{"id":3003,"date":"2024-08-26T15:44:31","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T15:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/?p=3003"},"modified":"2024-09-19T01:39:40","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T01:39:40","slug":"who-chairs-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/2024\/08\/26\/who-chairs-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Who chairs wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On Friday, August 16th<\/sup>, two friends and I ventured into the Foochow Building on Singapore\u2019s Tyrwhitt Road to experience Hardcore Island 2: A Fine City<\/em>, the latest extravaganza staged by the Singapore Pro-Wrestling (SPW) association.\u00a0 We\u2019d been laggardly in getting there, having supped a beer too many in a nearby pub, and arrived near the end of the evening\u2019s first bout: one between local wrestlers CK Vin and Emman.\u00a0 As we entered the hall where the action was taking place, we were greeted by the sight of CK Vin throttling Emman with a folded chair.\u00a0 He\u2019d put the back chair-frame over Emman\u2019s head and had the rear edge of the seat deep in his throat.\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, soon afterwards, Emman submitted.<\/p>\n

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This, it transpired, was a \u2018chairs match\u2019 \u2013 which, Wikipedia informs me, is a contest where \u201conly chairs can be used as legal weapons, but the only way to win is by pinfall or submission in the ring.\u201d\u00a0 I liked the publicity blurb with which the SPW presaged CK Vin and Emman\u2019s fight: \u201cYou\u2019ll want to get to your seats now before the wrestlers take them all for weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Singapore Pro-Wrestling<\/em><\/p>\n

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Before I moved to Singapore, it\u2019d been a long time since I watched a professional wrestling match. \u00a0In fact, I hadn\u2019t been a fan of the sport since my boyhood in Northern Ireland.\u00a0 This was when World of Sport<\/em>, Independent Television\u2019s Saturday-afternoon sports show, would always have a four o\u2019clock slot devoted to what people in those days simply called \u2018the Wrestling\u2019.\u00a0 Watching the Wrestling on TV, I quickly became obsessed with such larger-than-life figures as Les Kellett, Mark \u2018Rollerball\u2019 Rocco, Tally Ho Kaye, Jim Breaks, Mick McManus (catchphrase: \u201cNot the ears! Not the ears!\u201d), Big Daddy (catchphrase: \u201cEasy! Easy! Easy!\u201d), the gargantuan (six-foot-eleven, 685 pounds) Giant Haystacks and the mysterious, masked Kendo Nagasaki who claimed to be channelling<\/a> \u201cthe spirit of a samurai warrior who, 300 years ago, lived in the place that is now called Nagasaki.\u201d\u00a0 (He himself lived in Wolverhampton.)\u00a0 But I never got into the brasher, showier and slightly more glamorous pro-wrestling spectacles served up in subsequent decades by America\u2019s World Wrestling Federation (WWF), later World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).\u00a0 And though for most of the 1990s I lived in Japan, I didn\u2019t get into the super-popular New Japan Pro-Wrestling and All Japan Pro-Wrestling promotions either.<\/p>\n

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But I\u2019d always enjoyed wrestling movies, such as Darren Aronofsky\u2019s The<\/em> Wrestler<\/em> (2008) or Stephen Merchant\u2019s Fighting<\/em> with<\/em> my<\/em> Family<\/em> (2019).\u00a0 Okay, Mr<\/em>. Nanny<\/em><\/a> (1993) with Hulk Hogan not so much. \u00a0And it often occurred to me that I\u2019d like to see some live bouts.\u00a0 So, last year, when a mate told me of the existence of the SPW and invited me to one of their events, I thought, why<\/em> not<\/em>?<\/p>\n

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Anyway, back to tonight\u2019s proceedings.\u00a0 The second bout on the bill involved two more local wrestlers, Destroyer Dharma and Kentona \u2013 the former defeating the latter with a pinfall, which in wrestling jargon is when you hold your opponent\u2019s shoulders against the ring-floor long enough for the referee to count to three. \u00a0Not for the last time that evening, the fighting spilled out of the confines of the ring and into the surrounding hall \u2013 much to the glee of the spectators, always happy to get a close-up view of the carnage.\u00a0 I should say that the crowd was a pleasing mix of young and old, male and female, and Singaporeans and foreigners.\u00a0 It was a far cry from the audiences I remember watching the 1970s British wrestling, which seemed to consist mainly of demented old grannies who\u2019d hobble forward and club Mick McManus with their handbags whenever he was against the ropes.<\/p>\n

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The third battle tonight was a hotly anticipated one between Singapore\u2019s Jack \u2018N\u2019 Cheese and the Gym Bros, who hail from Pattaya in Thailand.\u00a0 Jack \u2018N\u2019 Cheese are BGJ, aka Jack Chong, described on his Instagram page<\/a> as the \u2018Beast of Benevolence\u2019; and the Cheeseburger Kid,<\/a> whose yellow cowl-mask makes him resemble a jaundiced Deadpool. \u00a0The latter has become a popular fixture of Singapore\u2019s pro-wrestling world and tonight it looked like he had a mini-fan-club in tow \u2013 a small but voluble group in yellow T-shirts at the front of the crowd who cheered on his every move.\u00a0 It has to be said of their opponents, the Gym Bros, that they were at least a wee<\/em> bit camp.\u00a0 One had a headful of Debbie-Harry-style blonde hair and wore white spats up to his knees. The other sported a weedy moustache and was clad in tight pink shorts whose contours left little to the proverbial imagination.<\/p>\n

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To the delight of everyone \u2013 bar the Gym Bros \u2013 Jack \u2018N\u2019 Cheese won the bout through another pinfall.\u00a0 And nobody was more delighted than the Cheeseburger Kid, who reacted to victory by leaping up into BGJ\u2019s arms and posing there for the cameras.<\/p>\n

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Next came a tussle between two more wrestlers from the SPW roster: Bryson Blade, wearing bad-boy black-leather pants, and Referee Ryan, who, appropriately for a person sometimes working as a referee, was attired in a more sober costume of black and white. \u00a0This was billed as a \u2018Loser Gets Caned Match\u2019.\u00a0 The blurb for it declared, \u201c\u2026the loser will be forced to take a lashing with a Singapore cane post-match!\u00a0 Gather round, people!\u00a0 You\u2019re about to be taken back, school assembly style.\u201d\u00a0 That references the fact that Singapore not only allows caning<\/a> as a judicial punishment \u2013 a maximum of 24 strokes for a range of criminal offences \u2013 but also as a corporal punishment in schools, for male pupils who commit serious offences.\u00a0 (Actually, it took me<\/em> back, since corporal punishment was still legal in Northern Irish schools in the 1970s and I got caned a few times, though not with a Singaporean rattan cane but a beechwood one.)<\/p>\n

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Eventually, Referee Ryan lost through a pinfall and ended up receiving \u2018five of the best\u2019.\u00a0 \u00a0I wasn\u2019t sitting near enough to the ring to be sure, but I suspect the cane-strokes may not have landed with the fullest possible force.<\/p>\n

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Following a 15-minute interval, bout number five saw another pair of Singaporean wrestlers in action, Zhang Wen and Riz. The former won, again by a pinfall.\u00a0 Then came a trio of female wrestlers slugging it out in a three-way battle.\u00a0 Representing Singapore in this scrap was the formidable Alexis Lee<\/a>, who also goes under the moniker \u2018Lion City Hit Girl\u2019 and is the city-state\u2019s very first lady pro-wrestler.\u00a0 The Straits Times newspaper recently described her<\/a> as \u201c\u2026a rampaging figure of death, who will stomp and slam her opponents swiftly and ruthlessly.\u201d \u00a0I assume the Straits Times writer got the \u2018figure of death\u2019 idea from the white skull-make-up that covers half her face and her costume of tank-top, shorts and leggings patterned with bones and ribs. \u00a0Her foes tonight were two Japanese wrestlers, Miyu \u2018Pink Striker\u2019 Yamashita and Koya Toribami.\u00a0 I know tori<\/em> is the Japanese word for \u2018bird\u2019, which may explain why the latter fighter turned up in an elaborate, beaked bird-costume.<\/p>\n

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After a hard-fought contest \u2013 at one point the three of them were engaged in a sort of treble bearhug, with the bird-themed Koya Toribami caught in the middle like a piece of chicken in a chicken sandwich \u2013 Alexis Lee won with a pinfall.\u00a0 Afterwards, outside the ring, she posed defiantly with a glass of beer, which she\u2019d definitely earned.<\/p>\n

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The seventh and final bout was an all-Singaporean affair pitching two teams of three wrestlers against each other \u2013 the Horrors, consisting of Aiden Rex, Dr Gore and Da Butcherman, and the Midnight Bastards (billed in some quarters as \u2018State of Bastards\u2019), consisting of RJ, Mason and Andruew Tang, aka the Statement.\u00a0 Despite being the co-founder of and head coach at SPW, Tang \/ the Statement has a villainous ring persona: \u201cEmbrace the Statement or I will make a statement out of you!<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 This was billed as an \u2018Xtreme Rules\u2019 match, which meant there were no rules.\u00a0 Not only chairs could be utilized as weapons, but also tables, a big wooden board that someone dragged out from under the ring, and even a stepladder.\u00a0 Yes, I\u2019d noticed how that stepladder had been parked all evening at the far end of the hall and wondered when it was going to come in handy.\u00a0 It did when the spiky-mohawked Da Butcherman clambered up one side of it, and Andruew Tang, in gold-streaked trousers, clambered up its other side, and they faced off at the top.<\/p>\n

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At another point, the wrestlers hurriedly assembled, IKEA-style, a table in the ring.\u00a0 Then someone poured dozens of small, multicoloured, plasticky things across the tabletop.\u00a0 And soon after, an opponent got slammed down on the covered table, on his back.\u00a0 Ouch!\u00a0 One of my friends thought the plasticky things might be drawing pins.\u00a0 I had a horrible suspicion, though, that they were pieces of Lego.\u00a0 I remember how much my foot hurt after I stepped on a Lego-piece as a kid, so having your back thumped down against a whole table\u2019s worth of those must be hellishly sore.<\/p>\n

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Anyway, thanks to yet another pinfall, the Horrors emerged victorious.\u00a0 And that was it for the night.\u00a0 Just to make the experience a little bit sweeter, on our way out, we encountered the Cheeseburger Kid standing at the Foochow Building\u2019s entrance.\u00a0 We told him how much we\u2019d enjoyed his fight and he seemed to genuinely appreciate our warm words.<\/p>\n

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Certain sports purists might quibble about the tongue-in-cheek, even corny nature of some of what was on show tonight.\u00a0 But the SPW\u2019s get-togethers never fail to provide fun and excitement.\u00a0 The city \/ island state of Singapore has a reputation for being a calm, ordered and well-run place, but it\u2019s nice to think that there\u2019s a little part of it where, thanks to the SPW, for an occasional few hours, good-natured anarchy takes over.\u00a0 Where it becomes an anything-goes ‘lion city’ or a riotous \u2018hardcore island\u2019.\u00a0 Where \u2013 to borrow a quote from Lars Von Trier\u2019s Antichrist<\/em> <\/a>(2009) \u2013 \u201cChaos reigns!\u201d<\/p>\n

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    On Friday, August 16th, two friends and I ventured into the Foochow Building on Singapore\u2019s Tyrwhitt Road to experience Hardcore Island 2: A Fine City, the latest extravaganza staged by the Singapore Pro-Wrestling (SPW) association.\u00a0 We\u2019d been laggardly in getting there, having supped a beer too many in a nearby pub, and arrived … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Who chairs wins”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2517,2647],"tags":[4003,3998,4012,4008,3993,3986,3996,4017,3994,3989,4005,3992,4004,3990,4014,3984,3987,3995,3983,4016,3988,3991,4002,4007,3985,4001,4015,4011,3981,3997,4000,4006,3982,4013,4009,4010,3999],"class_list":["post-3003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-singapore","category-sport","tag-aiden-rex","tag-alexis-lee","tag-all-japan-pro-wrestling","tag-andruew-tang","tag-bgj","tag-big-daddy","tag-bryson-blade","tag-caning","tag-cheeseburger-kid","tag-ck-vin","tag-da-butcherman","tag-destroyer-dharma","tag-dr-gore","tag-emman","tag-fighting-with-my-family","tag-foochow-building","tag-giant-haystacks","tag-gym-bros","tag-hardcore-island-2-a-fine-city","tag-hulk-hogan","tag-kendo-nagasaki","tag-kentona","tag-koya-toribami","tag-mason","tag-mick-mcmanus","tag-miyu-yamashita","tag-mr-nanny","tag-new-japan-pro-wrestling","tag-pro-wrestling","tag-referee-ryan","tag-riz","tag-rj","tag-singapore-pro-wrestling","tag-the-wrestler","tag-world-of-sport","tag-world-wrestling-entertainment","tag-zhang-wen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3003"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3056,"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3003\/revisions\/3056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}