As my childhood friend’s dad informed us as kids, wrassling is what you do with your girlfriend on the couch. Wrestling is what you do with another man on a mat.
That will forever be filed under “comments made in the 80’s and 90’s that probably wouldn’t be made these days for fear of the unknown response and just to not have to get into it with someone over a harmless comment that they are taking to mean way more than it was ever intended to mean.”
Speaking of offensive, but not really, I went to MicroMania! The SELF PROCLAMED “midget wrestling” event at Whiskey a Go Go on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Yes, they were adamant that they called themselves that and it was ok. Even with that, I doubt I get a pass, so I’ll try to ride the line here.
Now, I don’t make it out to L.A. often, but when I do I tend to stick around for at least 20 years and I always make sure to go to an event or two in that time. For this trip the event was completely unplanned until the day of. While doing my usual Reddit review, I found a post about the marquee at the Whiskey, it said “MicroMania” and the person was upset that anyone would refer to themselves in a way outside of what the person reading it would personally interpret as non-offensive. As most do.
After reading a few of the comments I went to find the website. The show was that night! Tickets were cheap (like $30 a person – no added fees either!), so I grabbed two and go ready to head to the show with my patient special lady friend who was willing to come along.
To start things off on the wrong foot, I misread the doors open time as the show start time. We were there and ready at 7:15pm, but the doors weren’t going to open until 8pm. Whoops. So… time for a walk, I guess. We made it back at about 7:50 and there was a line now. We hopped in and waited, however, my tickets were at will call because I was trying to make many mistakes that day. This line was for the door, but the will call window wasn’t open yet. We kept waiting.
Finally! The will call window opened, I got out of line to get the tickets, and was surprised to learn that if you have will call tickets they’ll let you skip the line and head in once you have them in hand. That was cool. So they had us jump about 10 people and continue on our way inside.
The tickets were GA and there weren’t any chairs so we were standing. The balcony and booths had people that paid extra for a seat with a table. At the creaky body age I’m at now, I probably should have splurged for that. In the end, it was way better that I didn’t.
Now that we were there. We could finally wait in peace for the show to start.
With my screw up on the start time combined with the wait of an hour between doors opening and show time, I ensured we got to stand around and wait a bunch that night. This type of planning is a special skill I have.
The crowd wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small. We weren’t fighting for space, so that was great.
FINALLY the show started. It was on time, but again, it felt like a long wait because of my mistakes. The announcer came out to explain the evening. It wasn’t going to be what I was expecting. There was going to be a video game tournament in the middle of the event, but I was a bit confused about why.
Now that we all knew what was going on, the show could kick off.
The show started with Bridget the Midget coming out to sing a few songs in the ring. I didn’t know who she was, but my brother did when I told him about it later. She had been on Howard Stern a bunch and then went on to do some porn (as with most of Howard’s guests) or perhaps it was the other way around (as with most of Howard’s guests). Either way, she sang a few segments of songs to get the show going. I thought it would have been cooler if they blended and mixed the songs together so it was more fluid, but maybe that’s coming next time.
After this the fighting could start! Woo!
The first fight was between two locals. They hyped one guy up a bunch first, so we were all thinking he was the only local, then they said the other guy was local too, but he had already been kind of pushed into the heel category already. It was probably the plan.
The first match was great and it laid out the expectations for the rest of the night. The fights were going to be fun. No one was going to get hurt, but they were going to do some dirty moves and bookend it with dirty jokes.
The fight was fun and went on for a long time, but they kept the same energy level throughout the whole match. Thinking about that now, that’s damn impressive. These dudes were fit.
If you’ve watched the video already, then you know that I missed the end of this one, so here here’s a picture of the winner. I don’t remember any names, so sorry about that to the performers.
After this fight they surprised us with a woman’s fight. I was expected small people wrestling the whole night, but I was wrong! The women’s match was awesome! They did the high flying moves and gymnastics stuff. They were in the crowd looking like they were going to get a little more dangerous, but building security actually stopped them. I guess they hadn’t approved a few moves before the show started. It was probably best because one of the women had a bad back and was in tremendous pain.
I know for a fact that she had a bad back, because I have one too and she showed every tell. The wincing was rough, because I knew what was going on. Shit, I had been using a cane to keep myself upright only two weeks before this because of a flare up. I have so much respect for that woman. Powering through that pain while doing flips, taking hits, and running around has to be extremely painful.
I did get this pretty cool shot of her, though. She’s the one with the flying hair. The one laying on the mat was eating a ton of hits and slams. She was great too.
Now that the first set of matches are done, the event changed a bit. This is the point when the arcade cabinet was brought out and placed in front of the ring. The cabinet was not that big, it was one of those that you can get from Best Buy these day. From what I understood, the plan was to have a tournament and someone involved will be in the final match in some way.
The problems started immediately when it was quickly realized that the screen was too small for most of us to see. The second issue was that the announcer couldn’t get down there for some reason, so he couldn’t do a play-by-play, he was looking at the back of the cabinet. So… yeah, that kind of took us out of it for a bit. I was directly next to them though, so at least I got a good view of the fighters. I might have seen the screen for a moment, but not much of it.
Well, the tournament went on. The people fought. Ryu and Lil’ Mac were there. There was some back and forth. The announcer asked the guy in the X shirt if he could tell him what’s going on and the guy said “they’re fighting” which was totally fair for an audience member. In the end some kind of ringer won. I couldn’t understand the whole story, but he was in the audience the whole time, but then was part of the arcade portion. He had apparently beaten everyone in Mortal Kombat before or something.
Anyway, that ended and the main event was able to start. The card called for 25 Cent to fight some large sized person. (Yep, I told you I forgot everyone’s name. I remember 25 Cent, because that was the easiest to remember.) The someone was a former TNA wrestler, but I don’t know much about current day wrestlers.
I will say right now, the main event was awesome! I loved it. They did lots of good stunts. The fact that it was large size person vs small size person made it extra fun. I knew 25 Cent was going to do some crazy stuff and he did. He took some serious hits and bumps. He delivered some serious hits and bumps. They had a very fun match.
Just look at the big dude. His look was great for a heel. The twisted mustache and long goatee were spot on. The haircut fit him well and the clothing too. He is an experienced heel. You can tell.
Something I didn’t realize was going to happen, but probably should have realized was going to happen, were the crotch shots and talk. There were more comments about the little people being crotch height than you could shake a stick at, and they took full advantage of it during the fights.
After all was said and done. After all the pain. The shots to the nuts. The (lack of) blood. The screams. The cheers. The celebrations. The shots to the nuts. The incredible stunts. The shots to the nuts. The match ended.
The event was done. The champion was raised onto the shoulders of those in his corner. We cheered.
All in all. It was a great experience and a lot of fun. I would strongly suggest going to check it out if it’s near you.
Also, if you ever get the chance to see stunts performed directly in front of you, go. This is far from the first time for me. I’m lucky enough to have went to school with a friend that was a stuntman. He did things I didn’t think were real and some that I didn’t realize were so complex until we watched the footage later. Stunts are awesome. Go watch them. Go tell the performers how amazing they are for doing them.
Were my words and pictures not enough!?! FINE! Here’s the video:
Find out what’s next from MicroMania Midget Wrestling here.
