles, Virgil swatted at the kids who got too close to his piles of pictures and answered questions.
“I been doing this for 20 years, baby,” he said.
Although he is no longer a spring chicken, Virgil (known in the past as Soul Train Jones, Curly Bill, Shane, Mr. America or Vince) is energetic for being 46 and is full of advice on everything from the importance of writing quickly to the need for a wrestler to keep his head.
“Don't choke up,” he said. “Be smooth. Be calm. Be collective.”
From the pseudonyms to the get-up, making a good wrestler required a lot.
Dedicated fan Leonard Brand said: “You need to find what fits your personality. If you don't like or believe the gimmick, the fans won't believe it either.”
In bright lipstick, pink spandex and a feather boa, PJ Flowers agreed.
“Follow your heart,” he said.
Tommy Titus said he has no gimmick: “[I am] just myself.”
Titus said wresting is hard but fun, and it all depends on how far you want to go. He said he, for one, spends a lot of time working out and preparing, because just running the ropes and flying is tiring, but the time in the spotlight makes it worthwhile.
One of the older wrestlers in the ring, Nikoli Volkoff, had a different story. Born in Russia in 1950, he escaped while competing in Vienna in 1968. Even though athletes had preferential treatment, he said he hated the USSR. His choice to take on a Soviet persona for his wrestling personality seemed incongruous, but Volkoff said: “It is good to show people what they are like. You can be the bad guy.”
“I did not want to do it,” he said.
But his manager urged, “‘If you escaped and you hate it, then show people what the Soviets are.'”
“And I did,” Volkoff said.
After telling his story, Volkoff excused himself to go take pictures with ringside fans.
Brand, a wresting photographer, said he has been following some of the wrestlers since 1977. He said the show dynamics can get complicated because they depend so much on crowd response. He said the competitions in smaller towns are fairly straightforward and clean. They are without the nudity, f-bombs, and “extreme behavior” one might see in Detroit or other cities.
Indeed, such was not the situation in Hillsdale. Proctor-Bigelow said: “The people that were there really had a great time. The kids who worked put their heart and soul into it. It is good to get the kids involved in the cause.”
The Relay for Life is an important event for Proctor-Bigelow who had five family members diagnosed with cancer within 10 years. Proctor-Bigelow herself was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, and she now calls the Relay for Life her other birthday as it falls on the day her surgery removed the cancer three years ago.
The relay for life is May 20-21, and many of the participants from Smackdown will attend, although there is likely to be less violence, scripted or otherwise.
“What do you mean?” Marcie said, “The falls are real. Wrestlers do get hurt—they just get used to it.”