TBP Live from DOA Pro Wrestling

Thumbtack baseball bats

Becoming a wrestling fan in my twenties has been a peculiar experience. I didn’t grow up watching Shawn Michaels or Randy Orton or Edge, so I never saw the sport through larger-than-life, rose-tinted lenses like many other people my age did when they were introduced to the sport as kids.

Instead, I started enjoying wrestling as an adult, causing me to see wrestlers as, well, workers, and to see wrestling itself as I do most other entertainment fields; filled with employees on the ground sacrificing their bodies and minds to do the work, while a few bloodthirsty ghouls sit in offices collecting the monetary rewards of said work.

Actually, in this specific line of work, sometimes the ghouls are also on the ground…

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Also just like other entertainment fields, there are people outside the limelight, worlds away from any corporate sponsorship, working to make a living doing what they love— like the wrestlers I watched on Saturday, February 3rd, when I attended DOA Portland. Specifically, I went to an event called Kraken Skulls at the Eagles Lodge near the University of Portland campus.

NOTE: if anyone can tell me what the Eagles Lodge actually is and what they do there, I’d be appreciative. Felt a little cult-y. Like a place cops would hang out and chant in unison. I digress.

Pre-event I met up with my friend John who is my biggest pro wrestling fan friend. He’s also very handsome.

Our first stop was The Twilight Room, a bar near UP’s campus (where John attended) and just three blocks from where Kraken Skulls was slated to take place. The T Room has my respect— it knows what it is (a fun, semi-dive for locals and college kids) and embraces that.

Cheese curds review: 8.1/10. Pretty impressed.

Video lottery review: 3.2/10. I started with 20 bucks, got down to about three dollars, made it back up to $19.27 and called it a night. Lots of work to lose 73 cents.

Following our brief T Room stop it was time for some wrastlin’ so we moseyed a few blocks to Eagles Lodge #3426… whatever the fuck that means. You’re telling me there are at least 3,426 of these things? Is the Eagles Lodge pulling the strings of our society without us knowing? Stay woke or whatever.

The line for Kraken Skulls was out the door; we both expected a crowd but seeing a full house was both surprising and heartening. “The people of Portsmouth really care about their wrestling,” said the gentleman behind us in line.

After some light heckling from the doorman about John’s CM Punk shirt, we were in the building. As soon as we sat down we realized that we’d entered a new world— literally— and learned quickly that not only does DOA have a fanbase (which I instantly became part of) but it employs wrestlers with incredibly intricate backstories within the indie wrestling universe; some loved, some hated, some polarizing. Those are the stars, if you ask me. A wrestler receiving equal middle fingers and standing applause when they’re announced lets me know they’re damn good at their job.

John and I got to our seats and settled in for the first official match of the night. Our view was great— with six rows of chairs there isn’t a bad seat in the house.

The night kicked off with the (apparently) universally loved Amira facing off with Abigal Warren— who essentially dominated the whole fight. At one point, a man—who I later learned to be Big Ugly— ran out and started wailing on Amira too, which I thought surely broke numerous rules but the referee seemed disinterested so maybe it was simply a good tactical maneuver.

The vibe was set for the night. A few more matches took place— including a win by Dean Hess, who dressed like a cowboy, had some words for a chatty fan sitting near us and called out about half of DOA after his victory.

Then it was time for an event called “Rose City Death Match.” We’d soon learn that name to be accurate for a few reasons; firstly because one of the wrestlers involved, Big Ugly (who we met briefly earlier) is old enough that we feared for his actual demise, and secondly because both he and his opponent Drexl AKA The Homicidal Artist (best name of the night by a landslide) looked willing to die in the ring.

I’ve watched hardcore wrestling matches before but none of them quite had the raw absurdity this one possessed; from the jump, things got gruesome. Big Ugly stapled a few dollar bills to Drexl’s head (a classic movie) then Drexl attempted to papercut Ugly’s eyeball with an event flyer then stabbed skewers into his head and rammed him into the rope. But the move of the match was probably Ugly pulling out a plastic baseball bat covered with thumbtacks and promptly bopping Drexl’s head which, of course, started bleeding profusely.

The match came to a merciful—though I must admit, climactic— conclusion when Amira, crazed for revenge, jumped in the ring and punched Big Ugly with what appeared to be a thumbtack-adorned glove, allowing Drexl to piledrive him through the barbed-wire-covered door.

“Ho-ly Shit” chants ensued.

Intermission immediately followed the Death Match because ring staff had to clean up the barbed wire and thumbtacks that littered the ring. Smart scheduling.

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During intermission we headed over to the drink line where everyone who already wrestled sat around and chatted and watched game film and drank Corona’s. It’s an odd feeling to scream profanities at a person, then minutes later compliment them on an exciting match, but there’s something decent about it too. Wrestling fans and wrestlers themselves seem to have a solid understanding of where to draw the line between in-ring performance and out-of-ring interactions. I wish fans of other sports took some cues.

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After a few relatively slow post-intermission fights, we witnessed potentially my favorite match of the night; if not from a wrestling perspective, then definitely from a lore perspective. It was a tag team match between the Flamin’ Aces, an extremely glamorous duo who was clearly a crowd favorite, and the Hammer Brothers (aptly named Jack and Sledge) the “working class” wrestlers who play heels well enough to immediately endear themselves—to me at least— even after they pretended to call a truce with the Aces only to pull out hammers from their pockets and bash in the Aces’ heads.

I’m not privy to the backstory between these two teams but I love the rivalry. I think it’s building toward something and I’m genuinely interested to find out what that is. Impressive world-building from DOA; finding two tag teams with a believable rivalry is tough to do, and the Aces / Hammer Bros feud is so outrageous that I can’t help but buy in.

The night capped with a title fight between Migs and Kel “The 6 Foot Stunna.” I’m not sure if co-ed title fights are progressive but Kel staging a comeback win and knocking out Migs via brass knuckles did feel strangely empowering.

I came away impressed with DOA Portland. I didn’t even have space to mention the manager who entered with a real boa constrictor around his neck or the shocking betrayal of a tag-team partner. I’ll save it all for next time.

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I’m in on DOA Wrestling. In fact, I’m in on independent wrestling as a whole. I know this sport is fundamentally outrageous, but it can also be brutal on both the minds and bodies of its athletes, and that foundation of borderline abuse almost always starts with people like Vince McMahon, who are willing to literally put the lives of athletes in danger for a check.

When people like that are not involved—and by all accounts, DOA is free from them (DOA stands for Don’t Own Anything, after all)—wrestling can be a lot of fuckin’ fun.

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Hey, sorry this had nothing to do with basketball—I thought we’d switch it up today! We will return to our regularly scheduled programming henceforth.