#985 an evening at UCW

T has a friend named Eric. They met in second grade and have been in classes ever since. Eric is a great kid: super-smart, polite, funny and talented. I think he is a great friend for T. They will be going to different high schools, but I hope they remain friends.

Yesterday T asked me if he could go watch Eric wrestle on Saturday night. I said that it would be ok, but I wondered what he was talking about. School is not in session and as far as I know, there's no school wrestling. When I asked T about it, he told me it was wrestling like WWE wrestling.

T was going to go to the wrestling match with another friend, but he wasn't able to make it. I asked T if he wanted me to come with him since we didn't know what we could expect, and he said yes. The things we do for our kids, right?

The place was just west of downtown, kind of in the Rose Park area. It was almost an industrial area, but there were plenty of cars, so we parked and went in. It was a pretty big room with three rows of seats all around the big ring in the center. There were quite a few people there, maybe 100 or so, including Eric's family. We sat behind his little sister and their cousins.

The place is the UCW-Zero headquarters.  UCW is short for Ultra Championship Wrestling and I guess it's affiliated with the WWE (that's World Wrestling Entertainment).

At that point, I figured that since I was there, I might as well relax, enjoy and have fun. So I did. T and I cheered and laughed and watched the other spectators. It was kind of fantastic. It was typical wrestling, lots of "hits" that didn't look like they actually hit anything, but there was no denying that the dudes were working hard. They were sweaty and breathing hard and when they fell on the concrete, there was sort of a splatting noise that wasn't very nice to hear.

I took a few photos:

This is a bad guy, Suederade. I couldn't make that name up, people. He strutted around and people booed him and he clapped his hands and egged on the haters. It was awesome.

This is Martin and Paco. Paco is the dude in the yellow and pink pants. He's also wearing a luchador mask. Martin is a bad guy. He's probably the star of UCW. We were sitting by some people who totally were rooting for him and chanting his name. Really, though. Is Martin a good name for a wrestler?

 This is an action shot, and that's why it's blurry. Paco is the top guy and Martin (red shorts) is jumping off the ropes, holding onto Paco so as to impart pain on Paco when they hit the mat. It was loud. People were cheering. I wish I had taken video. I guess if I really wanted to relive the moment, I could find it on YouTube. Plus, the match was televised. I have no idea what channel it was on though. I can rest easy knowing that absolutely no one I know was watching this wrestling event.

After an intermission, it was time for The Rumble. That's the match Eric, also known as The Durango Kid, was in. There were 26 wrestlers involved. Two wrestlers started, then every 90 seconds, another guy (or girl - yes, there were two women wrestlers and even at least one gay guy) came into the ring. When a wrestler was tossed from the ring, he was out. The last one left standing was the winner.

The first two guys came out and I'm telling you, they were grown men! I was suddenly very worried for Eric, who is a 15 year old kid. Eric was the ninth guy in the ring. He wore white pants and a luchador mask and you could see that his adrenaline was pumping. He came in and started pounding on the first guy he saw. That's when some of the other guys saw Eric and started beating up on him. I was yelling, "He's just a kid!" and T was moaning, "Oh my poor friend." Eric was getting whacked in the chest and thrown in the ropes and bounced around. They were pulling on his head. It was awful. Then Eric would get a second wind and start retaliating. Then he got whacked in his No-No Square and he dropped like a brick. Poor kid. He didn't last much longer after that.

There are two guys standing up in this picture. The smaller one is Eric. He is getting pummelled by the big guy, Dallas, who is holding Eric by the mask.

Here's Dallas continuing to beat up on Eric.

Needless to say, Eric was not the last dude in the ring. Martin was, of course.

We didn't stick around to make sure Eric was ok, but T texted him and Eric assured us that he was fine.

I'm glad to tell you that T told me he was not interested in trying out the wrestling thing at all. Whew.

So that's how I spent my Saturday night. It was completely unexpected, but I had fun and it was great to hang out with T and do something different. The next match is on August 10. I don't think I will be going, but maybe MT will take T, especially if Eric is getting back in the ring.

:)