Suburban Warfare: Saturday Night's Alright for Kicking Ass

Essendon's antiquated Ukrainian Hall is hardly a respectable venue for a bloody eight-man caged wrestling match. But tell me—what would an appropriate setting look like? On the second Saturday of each month, a humble suburban gathering place becomes the Melbourne City Wrestling Arena.

Australian professional wrestling promotions used to attract crowds of thousands well into the 1970s. But these days, live wrestling events have gone underground—becoming a rare true underground subculture in this internet era. Melbourne City Wrestling, founded in 2010, draws in several hundred diehards every month. Whether it's parents or children, teenage fangirls or slightly too-cool millennials, those of us seated around the ring this night know we're in on Melbourne's best-kept secret.

The lights darken; the atmosphere's more intense than usual. Each of the night's seven matches is a short story, each event a chapter in an ongoing saga. Since MCW's flagship Ballroom Brawl show in March, the company's fan-favourite wrestlers have been terrorised by invaders, the rival faction "The Mighty Don't Kneel". Title matches and main events alike have been cut short by TMDK interference. Despite victories each way, both sides crave a decisive finish. Tonight, it culminates in a Caged Warfare match. Oh yes—there will be blood.

In the opening match, 10-year veteran Mike Burr takes on the younger, smaller Adam Brooks. Wrestlers tell stories through their body language, and Adam Brooks has the intense stare and high, grating whine of a born heel. Mike Burr's a bearded, tattooed family man—his wife and baby son are in the front row. Brooks gets all up in her face—"you're a disgraceful mother!" He gets raucous boos—but he's so good at what he does that half the crowd can't help but cheer.

Burr gets the best of an early exchange, until Brooks starts viciously targeting his hand. He bravely works through the pain—at one point, hitting Brooks so hard that his spit goes flying onto the front row. Burr lands an enormous superplex off the top rope, then rolls into another suplex. His victory seems assured, but Brooks kicks out at two and a half. He takes control, dives into an even more spectacular swanton bomb—his back and shoulders connect with Burr's chest—and it's over. Brooks reminds us that he's an incredible wrestler, while Burr gets immense respect in losing.

It takes serious nerve to channel your aggression, to make it look like you're slamming your mortal enemy onto their head—when in reality, you're protecting your partner from actual bodily harm. And it takes a strong stomach to fire staples into another human. Preston and Payne, two cruel, methodical villains, take on the lovably deranged Aussie icon KrackerJak and his skinny young partner Lochy Hendricks—who enters to the Backstreet Boys' "Larger Than Life". Riot shields, toasters, roadwork signs and Xboxes all come into play. And ohhh, that stapler. The crowd groans with every click. Wrestling doesn't always aspire to transgressive performance art, but when it's weird, it's really weird.

Women's wrestling, in the Western world at least, is still a developing art form. Tonight, MCW offers two very different takes. Firstly, an intergender match between Hawko, a sleazeball who thinks he's God's gift to women wrestlers, and the blue-haired rookie Erika Reid. Thankfully, the match stays out of potentially thorny territory—it's pure physical comedy. Erika chases Hawko around the ring, until he crawls pathetically underneath—only to emerge wearing a cricket helmet and a shit-eating grin. Erika takes him down, puts the helmet between his legs, and delivers a running dropkick straight to the balls. If you can get a mostly male crowd to cheer that, you're doing something right.

But when Kellyanne takes on Evie, it's deadly serious. The ring announcer introduces them as "two of the world's best", and it's true—both are seasoned competitors, and they're only in their twenties. Evie's impossible to dislike, while Kellyanne oozes malevolence—she's a genuinely threatening presence in person.

In the night's most physically terrifying spot, Kellyanne hits a running cannonball from the ring apron onto the floor. But Evie wins with a diving foot stomp, and the pop's enormous—it's the first clean babyface win of the night. Kellyanne retreats, wounded and seething. This feud's only just beginning.

We watch the steel cage being set up during the intermission, coolly indifferent to the blood that's about to be spilled inside it. But we're not cheering for violence—we're cheering for the good guys to overcome it.

But the odds are stacked against them, and MCW's moral compasses—Dowie James and MCW heavyweight champion Elliot Sexton—have little confidence in each other. To make things worse, Sexton is ambushed backstage earlier in the night—will he even make it to the ring?

TMDK's sly Marcius Pitt enters first, to decidedly politically incorrect chants—"let's go small dick!" The plucky Dowie James follows, looking excited when he should be scared. He throws himself at Pitt with unbelievable speed, both men hitting the cage. Every few minutes, another wrestler joins them. Dowie can handle Pitt, and he can handle the incoming Slex, but not both at once.

Every time Team MCW make a comeback, they're soon outnumbered. JXT enters, fights valiantly, even jumps off the top of the cage—but the enormous Jonah Rock decks him. Mr Juicy, Jonah's physical equal, evens the odds—but not enough. We have a panoramic view—a Hieronymus Bosch painting—of MCW's systematic dismantlement.

Like the final boss in a video game, TMDK's Jag Hartley Jackson strides out to Slayer's "Raining Blood". All four TMDK members yell out—a war cry—and deck MCW again for good measure. TMDK stand united, tired, but virtually unharmed. Dowie and JXT are both bleeding from their foreheads. Elliot Sexton's music, "We Will Rock You", hits, but there's no sign of the man. We fear the worst. Jackson taunts the crowd as he stomps on Dowie—"Is this your hero?"

Minutes later, Sexton's music hits again, and he emerges for real. He faces off against Jackson, each man holding a steel chair. Sexton's eyes stare daggers; his body language is pure authority. Jackson, the devil embodied, invites Sexton to hit Dowie instead. It wouldn't be the first time they've come to blows.

But no! Sexton swings the chair at Jackson's head. He lifts Jackson a vertical 180 degrees, and delivers a brainbuster headfirst onto a pile of chairs. One, two, three—it's over before we can even process what's happened. The crowd bursts into cheers. Five months of tension evaporates in a clatter of skull on plastic. It's become a cliché, but wrestling makes you feel it: the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.

So why the hell is pro wrestling now considered niche? It's the most universal language there is! But even in wrestling, moments of pure, joyful bliss aren't all that frequent. You can't manufacture them; you can only earn them. Over the course of 2016, MCW have built to their very own little WrestleMania 30 climax. They set a very high standard for Australian wrestling—athleticism, presentation, emotion, and now storytelling, too. The bar's been raised for their upcoming sixth anniversary shows.

Indie wrestling promotions thrive on being the underdog. They don't need mainstream approval—they're fine just the way they are. But Melbourne City Wrestling, at least, deserves everyone's attention.

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