NY Championship Wrestling in Utica New York

It was a normal Saturday night at the Fitness Mill in Utica: On one side of the warehouse-size gym, people in sweaty t-shirts did lethargic sets on fitness machines. Gym attendants chatted at the front desk about their weekend plans, waving people through the turnstile entrance.

The other side of the building was absolute mayhem.

Inside the ropes of a wrestling ring, a guy in death metal gear clotheslined a man in booty shorts. A referee stumbled around with a paper bag on his head. A woman in a circus performance outfit took a breather from a beating before charging into the melee, fists swinging.

“Get your elbow up!” yelled someone in the audience, but their advice was lost in the frenzy of the battle royale.

Saturday was the “Downtown Beatdown” wrestling tournament, and fans seated in metal folding chairs around the ring jubilantly added to the cacophony with cheers for their favorite wrestlers.

Wrestling is a difficult pastime; it’s hard on body and the wallet. But like actors, a lot of wrestlers talk about the rush of entertaining a crowd, the effective telling of a story. And for many it’s a lifelong interest: a lot of the wrestlers who stepped into the indie scene as adults were die-hard fans as kids in the 80s and 90s.

Joseph “Madness of Trip” Zink is one of those kids. He has known he wanted to join ranks since a wrestler his mom was dating introduced him to the sport.

“It’s one of the greater forms of physical art,” said Zink. “You have to tell a story with your bodies. You have to make every move matter.”

“It’s like if someone went to a Shakespeare in the round, where they’re surrounded on all four sides,” he said. In 2018, Zink acted in a local production in Niagara Falls of “Kayfabe,” a play about independent wrestling.

“We have the same thing, only ours includes a whole lot of violence.”

"Madd Dawg" takes on "The Process" during the New York Championship Wrestling Downtown Beatdown at the Fitness Mill in Utica, N.Y. on April 23, 2022. Independent wrestling is slowly making a comeback after the pandemic cut the number of shows in the state by 85 percent from 2019 to 2020. (Photo by Bryan Bennett | Contributing photographer)

Wrestling is part improvisation, part script, depending on the wrestler.

Shyton “Black Roze” Fason, a wrestler from Albany, likes the authenticity of improvisation. “There’s no believability if you can tell there’s a set-up,” said Fason.

“If I walk up to him and smack him, and he’s like ‘This wasn’t part of the plan,’ the reaction is different.”

For spectators, it’s about “How well can you give me that suspension of disbelief?” said Kevin Decent, a longtime fan from Rome. “How cool are you going to make it look?”

“It’s good versus evil,” said Paola Jazmin Gonzalez, who goes by “PJ ‘The Whip’ Gonzalez” in the ring. “That’s what wrestling is all about.”

Certainly independent wrestling is a labor of love for the promoters and wrestlers who do it. The money is pretty bad unless a wrestler makes it on WWE or another national outfit.

“There’s a level of realism that you’ve got to have with yourself,” said Fason. “I was told at the beginning if you get into this business expecting to make money, it’s not going to happen. And honestly, it’s true.”

Fason trained at the now-closed “In Your Face Wrestling” school in Albany, and wants to make it to a national outfit. That’s the best-case scenario for an indie wrestler: Train in a school, fight in indie rings, get noticed by a scout and sign a contract with WWE or another big company.

There’s no official count of the number of individual wrestlers in New York, since the New York State Athletic Commission stopped licensing individuals in 2002. There are currently 31 licensed promoters, according to the commission.

Promoters aren’t making money, either, said Jonny Patches, the one-man show behind New York Championship Wrestling, the promotion company based in Mohawk Valley that organized the Saturday match.

“I’m 100% doing it for the love of it,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve made money on a show in like, two years.”

Wrestlers in this area drive long hours to weekend shows in New York, Western Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the “East Coast Triangle,” as one fan put it. A lot of indie promotions popped up there to fill the vacuum left by Extreme Championship Wrestling when it went out of business in 2001.

Wrestlers like Zink capitalize on merchandising to make some cash, but almost all indie wrestlers have day jobs, or night jobs. Fason works graveyard shifts at a wholesale club. “I’m tired now,” he said, laughing, before the Saturday fight.

The stakes are high for such a low-paying job.

“I’ve hurt my knee, I’ve separated my shoulder, I’ve had broken bones, I’ve had to get stitches. Going on a decade ago, I broke my neck,” said Zink, who is now 37 and has been wrestling for more than two decades.

“Yeah, I’ve been injured.”

"Crossfire Aaron Roxas" bleeds during a match against "Black Roze" at the New York Championship Wrestling Downtown Beatdown at the Fitness Mill in Utica, N.Y. on April 23, 2022. Wrestling is part improvisation, part script, but wrestlers take a real beating from the strain of their performances and from accidental hits. (Photo by Bryan Bennett | Contributing photographer)

The violence in the ring is staged; moves like “The Gator Roll” or “The Camel Clutch” are industry-standard, like learning a double axel in ice skating. Wrestlers in the ring are partners, although they’re supposed to look like adversaries. In reality, inflicting damage is the opposite of what anyone wants.

But the potential for real damage is there, and promoters are required by the state to have medics on-site during matches.

When Corey Jackson was slammed down on his back, right on the edge of the elevated ring, the crowd flinched. It looked like it hurt. Earlier, the blood from a cut on Dan “Crossfire Aaron Roxas” Murphy’s forehead was real.

Still, it’s all kid-friendly, said Patches, the promoter.

The wrestlers don’t swear (very much); the violence is more theatrical than scary. Chris “Madd Dawg” Jones’ kids sat in the second row eating peanut butter crackers during slow moments, and a little girl in a pink jacket booed along with the crowd when, by way of opening the match, a wrestler threw water at the guy who was announcing an upcoming fundraiser for the local animal shelter.

Kids have always made up a hefty slice of wrestling’s fan base, said Decent, the lifelong fan from Rome, and is one reason why he thinks wrestling is making a comeback now.

Wrestlers and fans said that independent pro wrestling had a strong fan base across the U.S. during the ‘80s and ‘90s, but that fan base waned some during the following decades. But a lot of the kids in Upstate New York who watched their hometown heroes during indie wrestling’s heyday grew up and decided to step into the ring themselves.

“I am a child of the ’80s, so I grew up watching wrestling,” said Decent from his home in Rome, where he produces a wrestling podcast, “Hellions Talk.” Action figures and DVDs of local fights line the shelves in his living room, plus a copy of a paper he wrote in college 25 years ago, “Mythology of Pro Wrestling.”

The same kids who watched Hulk Hogan break Andre the Giant’s 8-year winning streak at WrestleMania III in 1987 are old enough now to bring their kids to matches, said Decent. There’s crossover into more mainstream media too, with wrestling stars like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena acting in Hollywood films.

And also, American wrestling is a more diverse now than it was in the ’80s.

There’s speculation in the wrestling world that WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon, CEO Vince McMahon’s daughter, will take over the business when her dad is done, said Decent, plus big labels like All Elite Wrestling are signing more wrestlers of color, individual wrestlers with disabilities have built up substantial followings and entirely LGBTQ+ promotions are popping up around the country.

At the same time, the sport has always embraced campiness that defies easy categorization.

At Saturday’s match, a Black wrestler and an Asian-American wrestler tag-teamed as duo “Black and Yellow.” An overblown “Make Wrestling Great Again” character who rouged his face to a ruddy blush drummed up audience participation by leaning into his role as the heel.

“That’s the thing about wrestling,” said Gonzalez, a trans women wrestler and one of the fighters in the Saturday match. “If you think about wrestling as theater, you can be as political as you want.”

Most of the time, it’s good fun. Gonzalez said that Saturday’s match was one of the more lively ones she’s seen since the pandemic gutted shows.

There were 327 licensed matches in New York in 2019 and just 51 in 2020, according to the New York State Athletic Commission. But promoters and fans are optimistic about the industry’s future. Matches were on an upward trend in the years before the pandemic, and last year the number rebounded a bit to 131.

"Madd Dawg" takes on "The Process" during the New York Championship Wrestling Downtown Beatdown at the Fitness Mill in Utica, New York on April 23, 2022. Crowd interaction is a big part of wrestling, and Chris "Madd Dawg" Jones, who was playing a villain (a heel, in wrestling jargon), heckled the crowd to drum up audience participation. (Photo by Bryan Bennett | Contributing photographer)

Certainly Adam Stone was having a good night on Saturday. The wrestler went on to take the championship after charging into the ring late in the final showdown and upsetting Fason, “Black Roze,” for the winner’s belt.

His family and friends were prepared with signs and t-shirts around the ring. Whenever there’s a good showing from a wrestler’s family, that’s a reliable spoiler for who’s going to win, said Decent.

For Madd Dawg’s kid, Deandre and Jaida Jones, the night was pretty fun, but not the best they’ve seen from their dad.

He played the villain on Saturday. For Deandre, “I like it more when he’s the hero.”

Jules Struck writes about life and culture in and around Syracuse. Contact her anytime at jstruck@syracuse.com or on Instagram at julesstruck.journo.

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