Saturday night, I drove to Springfield, Ohio, where my friend Bobby Michaels was announcing an Outlaw Championship Wrestling match. He explained to me that if you want to be a Pro Wrestler, you have to work for Vince McMahon, so this was sort of the underground, backyard, redneck version of the WWF. But this wasn't no "America's Funniest Fatal Stunts" submission- you could tell that these guys practiced hard at the art of fake wrestling. That's him to the right, with SinSational Satin, a gay wrestler, who of course got the shit kicked out of him. What's a sports event without some healthy gay-bashing?

There were about 50-60 people in the audience. Lots of kids. Bobby Michaels is a manager, but he was announcing this show. They had a real ring, a nice little chain-link-and-barbed-wire entrance (see photos), running commentary, and "Welcome to the Jungle"- everything a wrasslin' match needs. The wrestlers all talked trash before the match. They distracted the ref while their friends got in the ring and beat up on their opponent. There was the obligatory team of "bad" wrestlers, the CIA- ooh, those CIA boys, they always cheat! There was the pole match, the battle royale, the "ref gets injured so the guy who takes over is a former partner of one of the wrestlers, and lets him cheat" story, people getting hit with stop signs, people getting hit with folding chairs, people getting tossed out of the ring, and even a guy who emptied a bag of thumbtacks on the ground before body-slamming his opponent onto the pile. Ouch! At left, note "Mikehell Roberts", a teeny tiny little pimp who was the manager of Mr. Mayem and Big Jim. What you can't see in that picture is that the lil' pimp has a mullet down to his ass. He was a pretty despised fellow, and at one point, all the other managers kicked his ass.

In what other sport can a six-foot, 400-lb guy have a distinct advantage?

Stop sign to the face! That's gonna leave a mark!

They handcuffed the lil' pimp to the ring for his much-deserved beatin'.

All of these pictures except the first are from the photo page at the official website. Check it out for more. Oh yeah! There was also this sixty-year-old granny who sang along when they played that song "What would you do/If your son was at home/Crying all alone on the bedroom floor/'Cause he's hungry?/And the only way to feed him is ta/sleep wit' a man For a little bit of money..." I'd never seen a senior citizen bust rhymes about hookin' before.