A Very Weird Weekend - "Midget" Wrestling in Nashville, Indiana

Man...what a weird night. Last night the girlfriend and I were bored and trying to decide what to do since neither of us had work on Saturday. She comes across a site that says Midget Wrestling is going on in Nashville, IN at 7:30pm. It's 6:30pm, and we live like half an hour away. So we jumped in the car, grabbed some McD's, and went to the show. Why not - I was curious. The show was put on by Sideshow Wrestling at a place called Mike's Dance Barn. Usually the place is all line dancing and whatnot, so I'd stay away, but this night it was good old fashioned wrasslin', so we showed up.

No booze and lots of kids at first - already a bad start. But the place was packed and standing room only by the time we showed, so we stood. First match was the Bump-N-Uglies (who I actually just saw on Man Vs. Food on the Travel Channel like two days ago, so that was weird timing) against these guys called the Soul Shooters. Bump-N's gimmick was some Lucha masks and asking the crowd for support. Soul's gimmick was telling the crowd to be quiet so that they could concentrate. The fighting was terrible, and Bump-N won. New champs....woo...yawn. The next two matches pretty much sucked, especially since two of the wrestlers used Bawitaba by Kid Rock as their entrance music. Intermission.

It finally got okay after intermission, although we did have to deal with this lady next to us who placed her sleeping toddler on the floor like a cell phone because she wanted to watch the match (rested the kid on some sound equipment - classsy).

The first match was a "King of the Sky Match" where the winner had to do a move off the top rope to win. There were so many issues with this match, but it was still the best of the night. Issues included:
1) The trophy for the winner must've cost $15, and it looked it. My brother got something similar for finishing second in a tournament at soccer camp. So not worth it.
2) You have to do a rope move to win the match - but guys kept trying to pin each other without a top rope move. What's the point - you CAN'T win that way so it's just a waste. But they tried it like 34234754356 times.
3) One of the guys was named Scotty Vortex. Such a generic, terrible wrestling name.

But the fighting was good. Vortex won with a sweet off the top rope move, but I actually liked his opponent Chuck Taylor better. He responded to the audience well and acted his part pretty well - he was supposedly a lot more established then most of the rest of the cast, and you could tell.

Second matchup was a Nacho Libre rip off (who I got a picture with but it's on my girlfriend's camera) versus Doink the Clown. The kids ate it up but it was really dumb and gimmicky - Nacho danced a lot, Doink complained a lot, eventually caramel corn got involved...ridiculous. Super ridiculous was Nacho's "accent," which kind of came and went before totally going away late in the match.

Up until that match, I'm pretty happy. Still wish I had a buzz going, still think the guys are pretty unskilled at their "fighting" (outside of the King of the Sky match), but otherwise not a bad Friday night. Plus the lady with the kid finally left during the Doink match - I guess she decided to be a half decent mother after all.

So the last match is for the Dwarf championship. Now, I need to tell you that I have no problem with little people, and have worked with quite a few of them. I came because I was curious as to what they could do in the ring - I've never seen such a match. So I was curious.
Well they come out (to Bawitaba, again) and everyone stands, and it just gets...awkward. To sum it up, this guy ran around the ring slapping hands, and some girl came back and said to her mother "Mom, I touched a midget!" I get that he's short, but he is NOT worthy of an oh my god. It just got worse...the fighting went outside the ring at one point and like 70 people crowded around to watch in pure amazement after sitting in their chairs during the rest of the event. I get that maybe they're not used to little people, and I get that that's the draw, but you don't have to treat them like caged animals. I was viewing it as a "wow look what these dudes are capable of!" The rest of the audience saw it as a Freak show. So...yeah...weird. We left right after TEO won to beat traffic, and went home to drink and forget the awkwardness.

In the end...I really wish there had been booze, and I really wish it hadn't turned into something disgusting, but it was an okay times. I also hope to post some pictures in the next few days so that you guys can get a better idea of what it was like - but I'm at the mercy of my girlfriend with those and so I guess they'll have to wait.