Taking falls with professional wrestlers

By Adam Schoof

Thursday, March 26, 2009

A professional wrestling practice match is about to start, and I smile, thinking it will look fake. I prepare myself to stifle any laughs so I won’t get beaten up; the ring owner, Larry Barber, warned me the wrestlers don’t like their sport to be smirked at. They might throw me in the ring for insinuating anything, he says.

The match starts. The wrestlers, Jeremy Wyatt and Mike Sydal, grab each other by the necks and bare their teeth at each other. They circle like bulls with locked horns. With a deep grunt, Wyatt throws Sydal against the ropes. Sydal bounces back and Wyatt clotheslines him; Sydal hits the ring floor with a boom.

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Photo by Ryan Waggoner

From left, Andrew Gindlesberger, Ariel Melin, Mike Sydal and Mark Sterling stretch before a practice session at Dynamo Pro Wrestling gym in Ottawa in February. Gindlesberger and Melin, who were both relatively new to the sport, were trying out to become part of the Dynamo Pro company that evening. Larry Barber, owner of the gym, explained that although these men practice here, most of them wrestle for numerous other groups in addition to Dynamo Pro.

None of this looks fake like I thought it would.

Wyatt picks up Sydal by his hair. He knees him in the stomach and Sydal roars out in pain. Wyatt saunters around the ring, triumphant. Then he goes in for the kill, pushing Sydal against the ropes.

The referee begins the count to three. I hear Wyatt whisper, “Catch my leg when I kick you.”

Wyatt releases Sydal and kicks him; Sydal catches his leg and spins them both to the floor.

The referee, Barber, counts to three. Sydal wins. Because this is only practice, Wyatt compliments Sydal. And then they’re back to wrestling.

The wrestlers wrestle for Dynamo Pro Wrestling, which Barber owns. It’s in Ottawa in the back of a video rental store.

Barber calls professional wrestling “sports entertainment.” He says there’s a definite athletic aspect to professional wrestling and it takes a strong person to do it.

“This is something not everyone can do,” Barber says.

To be a wrestler at Dynamo Pro, you have to pass a cardiovascular workout test. Your body has to be in top shape, or “ring shape,” says wrestler Tyler Cook, a 24-year-old 2008 graduate. He says he works out three hours a day.

Wyatt, who’s been wrestling for seven years, says you “learn wrestling through repetition, a lot of it’s instinctual.” Wyatt says your body callouses from the falls and eventually falls don’t hurt as much.

However, Wyatt says he’s still sore every morning after he wrestles. As a wrestler, you have to be ready for pain.

“People do get hurt,” Wyatt says. “You got to fight through it.”

Perhaps the most exciting thing about wrestling is when things go wrong. Wyatt says he ripped his nipple open in a match where the ropes of the wrestling ring were replaced with barbed wire for a special match. When I ask him why he would wrestle in such a ring, Wyatt shrugs. Now Wyatt’s nipple looks like an exclamation point.

Despite the danger, two wrestlers are trying out to join Dynamo Pro tonight. Andrew Gindlesberger says he became attracted to wrestling because of its mixture of theatrics and athletics. Gindlesberger, a 21-year-old Lawrence resident, says he was involved in both in high school. This is Gindlesberger’s first practice.

This is Ariel Melin’s second practice. Melin, a 25-year-old El Dorado resident, says he likes the “story” of the ring and calls it a form of art.

I watch closer at the practice match to see what Melin is talking about.

The two wrestlers are Cook and Wyatt. Cook, a seasoned wrestler with a 3XW Pure Heavyweight Championship to his name (3XW is a wrestling group in Iowa), has his legs shaved and sports a perfect tan. Cook says his cared-for appearance is part of his act: He is a “babyface,” the “good guy” wrestler who vies for fan attention. Wyatt, on the other hand, is a “heel,” or a “bad guy.” A heel’s function is to taunt the babyface and incite crowd emotion and make them care about the outcome of the match. I learn the promoter decides who is the babyface and the heel, so wrestlers have to be ready for both.

I begin to realize what Melin meant about the “story” aspect of the match. At first, Wyatt is dominant and keeps Cook on the ground and taunts him. But then Cook starts countering Wyatt’s moves and eventually wins, becoming a hero.

I learn that a major aspect of wrestling is showing more pain than you’re feeling. Without the suffering of the “hero,” there is no plot to the story.

One of the main ways the wrestlers do this is by falling on the mats loudly, which is called “bumping” in wrestling jargon. When wrestlers bump, they fall with their chins tucked to protect their heads and slam their feet and arms down in unison to their back. This makes a near-deafening noise and sounds bone-crunchingly bad.

When a wrestler gets up from a bump, they “sell,” or act as though the hit was as bad as it sounded. Selling is perhaps the string the “story” of the match is sewn with; it’s the theatrical part of the sport that makes it different than any other. Good wrestlers need to be in physical shape, but they also have to be competent actors.

Part of this acting ability is being able to make the impossible look plausible. Wyatt has a signature move called a lightning spiral, in which he flips his opponent backwards to make him land on his head.

“The crowd doesn’t know that because they don’t know what’s supposed to happen,” Sterling says. “They just watch what’s happening in front of them. They only know you mess up if you acknowledge it.”

Keeping the illusion up as a whole, Barber says, is not easy. To hold a wrestling event, you have to get a permit from the Kansas Athletic Commission and have an emergency medical technician on duty for the duration of the event, Barber says. Then you need to rent your venue, pay your wrestlers, get sponsors and promote. Barber says he’s been affected by the poor economy because he can’t find as many sponsors for his events. Barber says he only does charity events, and recently raised money for a boy who needs a heart transplant.

As a wrestler, don’t expect to make much, or any, money—unless you are in the big leagues. All the wrestlers I talked to had full-time jobs; wrestling was their full-time hobby.

Cook says he had been backup talent for a WWE, or World Wrestling Entertainment, match. The WWE is the dream for most wrestlers, Cook says, because that is where someone can wrestle profitably.

Mike Sydal, who’s been wrestling for a year and a half, says he wrestled for free for his first event and many thereafter. His first wrestling paycheck was $10, and now he makes about $40. Although Sydal has a full-time job, he says wrestling remains his passion.

Sydal’s brother, Matt Sydal, is a wrestler for WWE and wrestles under the name Evan Bourne. Mike says he was inspired to wrestle by his brother.

“I knew I would regret it if I just watched him,” Sydal says.

I think about why people would want to watch professional wrestling knowing that it’s fake. Barber says the outcome of the match is predetermined by the promoters, so watching the match is a moot point. However, the drama comes from making the fake look as real as possible, which means wrestling is quite close to real. Wrestlers are actors in a ring who have to take falls, insults and wake up the next morning and do it again.

“The only thing fake is the finish,” says Mark Sterling, a wrestler for eight years.

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