EUCLID, Ohio – Nick Brashear is picking up speed and running back and forth between the ropes. His feet thumped on the floor of the wrestling ring, a cavity beneath layers of mats and wood, beating like a giant drum and echoing off the painted concrete block walls. .
Brasher, a Garfield Heights native known as Vanilla Gorilla in the ring, explains how to spin the ropes. Just slamming yourself into a steel cable covered with only a thin layer of plastic can cause rib damage. Instead, he guides his hips into the ropes and wraps his arms around the top rope, just in case anything breaks and leaves nothing between the fighter and the concrete floor.
“Part of the training is building your body and learning how to hit the ropes without hurting your ribs,” Brasher says.
Brasher is a wrestler and co-founder of Extreme Fight World, an independent professional wrestling company founded in 2019. The company is located at the NEO Sports factory in Euclid, sharing space with a basketball court, sand volleyball and martial arts studio. batting cage etc.
EFW serves as a launching pad for young wrestlers, offering training, live streaming events, and matches. No, it doesn't have the same budget as the industry giants, but viewers can expect live commentary, synchronized lighting, intro music and video, backstory, and all the brave camping that comes with the area.
EFW can accommodate approximately 50-60 people in its event space. There was so much demand that Brasher had to turn people away, he says. As a result, Brasher said he hopes to host live events in larger rooms at the NEO Sports factory that can accommodate up to 200 people.
For lifelong athletes and wrestlers like Rommel Thorpe, who wrestles under the name Iron Tiger Dice-K, having an independent local group to set up matches, produce videos, and handle promotions is “invaluable.” ” Worth it.
“I have a lot of friends who watch it, and they're like, 'It's not WWE quality, but it's great.'” In the independent circuit, you don't see that unless you're really established. “No,” Thorpe says. “Their contribution to the indie scene is amazing.”
martial arts
Initially, Brashear envisioned EFW as a “hybrid of MMA and wrestling.” However, booking a professional wrestler with a mixed martial arts background can be cost-prohibitive. True to his DIY ethos at EFW, many wrestlers bring their martial arts backgrounds into the ring.
For example, Joshua Robinson (his wrestler's name is Chosen Joshua Emmanuel) has experience in Taekwondo, Muay Thai, and kickboxing. In fact, he plans to take his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu purple belt test on Saturday.
“Forget what you think you know about professional wrestling. Imagine different styles colliding in one atmosphere, where knockouts, submissions, and judges' decisions all coalesce to tell a story.” Try it,” Robinson said of EFW. “You're taking the best things we love about professional wrestling and what we know to be true about real combat, and we're bringing it together.”
Robinson has no signature moves. In martial arts, participants use every possible move possible to end the fight as quickly as possible.
“Look at UFC 300 that just passed,” Robinson said of the April 13 professional mixed martial arts bout. “There were multiple finishes…but none of them were characteristic of those fighters. I try to incorporate that element into my wrestling. You never know what's going to happen.” ”
But for other wrestlers, finishing moves are part of the spectacle.
Brasher borrowed his signature submission, the kneebar, from his ongoing training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, where he is a blue belt. To put this move in plain terms, the grappler separates the opponent's knees and puts his whole body's strength into the compromised limb, forcing it to bend at an unnatural angle. It's brutal and realistic, a joint obliteration submission that has ended several UFC bouts.
With former UFC fighters such as Ronda Rousey and Brock Lesnar currently active in professional wrestling, Brashear said the fusion of martial arts and professional wrestling is reflective of the nation as a whole.
“When you go on YouTube, you don't see much backyard wrestling anymore. You're watching backyard MMA,” Brashear said.
Thorpe also uses signature moves to demonstrate his love for both martial arts and professional wrestling.
Growing up, he drew inspiration from many greats, including professional wrestler The Great Muta, and interpolated Muta's Shining Wizard finish with a variation he called the Death Dagger. Thorpe also draws on his martial arts background to use a variation of the guillotine choke (common in many grappling disciplines) to finish off his opponents.
“For me personally, it adds to my dynamic, my personality,” Thorp said.
Not fake, fixed
While many of EFW's wrestlers have a dual passion for martial arts and professional wrestling, Brasher said not all fighters share that respect for professional wrestling.
“A lot of people talk shit about it,” Brashear said.
Although professional wrestling matches are not competitive like boxing or judo matches, calling professional wrestling “fake” is an unpleasant misconception.
“Wrestlers get really upset when people say it's fake. It's been fixed, but there's a difference,” Brashear said.
When people point out that the winners and losers in wrestling are predetermined, wrestlers often say that such a statement is as pointless as asking if TV viewers also expect The Walking Dead script. I argue that.
“We're basically Ringling Bros., except instead of clowns and circuses, we have wrestlers,” Brashear said.
As nearly all professional wrestlers freely admit, the outcome of a match is predetermined, and wrestlers take steps to minimize unnecessary harm to their opponents. But a truism in professional wrestling is that you can't fake gravity.
“I took a lot of shots. I got chopped up like if I was facing Ric Flair. It really hurts,” Thorpe said of Flair's infamous chest slap. “Is there a story about it? Is it scripted? Absolutely. But it's not fake.”
The road to professionalism
The term “professional wrestler” does not necessarily mean that someone has quit their day job. Rather, it is done to differentiate between professional wrestling, which is a pure sport, and professional wrestling, which is a sport/entertainment.
Like many creative and athletic endeavors, Brashear and Robinson also have day jobs. Brasear partners with companies that sell high-tech equipment used in dental imaging. Robinson coaches mixed martial arts.
General admission tickets are typically $15 and the show features 20 to 30 wrestlers. Wrestlers are paid between $25 and $100 depending on their experience level, Brashear said.
Tickets for the event can be purchased online, but quantities are limited due to venue capacity. However, for those who want to experience EFW wrestling without being there in person, you can stream live matches from the ADRENALINE series through TrillerTV+.
Brasher sees the ADRENALINE series as a way to build stories and expose wrestlers to their biggest draw: live matches.
Indie venues like EFW are a platform for wrestlers and what they choose to do with their careers. “Realistically speaking, my goal is to have a good career and have fun wherever I am, from state to state and city to city,” Thorpe said.
But for people like Robinson, EFW is an important part of realizing his dream of one day turning pro.
“I've far exceeded my original goals. As a 14-year-old kid, all I wanted to do was be the local champion,” Robinson said. “For me, I thought that was going to be the culmination of everything, but when you reach that milestone, the next one comes along.”
