Believe it or not, MPW is for you. YES, YOU!

On Saturday, September 5th the garden of Alberta Avenue Community League was converted into an outdoor wrestling arena where local independent wrestling organization, Monster Pro Wrestling (MPW for short), hosted their event The Awakening. Drawing 120 fans to the community league, this live event featured five matches, three of which were for title belts.

By the time the first match was halfway through, community members began gathering outside of the fence, watching from the green space beyond the chain-link fence. Within a few minutes the cheering, jeering, heckling, and encouragement came from both inside the fenced garden and the outside green space and park.

If you have never been to a Monster Pro Wrestling event, you should go. I know what you are thinking, believe me, I thought it back in 2009 when my friends dragged me out to an MPW event. What came to mind was the highly theatrical and technically intense mega arena-style WWE wrestling televised globally. I envisioned tight latex, bright make-up, spray tans, pyrotechnics, and badly written rivalries.

Well, what I experienced was delightfully surprising.

Sure, there was latex and make-up and dramatic rivalries, but there was so much more. Up close you have the chance to observe the incredibly athletic and acrobatic skills of the wrestlers, and I do mean incredible, how often do you see people take full jumps over each other or complete double tuck flying leaps off of top ropes, but you also quickly become involved in the characters, the match antics, and the outcomes of the competitions.

Why? Because independent wrestling is actually an interactive sport. Fans participating in cheers, adding to the tension, insulting the “bad-guys” (the character referred to as the ‘heel’ in the wrestling biz), heckling the referee, and offering up hilarious wrestling advice. It isn’t long before the crowd is throwing out lines and laughing along with each other, and by the end of my first independent wrestling experience, I was laughing so hard I was literally crying.

The Awakening was no different. The crowd was a diverse group of people representing all age groups and backgrounds. And the wrestlers interact with the crowd, much like talented street performers, and include the comments, words, actions, taunts, claps, boos, and at times objects, offered up by the fans.

The event itself saw a few surprise endings, with the tag team match being rushed by an outside team, The Savages, made up of Wrath and Propayne, causing a stir in the MPW community and ending with a challenge from the Savages to MPW’s founder Sean Massive Damage that should lead to some intense battles in the near future. There was a rare three-person battle for a Provincial Championship title that saw Toronto’s TY Jackson take on St Albert’s Chris Perish and Edmonton’s very own crowd pleaser Lumberjack Larry. There were some funny moments in the matches including the Dad Bod Squad’s Rick Jules’ Coors Light hat being trashed by Propayne, leading to a chorus of “Not the hat! Revenge the hat!” by the audience. Some tense moments with referees being knocked unconscious and bodyguards entering the ring illegally added to the crowd’s enthusiasm.

There were some great technical moves by the wrestlers, including crowd-pleasing suplexes, flying drops, and a few pile drivers, but also some unconventional moves such as Magnificent Mitch Clarke’s toe-biting and nose pulling, leading to some witty debate with the referee as to what is defined as “legal” in the playbook. And let us not forget the outfits. From a plaid short and plaid vest-wearing Larry the Lumberjack to a tight zebra man-spandex wearing dad bod, and of course the tassels. THE TASSELS!!!

Hope to see you out at the next match, October 3rd at 7pm - Vindication. Stay tuned for upcoming wrestler’s profiles and more in-depth reporting on the matches.