CANADIAN COUNTRY FAIR WRESTLERS

I went to high school with a guy who wrestles at Delfs' Martial Arts & Health Club (some place 30 minutes north of Toronto). I never knew much about him except that one time he stuck it to a friend of mine on my parent's couch. Now he's a wrestler at the fair and goes by the name "RJ City." Over the years I kept hearing about his matches and made many empty plans to watch him bodyslam some greased-up guys. Then, I got around to watching that wrestler movie everyone was talking about a few years ago and was like, "Hmm I wonder if they're all depressing dudes who have a hard time finding love?" So I finally made my way to his gym where he kindly introduced me to his beefy colleagues and showed me the ring, set up in a backroom past elliptical machines and kid's karate classes. These were the country fair wrestlers—comfortable doing their thing in between stalls of home-baked pies and prize-winning swine. They wanted to make it to the big time, but were sitting pretty in the little leagues for now.

RJ City aka RJ Skinner

Vice: What's your favourite wrestling move?
RJ: I like to cheat. A lot. I like to poke guys in eyes, I like to pull hair and choke. I like to put my feet on the ropes…

This is starting to sound kinky.
I don't care about the moves. My character just wants to get in there and win.

Do you get a lot of ladies this way?
Yeah, some ladies like it. Some are extreme. I get weird gifts. Someone crocheted me a "Do Not Disturb" door sign. They message you all the time and want to know where you are. Someone else printed out a photo taken of the last time I saw her—a nice glossy photo. Stuff like that.

How old are these women?
Varying age… I'd say 25 to 50? The one who crocheted the sign was of an indeterminate age, let's just put it that way.

What's your day job?
I just finished school. I have a degree in Culture and Entertainment with a minor in Marketing and they told me I could come back and write my thesis. I wrote about the ritualistic function of music in wrestling.

Are you the thinking man's wrestler?
I probably am… which isn't really saying that much.

What's your day job?
I work at a bar.

What gets you more chicks? Working at the bar or wrestling?
Wrestling, because they don't allow me to wear my tights at the bar.

Do you win often?
If you worry about the winning and losing then you're missing the point. It's not a sport. It's completely not sport. It's a mockery of sport. It goes where sports don't.

Asylum & Burns (The Flatliners) aka Nick & Matt

Vice: What's your favourite wrestling move?
Burns: We do a lot of tag stuff. Some are high impact—they don't have names.

How did you guys get into this?
Asylum: We were training together and we realized that a lot of people who have similar body types package themselves that way, and we're a similar size. We got matching costumes. We wanted to be something different and it's worked for us. I try to compare us to bands, because they're responsible for their own gigs, own merchandise, networking, the whole thing.

What's your day job?
Burns: I'm trying to join the fire department. Right now I just work for a restaurant, supervising and managing. I took police foundations at college, but then I decided I didn't want to be a cop.
Asylum: I'm a grade three teacher.

Do you ever threaten the kids with wrestling moves?
No.

What's the grossest shit that some kid's done?
A kid was sitting on the mat and I was reading a story and he decided to barf all over himself and everyone scattered. I called someone in to clean it up. I'm not the "wipe the bum" type teacher. I can't handle that stuff.

Haha, OK tough guy. Are there any wrestling groupies?
Burns: Here's the thing—if there's wrestling groupies, they're not the kind of ladies you want go get. Do you know what I mean?
Asylum: They're not the type you'd want to bring home to your mom.

What does that mean?
What do you think that means?

I don't know. I've never brought a lady back to my mom.
Well, if I did, it wouldn't be some of the wrestling types you meet. You know exactly what's going on. If you're lucky, they'll have teeth.
Burns: A lot of towns we wrestle in are very hick-ish… the attractive women in those towns have generally left those towns, so you're left with the leftovers, you could say. Sometimes we do OK when we go out afterward.

What's the reaction when you tell someone that you wrestle on the side?
Either they're like, "That's weird" and run away, or they're intrigued and ask, "Is it fake?"

Is it fake?
No it's not fake!

Mommy Tsunami aka Crystal

Vice: Do you pick up a lot of guys through wrestling?
M.T.: Uhhhhhhh. If you've ever been to a wrestling show and seen the crowd, you don't want to… beer bellies, fat, sweaty old men, or really young little boys. Not really a diverse age group there.

Favourite move?
Vader Bomb. It's my finisher.

What's your day job?
I'm a swimming instructor.

What's your favourite swimming move?
The breaststroke.

Do you find the chlorine makes your hair a little greeny?
Yeah but you can use special chlorine shampoo. It's expensive. Mostly I just dye it.

Ryan

Vice: Why did you want to get into wrestling?
Ryan: Lifelong dream. I've always wanted to wrestle ever since I was a little kid.

How long have you been training with these guys?
About two months.

Do you totally suck?
I'll be the first one to admit that it takes me awhile to get certain things. They're trying to communicate non-verbally to me and the only way to do that is to be loose and trust the other person.

You don't have a wrestling name yet?
I'm thinking something to do with fire.

Why?
I work for the fire department—captain of prevention.

What's the biggest threat to fire safety?
Unsafe cooking. There was a family of four at home with a pot of grease on the stove and it caught [in a second] and the whole kitchen went up.

JESSICA BLOOM