ECCW Wrestling: Unadulterated Entertainment

#1. I'm not into wrestling.
#2. I'm not into violence.
#3. I'm not into drama.

All of which strangely leads to conclusion #4: ECCW WRESTLING WAS BLOW-YOUR-MIND ENTERTAINING! I admit, folks, that I walked in not knowing if I'd be walking out after the first 10 minutes. But whole experience was so fucking surreal, it was incredible. Sure sure, it's all super-choreographed and scripted out, but that doesn't deny that these wrestlers are totally kicking the crap out of each other. I mean being body-slammed onto a hardwood floor hurts a lot more than your wimpy acupuncture needles! And seeing these hefty dudes doing piledrivers on each other seriously had me so scared that I was about to witness someone's neck being snapped that I mostly had to look away. At some points I found it so sadistic and violent it was hard to handle. But other times I was shrieking in disbelief at the refs and wrestlers, and also laughing my ass off at the proceedings in and out of the ring. The whole thing was crazy theatrical: the routines, the posturing, the violence... Hell, there was even dwarf for a referee! What more can you expect? It was all 110% entertaining. No joke.

The (Surrey) crowd was half the fun. There's a whole interactive culture around these matches, and people were really dissing and yelling at the wrestlers. Seriously, I couldn't believe the inappropriateness of some of the foul crap that some of these guys were hollering out into the public domain. This one guy was practically begging to get his ass thrown into the ring for a pummeling, but all he got was the Rocket's announcement "This one's for you, fat-boy!" before jumping off the ropes and slamming his opponent, who was patiently pretending to be too winded to get out of harm's way.

Also keep in mind that this was, weirdly enough, a familiy event. Little kids running around, parents cheering, old ladies hanging out. Very very bizarre to have parents bringing the young 'uns to such a super violent event where the homophobic insults were so harsh and numerous that i decided that Politically Incorrect was a bad thing after all. And what up with the homophobia? Maybe for lack of imagination, "faggot" is just the easiest and most effective word to be tossed around. But hello, don't people notice that beefy waxed dudes getting sweaty all over each other is just a teensy bit homo-erotic? Was I the only one who noticed that Scotty Mac had a little boner poking against his silver shorts for the whole match? Would it be totally inappropriate to yell "Tickle his balls!" whenever two wrestlers were locked up on the mat? Also, some of the wrestlers definitely had their gay schtick, and people didn't seem to mind cheering those fags on, somehow.

The last fight of the night was the lovely Rebecca Knox vs the scintillating Ivory. Good girl underdog Ivory taking on bad girl champ Knox, and as you might expect Ivory took one hell of a beating but she just -- would -- not -- give -- up -- ! What bravado! Determination! Gusto! That's good and fine for Ivory, but Knox still gets my love and respect for having a killer character, a bad-ass attitude, and banshee shriek that gave me a hard-on the same time it made me cringe and grind my molars. The highlight of the match was when things in the ring had gone a full 6 seconds without any bodies smacking. Me and my friendswere still feeling totally sensory overloaded when some little young punk yelled out "BORING!" sending us into fits of laughter and disbelief.

Well, that's the ECCW for you. I don't know if I'll ever see it again, but i am so so thankful that i checked it out at least once before I give up this mortal coil. My two friends were in accord with this. We all walked away from the place feeling that we'd just witnessed something that was everything we wanted it to be and more. Trust me: you'll get your $10 worth in full.