wrestling showcase report!

So it has been an awesomely full and wonderful weekend. The first ever NYC Wrestling Showcase went better than I could ever have hoped.

The turnout was incredible -- we had about 60 people in the room at one point, which with 150 sq. ft. of mat laid down was pretty much capacity. Thirteen guys came as part of a bachelor party and threw the groom-to-be on the mat with Amazon Annie. One fellow brought an entire gang of his women friends, who got very invested in the battles of the ladies on the mat.

The audience energy really helped rev up the fighters; it was great to hear the cheering, applause, and the coaching in -- though some of the "coaches'" advice was a little crazy ;) The action in the fights was excellent. There was A LOT of competitive grappling, and with the expection of Veronica and Juliette's grudge match the fights were all very sporting, fun, and good-spirited. But no less intense for that!

The whole thing ran very smoothly and to schedule -- despite Veronica Vicious's breezing in just 10 minutes before her first match, executing a very suspensefully and fashionably late entrance. But that's just classic Vicious. A great experience and total inspiration to do more showcases like this in the future (though next month back to the regular Grapple Den party format.)

So Saturday I had two matches of my own -- my rematch against Jenny Sjodin and a shortie against Brian, an excellently skilled freestyle wrestler friend of mine. Jenny is just as good as I remember her being from London -- it was fantastic to see her again, and to fight her, of course! The two of us are a dead even match up in skill. And in the match with Brian -- he gave me some serious trouble, but I was thrilled to get a knee bar submission on him. I never get those!

Probably my favorite match to watch was Annie and Brian's scissors wrestling fight. Brian's a smaller guy, but strong and a bit of a takedown artist, so it was something to see him lift Annie (4" taller and 50 lbs. heavier) and take her to the ground. But on the ground her size mattered, and she was able to smother and grapevine him into submission. Quite a lot of non-scissors action for a scissors match, actually.

And today we were back at it, shooting four more (extremely competitive) videos back-to-back: Jenny vs. Kim II, a wrestling-booted commission match for Southern Belles Wrestling, which had to be decided in overtime; Me vs. Ben, a bout wherin I braved the onslaught of a rampaging freestyler who actually slammed me; Kim vs. Jay, a match-up between two of my best former opponents featuring some intense flexibility on Kim's part; and Me vs. Jenny III, an epic, 40-minute battle half in gi and half in no-gi also featuring my record-setting smallest thong ever.

We wrapped up both days of wrestling with relaxation and fine dining at a couple of excellent restaurants. And that's really been a highlight of this weekend -- the chance to see and hangout with Jenny and Kim while they're visiting from Europe, to bring together so many great people from the New York scene, to introduce and connect everyone to everyone, to trade stories and make plans for future travel, events, and training, and to realize just what awesome people I tend to know and work with.

And now there is SO much video editing to do, but my videographer is a beast of efficiency and the compilation DVD of Saturday's fights will be available at the Doom Maidens Video Store in no time with downloadable versions of the individual matches to be released sequentially soon after...