Passin' The Axe at Ohio Hatchet Wrestling: Rebirth

To the mainstream public, professional wrestling has been long represented by the glitz, glamour and choreography of corporations such as the WWE, lifting unknown actors/athletes to the status of cultural icon with the help of an enormous budget spent allocated to marketing, merchandising and advertising. However, much like the music scene, there exists a scene in which diehards struggle for notoriety and respect among those who revel in the lo-fi glory of the underground or “backyard” scene. Many cities and regions have their own scene and style of presentation that ranges from school gymnasiums to Masonic lodges to backyard trials of pain and strength. In Central and Southeast Ohio, the Columbus-based Ohio Hatchet Wrestling reigns supreme.As the name suggests, Ohio Hatchet Wrestling has its roots as a spinoff of The Insane Clown Posse’s Juggalo Championshit Wrestling league, which brought a grisly, gritty realism that countered the glitz and glamour of the WWF / WCW of the time. Ohio Hatchet Wrestling sponsors several events each year, usually taking place in community centers, open retail spaces and, in the case of Saturday night’s event “Ohio Hatchet: Rebirth,” school gymnasiums.

West Elementary School in Athens played a host to a modest gauntlet of merchandise vendors and concession stands in the hallways surrounding the gymnasium, in which vendors hocked reasonably-priced merchandise and wrestling memorabilia, including magazines, t-shirts, action figures and custom-made mouse pads. The gym held the centerpiece of the night, an enormous red wrestling ring, which is truly an impressive sight no matter if it’s in a giant arena such as those that host WWE events or drably-lit school cafegymatoriums. It was surrounded by a great deal of steel railings that separated the audience from ringside and hinted at the illusion of danger and mayhem only yards away in the squared circle.

The first match was a three-way free-for-all between OHW villain Ashton Vuitton (whose flamboyant presentation and twinky good looks makes him a favorite with the ladies), "Violent" Vance Desmond, who hails from Three Mile Island and a local hero Zac Vincent, who hails from Hockhocking.

Vincent entered the gym to an ultra-slick dubstep track, which made him my favorite right off the bat. He took quite the beating for the first half of the match, as the two others ganged up on him, but the promise of a win soon tore the dastardly duo apart, allowing the local hero to subdue both of them in a feat of acrobatic intensity and well-executed throws and holds, earning him his rightful due as the victor. He took his victory stroll around the gym to the strains of wobble bass and drum machines while Vuitton (pictured below) had to be untangled from the ropes.


The rest of the matches followed in the usual fashion. Usually the good guys took a beating but came back in the end, except for a few matches where the villains occasionally came out ahead in the end.

There was an appearance by the tag team The Bastard Sons Of Rock and Roll, which featured a team of guys who wouldn't look out of place at a Madball or Napalm Death show (one was wearing a Bouncing Souls jacket, and the other was named "Freebird" Bryan Cross [pictured below] but looked like he'd be at home in a thrash metal band). The same could be said for most of the crowd.

While there was certainly a contingency of juggalos, they were mostly outnumbered by the number of local metalheads and punks dotting the stands, as if it were a show at The Union, not an underground wrestling event. The rest of the seats were filled by locals who just wanted to seem some wrasslin'.

During a brief intermission, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the headlining attraction, Mad Man Pondo, who was scheduled to fight fellow OHW superstar Viper in a barbed-wire-boards match.

In person, Pondo (pictured below) looks just as grizzled and off-kilter as he does in his various videotaped appearances. I first encountered Pondo’s well–known visage in high school, when my friends and I watched a DVD of various JCW matches, one of which featured Pondo kicking the living shit out of a fat, jovial lad in a barrel who was appropriately named Fat Fuck Barrel Boy. During this match, Pondo raked a barbed-wire bat across Fat Fuck Barrel Boy’s face and bodyslammed him off the balcony of the venue through a folding table. It ruled, and cemented him in my mind, along with Necrobutcher, as a top-quality hardcore wrestler, willing to mangle and maim himself for the crowd in a way that few athletes are willing to do. I know, the detractors of this article will cry, “Oh, but it’s all staged!” Well, staged it may be, but you can’t fake getting a dollar bill staplegunned to your face or getting thrown into a pit of razorwire, and guys like Pondo revel in that kind of self-destruction.

Other commitments forced me to leave before the barbed-wire-boards match, but not before I indulged my primal instincts and got to see some blood. During a contest between Shawn Day (who spent 10 minutes prior to the match calling everyone in the audience “homos”) and "New Age Punisher" TJ Phillips, Day fell into one of the steel guardrails, which fell into a young child’s face. The child was alright, although his enraged father promptly rushed through the barrier and began trying to fight Day. He needed to be restrained by the promoters and event staff while Day was hurried out of the gym. The enraged father was ejected from the event and went on warpath, flipping tables and throwing chairs down the hall at the small crowd that was hurrying out. The sound man, Bill-Do (pronounced like "dildo") ended up getting pulled into the fray, as well as 8 OHW wrestlers who had come to sort the issue out the way that incredibly muscular, testosterone-fueled professional wrestlers tend to settle matters of conflict.

Despite this minor disturbance, the event went extremely smoothly and brought me to realize how much of a bond that the Midwest DIY music scene shares a common bond with the Midwest DIY wrestling scene. They are truly kindred souls, who aim to put on a good show by the masses and for the masses. They ignore the high-budget trappings and put the focus not on the production or the merchandising, but back where it belongs, on the brutal choreography and acrobatics of professional wrestling. They do this in a completely independent way that puts the emphasis not on glitz and glamour (unless you’re Ashton Vuitton, of course), but on a crowd-pleasing spectacle that caters to the niche groups of diehards that see the necessity to support the underground and those who put their hearts and souls into it.

Congrats to Ohio Hatchet Wrestling’s organizers, staff and wrestlers for setting up a great event. If you can help me identify the unnamed wrestlers in this article, please shoot an e-mail to nyodened@gmail.com. I look forward to future exhibitions, especially the Death In The Valley tournament.

-Aaron Vilk, Promotional Director