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Saturday October 22 2016 - Local wrestling show in Montreal: ICW	Wrestling shows
I finally attended a local wrestling show hosted by the ICW in the basement of a church. Strange place? Well, most small and local organizations start out like that and they then grow bigger elsewhere. I've been eyeing the association for the past 6 months, but could only attend it today, my prior attempts failed due to scheduling conflict. I was told at the door that pictures are forbidden, which I found a bit weird considering that small organizations like ICW can benefit a lot from the publicity generated by pictures and videos taken by members and distributed around the net. While it can spread positively, I guess I can understand that perhaps it can also spread negatively as well, so they rely only on a basic word of mouth to get more spectators. The rule about "Forbidden pictures" was quite a big bummer for me, because I wanted to take the opportunity to measure the capacity of my new camera. Oh well.. I'll survive without it. The venue is big enough to accommodate probably 300 people, but about 50-75 showed up. They charged a 10$ entrance fee per person and there is a concession stand where they sell drinks and goodies ranging from 1-3$. Most of their wrestlers wear a t-shirt while fighting in the ring, which is pretty much a eye sore for me, but I do understand that some wrestlers are uncomfortable otherwise. The crowd was pretty obnoxious and kept yelling "Super Hugo" during my time there. I have to admit though that once this "Super Hugo" showed up, he wrestled a much bigger guy called "Big Fat Sebastien". The hype explained itself since Super Hugo performed over-the-top amazing moves... I saw him hold his oppponent's hand, climb the ropes in the corner, do a light jump on the third rope and flip around. I kinda gasped... you only see these things on TV, but in real life, it does look very dangerous. The chances of missing this move are pretty high and the end result could be catastrophic for both the applier and the victim. If I was to do some of the holds that Hugo did, I probably would have injured myself. Sebastien himself was also flexible and made lifts, twists and split kicks that I would not have expected. In a different match, there was this bearish type of guy with a nice goatee, good looking in my opinion, a charisma that cheered the crowd and he strapped along a great wrestling persona. He was double-teamed by two even bigger guys. One held him in a headlock while the other tag team member repeatedly gave him kicks and punches. This was the only part of the entire wrestling show where I had a... um... a hard-on. I blushed. Ha ha ha. I learned much later that the wrestler goes under the pseudonym "The Magician Magic Mike". His real name is apparently Eric and he was director of the ICW in 2014. The only reason I found this out was because of one of the pictures posted on the official site. It is written all over his short-sleeve leather jacket. Yeah.. we can't take any pictures, but they reserve the right to take as many as they want, of course. It took 45 minutes before the show actually started though... and I've decided to leave midway about 90 minutes later because there was a commotion between members of the crowd and the security guards. The security guard was actually holding off the owner of the wrestling association because the owner wanted to hit one of the crowd members. It was a bit scary... When I came back home, I tried to make the calculation... at 10$ per person, they make about 750$ for the night. That's insufficient for all the wrestlers, security guards, referee, announcer and extra staff plus the time and effort required to set up the ring and the decor. So, my conclusion is that all of these wrestlers do it for fun, and that many of the people there are volunteers. The show promptly explained to me why small organizations and wrestling associations are struggling financially and are disappearing from the face of the earth... all of them are eclipsed by the gargantuan WWE and the like. I mean if you google "Wrestling Montreal", there are only two names that show up: NCW and ICW. NCW is outside the island of Montreal and requires one hour and a half of travel by suburb train whereas ICW is accessible by subway and is only 15-30 minutes away from my location. I also learned much later that an association by the name of "BattleWar" also holds a monthly event in the heart of downtown Montreal in a bar called "Les Foufounes Electriques". Anyway, I will be coming back to ICW, remembering this time to keep my heavy gear camera home and just relax. I'm thinking however I should probably aim for the NCW next. Give each wrestling organization a chance. If I wanted to give my camera a better trial, something tells me that I need to head south, pass the border to the US where many wrestling promotions appreciate photographers because they know that the publicity will bring them new spectators, new talent and new revenues.
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