Smackdown on the dance floor

Doesn't this sound fun?! It's in the club Prince started long ago.

Smackdown on the dance floor
The Rock they're not, but a ragtag group of local wrestlers still packs First Avenue every month.
Tom Horgen, Star Tribune


So, there's a big ol' wrestling ring in the middle of First Avenue's dance floor.
But under the lights at the club's monthly pro-wrestling night, it's not the ring that grabs your eyeballs -- it's the floor.
For all the shows we've watched here, how many times have you actually seen the floor? (It's green and tan, if you were wondering.)
But this small revelation is soon eclipsed as men and women in colorful costumes and patent-leather boots crash the ring, flailing about in well-choreographed carnage.
On the last Tuesday of each month for the past three years, local wrestling promoter Eddie Sharkey has put on matches in the legendary club. Here, more than a dozen local wrestlers with dreams beyond their day jobs put on a rousing show that has nothing to do with music.
This isn't the WWE, but it's not back-yard bouts, either. More than 200 fans come to each show.
Some are just excited to be this close to the kind of action they watch on TV; others come to heckle guys in tights, like the man at last month's show who taunted the opening-match wrestlers for their shabby garb, screaming, "You got your gear from Sportmart!"
While some of the new guys might very well have bought their in-ring attire from the swimsuit section, most of the action is surprisingly competent. Plus the man behind it all knows a thing or two about the rasslin' business.
Sharkey was a big regional promoter in the early 1980s, until, he says, "Vince put everybody out of business" -- Vince being WWE chairman and all-around evil genius Vince McMahon. Sharkey, who then went to work for the WWE as a referee, quickly adds, "But he ain't a bad guy like everybody says he is."
Whatever the case against McMahon, almost every wrestler backstage at First Avenue wouldn't mind working for him. Right now, they basically wrestle for peanuts, or about enough to pay for parking and a good meal after the match. Most have day jobs at places such as car dealerships and grocery stores; there's even a Culligan man and a digital matte artist who draws the backgrounds for movies such as "Lord of the Rings."
Arik Cannon (his real name) is one of the few guys in the Twin Cities who wrestles full-time. The 24-year-old makes his money at out-of-state shows every weekend and by hawking his own merchandise (funky T-shirts and DVDs of his matches).
"If I was a girl, I would so have a contract by now," said Cannon. His pudgy 5-foot-7 frame isn't the classic wrestling build, but he holds his own.
That's something everybody has to do here. Some opponents discuss their match's big moves beforehand backstage -- one botched grapple could mean injury and months out of action. One of the beefiest wrestlers, 30-year-old Justin Rocheleau, who goes by the name of Magnus Maximus, caught a bad flop a couple years ago and broke his right forearm. Having no insurance for the surgery hurt even more.
But some risk injury just to keep people coming back. Fan-favorite Nate Bash completed a maneuver last month rarely seen even in the WWE: a 450 splash -- a somersault off the top rope straight down onto his opponent.
Putting butts in the seats
Even after three years, wrestling night keeps a pretty low profile, but it's still finding fans. Trevor Smith, 29, of Minneapolis showed up with a friend after picking up a promo flier in Uptown.
"I was like, 'What the hell is wrestling doing in a nightclub?' " Smith said. "I had to see this at least once in my life. And so far, I'm not disappointed."
New and old fans won't see one of the event's long-standing wrestlers back next Tuesday, however. Jessica Dalton, whose boisterous attitude and voluptuous figure are tailor-made for TV wrestling (she makes her entrance to "My Humps"), recently got "the call" to start working with one of WWE's farm leagues down South. She's wrestled at First Avenue since the beginning, so during her last match in April she and her opponent announced to the crowd that the loser would leave First Ave forever (it's always good to have a story line). Dalton lost, of course, and left, like everybody else that night, with a smile.
"I'm happy to leave," she said. "I'm moving on to the next level, man."
MIDWEST PRO WRESTLING 8 P.M. TUESDAY • FIRST AVENUE, 701 1ST AV. N., MPLS. • COST: $8, FREE WITH COLLEGE I.D. 612-332-1775.