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| Friday February 26 2010 - NYC Wrestlefest 2010 Review: Wow! | Wrestling events |
If I could resume the Wrestlefest in NYC this year in one word, it would be: "Wow!"  Now if you want the full review, you can read ahead, but please be aware that it is pretty long. I have never wrestled this much in my life. Day 1 After a 9-hour bus trip from Montreal to New York City, I arrived on Sunday February 21 around 4 pm where I checked in to the hotel of the event. At 6 pm, I wrestled both Jobberboy (id 482) and Ed (id 3011) in a mixed match of competitive, some 2 versus 1 and give and take styles. At 9 pm, I had scheduled another wrestling appointment which ended up with, unfortunately, a no-show. The wrestler did however follow-up the next day with an e-mail and mentioned that he was unable to get my room number in time after my check-in. Day 2 On Monday February 22, I started the morning by wrestling JC (abbreviated here because this wrestler asked to be anonymous) at 8:30 am in a semi-competitive match. At 10 am, I took on Joewrestler (id 2970) in mostly competitive submission or promission style. Joewrestler may seem small, but he can pack a punch and deliver some good offense/defense. At 1 pm, I took on NYRassleMan (id 395) in again competitive submission/promission. We later on switched to give and take after draining our energy reserves. I've wrestled NYRassleMan previously back in Montreal and took pictures for Match ID 4. We took the opportunity to take some more shots this time around to create a re-match. At 4 pm, it was time to wrestle Wrestlnfool (id 1886) in a jobber/heel match where I was the heel and he was the jobber completely. This style was a blessing considering that I was weakened earlier by successive active submission matches. During this match, Wrestlnfool had advised me to reserve a time spot on my following days for an Open Room Event where any wrestler can walk in to chat, wrestle or meet other wrestlers. I felt that was an genious idea and went on to create two Open Room Events: one for Tuesday February 23 between 7 pm to midnight and one for Wednesday February 24 between 10 pm to 2 am. I proceeded into informing as much wrestlers as I can about the event. Slightly before 7 pm, I saw NJ_Woodbridge briefly and we wrestled a little bit. The guy was sheer and brute power, I don't think I had ever experienced someone with that much strength, aside maybe from WrestlBud from the Okie Rumble. We couldn't wrestle much because I had to leave for the meet and greet at 7 pm which was held at a restaurant. I think we were about 14 wrestlers at the supper talking cheerfully and trying to set up a few matches. After the meal, around 9:30 pm, I went back to my room with Fillipino python (id 1729), Jobberinnyc (id 1378), Dean2009 and Wrestlg to wrestle in my room (woot!). Since most of us just finished eating, we watched WWE RAW on TV for a little while, but we eventually wrestled after the divas started showing up and nobody was interested in watching them... hehehe. At one point, we were the five of us on the mat(tress)! I was still able to wrestle with Fillipino Python and Wrestlg individually in short competitive or semi-competitive match-ups. With Dean2009, I employed light submission in another short match. That was pretty much my day on Monday, which, in my opinion, was pretty eventful (!!!) As you can see, for the first official full day of match, I've spaced out the matches by 3 hours to allow for stamina recovery in between them. Most of the matches lasted around an hour and a half, giving me another hour and a half to eat up a bit or to rest. Day 3 On Tuesday February 23, I took on NickZ (id 3023) as my early bird wrestler, but I had agreed with him that I would only give 70% of my strength to wrestle him. Since I had already wrestled him previously during the Okie Rumble and knew from my previous match I had back then that it is nearly impossible for me to even have a slight chance of beating him, I didn't want to tire myself completely for the remaining wrestlers I had scheduled for the day. Nevertheless, we had a great time with a competitive to semi-competitive rough housing. At 11 pm, I got to meet Alberto6969 (id 2980) in a competitive/promission then later give and take style. Alberto was extremely experienced, having so much pro wrestling and submission training under his belt. Many of you will probably recognized him as one of the wrestlers from the former JPWA. At 1 pm, I met with Wrestlefan (id 2246) to do some give and take. We also did a little pro match afterwards. At 3 pm, I realized a boo-boo in my schedule and noticed that I scheduled for wednesday something I had expected to schedule on tuesday. I fixed the issue and re-scheduled it for wednesday at a later time. Being free, I contacted my next opponent a little bit earlier: At 3:30 pm, I went to Ruffbear7's room who was originally scheduled for 5 pm where we wrestled in a semi-competitive match. Later on, I took on the role of jobber enjoying whatever holds Ruffbear7 could put on me and attempt to make me tap. I definitely enjoyed this match as I extended it to 3 hours, having extra time because of the previous mischedule. At 7 pm, I went back to my room for the Open Room Event I had scheduled. About 14 wrestlers showed up: Fillipino python (id 1729), Mattsqueezer, Scotilla (id 3020), Wrestlefan (id 2246), Jobberboy (id 482), NickZ (id 3023), Wrestlnfool (id 1886), JackBouvier, Rubberbear, Brawl_Mart, RuffBear7, NJ_Woodbridge, JCEMT and Prostud_MI. Mind you, from the above listing, I only got to wrestle Jobberboy, NickZ, Scotilla, Wrestlnfool, Mattsqueezer, Rubberbear, Jackbouvier and NJ_Woodbridge. And even there, I had a very short match with the last 4. The other wrestlers were there to chat, meet the other wrestlers and watch. Needless to say, I was extremely happy with the turn out at the Open Room. The main style that I've used in the Open Room matches was rough submission. I technically had no chance against Scotilla and NJ_Woodbridge as these powerhouse have way too advanced technical skills and body power for me to even hope to gain any submissions on them. I also have to note that Wrestlnfool gave me a surprise here by employing firm and controlling submission techniques that shows he is no push-over. Then again, he had quite a bit of training from NickZ. Mattsqueezer had the upper-hand on me on submission as well, but it's hard to say since our match was pretty short. With Rubberbear, I employed light submission and finally, for JackBouvier, I got to experience a little warm-up in pro fantasy. Either ways, I had a match scheduled with him for day 4. For this particular day 3, I had my wrestling appointments scheduled out by 2 hours interval, so a little bit rougher than yesterday. However, in several of the matches, some of the wrestlers would come in 30 minutes late and leave 30 minutes early, so I still had a 1 hour between my matches to eat a few snacks and rest up to be ready to rassle again. I was supposed to leave a spot each day for a big supper, but I was greedy and booked those supper spots for matches. By the end of the day, I wasn't that hungry, but my energy was very low. So, please don't do like me, leave a good 2 hours to eat and digest.  Day 4 On the last day, Wednesday February 24, the morning started with a nice, quick and good breakfast with Brawl_Mart, Dean2009, JackBouvier and Wrestlnfool (id 1886). I've needed this meal so badly considering that I've ate nothing but snacks and small food items on Day 3. At 11 pm, I started my wrestling with a light match with Jones, a nice and big bear where we mainly traded wrestling holds and had a little bit of semi-competitive wrestling. My next match after that was scheduled between 2 pm to 4 pm and ended up being a no-show. I technically wasted my time with a guy hiding under the alias Scrappy027 which had no profile, no picture, but I had decided to take a risk. He did not even bother to follow-up with an e-mail about his absence. Fortunately, at around 3:30 pm, I had Dean2009 and NickZ (id 3023) showing up a bit earlier. We couldn't wrestle immediately because they just ate... Still, after a while, I wrestled light submission with Dean2009 and rougher submission with NickZ and gave both of them a little bit of massage. Yes, by Day 4, I think we all need a good massage.  At 6 pm, JackBouvier was up and I wrestled my first pro fantasy match. I mean I did a little bit of pro fantasy with my master in Quebec City, but it wasn't as true pro fantasy as it was in the match with JackBouvier. I enjoyed it very much. I felt it was simple because it was a follow-the-flow type of match. JackBouvier is also very fun to tumble with. Interestingly enough, I felt that pro fantasy could be as tiring as competitive/rough submission. In competitive wrestling, you grunt less and concentrate into resisting a particular submission so you somewhat conserve your strength from crying out loud. In pro fantasy, you grunt more while being less impacted by the hits, but you give out your full breath to cry out loud, to grunt or to express your pain, hence tiring you in a different way. JackBouvier's match ended at 7 pm. At this time, he had another match scheduled in his room, so Dean2009, NickZ, Jobberboy (id 482) and WrestleGP_NYC went back to my room to borrow it. The match was technically light to rough submission with optional gut punching, but anyone, if they wanted, could tag-in to continue the submission or help out the other wrestler. It was very fun and interesting although I dunno what style I can call this. Despite the rotations, I was conserving my energy for an upcoming submission match so I didn't get to rotate to tag-in to be able to wrestle WrestleGP_NYC. At 8 pm, I had a match with FChallenger which was very close to UFC-Style with submission (but without the blood of course). FChallenger delivered a lot of punches, which I tried to resist as much as I can while we were wrestling. He was stronger than me, but I still consider our session a very fair match-up. FChallenger made me tap a couple of times. In the few amount of times I was able to be in control, he was able to break free and I was unable to land any successful submissions on him. I have to say that this was the best match I had during the Wrestlefest and also the only match where I got to use my wrestling/fighting gloves. Finally, at 10 pm, I had the Open Room again, but this time, only Wrestlg and NickZ (id 3023) showed up and even then, Wrestlg simply passed by to say hello and I misunderstood that NickZ was too sore to wrestle some more. Had I knew he was still up for wrestling, I still had some strength left for some more rumble.  Anyway, I made a mistake with the Open Room: I scheduled it too late and also caused confusion with my previous one yesterday that was held at 7 pm. I'll have to make sure to be more careful in the future and keep my Open Room times stable. I was particularly tired on day 4, but that's normal... I mean how often do you wrestle for several days several wrestlers with little time to rest in between? Back in Montreal, if I had a match, I would have that single match for the day and nothing else... it is already hard to schedule a single match, but in an event like the Wrestlefest everybody comes for that purpose so it is easier to set up a schedule to manage multiple matches in a day. Day 5 I left New York City on the morning of Thursday February 25 to make sure to avoid the bad weather that was projected. The 9-hour bus trip became a 10-hour trip because of slight delays on the road, multiple stops and longer processing time at customs, but I made it back in Montreal safely. Incidentally, I was being told that I narrowly escaped a snow storm that paralyzed the traffic back in NYC and the surrounding highways. Summary In total, I had around 16 matches, 2 cancellations, 2 no-shows and 1 mischedule. The mischedule was re-arranged to another time spot so that was not a problem. Cancellations I can deal also because I was notified in advance, so I managed to book a different wrestler for a match. No-shows however are very annoying, but they are to be expected when you're attending to an event like this. Not everyone is a nice or reliable wrestler, but still, the majority of the people at the Wrestlefest respected their appointments. 16 out of 18 is after all an 89% wrestling output and that represents a very high rating of scheduled and completed wrestling matches. I guess I should consider myself lucky since back in Montreal, whenever I try to meet new wrestlers, they don't show up about 50% of the time... If I was slightly dissapointed by the attendance number of the Okie Rumble in 2009, this year's matches at the NYC Wrestlefest more than made up for it. I also ended the week with no broken bones, no major muscle pains, just some fatigue, and perhaps a overused knee for trying to make as many people submit to my body scissors. Today, my knee seems to have recovered and I'm all rested up with a good overnight sleep. I'm still giving my knee a day or two before I'll exercise again though... I am really overjoyed to have being able to wrestle that many wrestlers and to experience different styles other than my regular ones. If you're an occasional wrestler like me (where your frequency of wrestling varies from month to month), it is good to rest your body from one match to another. Having the successive matches switch to different styles helped me recover the strength or used different parts of your body to let the other parts recover. In summary, the NYC Wrestlefest is the best wrestling event I had ever attended. Estimated attendance: ~58 My total amount of matches: 16 (Open Room matches are counted as 1) Amount of different wrestlers I wrestled: 17 Official Wrestlefest website: http://hashbock.com/wrestlefest/ | |