It's Monday night and I'm walking in at 11:49pm. If you're an adult, particularly in your mid 30s with the traditional 9-5, this is a crazy thought and one you prevent yourself from doing. But it's Monday night in Red Hook, Brooklyn - a place I got jumped in as a teen - and I get to see some professional wrestling.
Long gone are the days for me where indie wrestling is something I frequent. I look back fondly on the 2010s: ROH before it sold to AEW, Dragon Gate USA & EVOLVE weekends at the Queensboro Elks Lodge, the PROGRESS Elmcor show, Family Wrestling Entertainment. Me and my friends were Weekend Warriors and the indies coursed through our veins. Three High School friends, improving to four over time, taking in the one thing that bonded us most. Navigating the work week in your 20s can be a shock to the system, but we knew once the weekend arrived, we'd be holed up in some hot, over-capacity venue that might run out of water and whose restrooms will undoubtedly be sketchy. It didn't matter though. This UK wrestler by the name of Zack Sabre Jr. was starting to make waves in Japan and is on this NYC show. Lionel Richie’s All Night Long is going to play and Rich Swann is about to burst through the curtain. Fellow Brooklynite, Tracy "Hot Sauce" Williams is going to bring his signature fire and intensity and make me really proud to be from our city.
The New York City indie scene was once a bevy of promotions running with hungry fans looking to consume some of the best wrestling could offer for an affordable price in an intimate setting. NYC has been host to so many historical moments and times in the independents: The story of Homicide chasing and winning the ROH World Title, Kevin Steen vs. El Generico cementing itself as the greatest feud, Chris Hero returning to the indies following his first stint in the WWE. A scene so hot, international promotions would often use NYC as a way into the American market; IE: New Japan in 2011 & 2014; PROGRESS Wrestling in 2017. For me and my circle of friends who’d become my family, in the 2010s when we were first financially able to go to shows, it felt like every weekend we were at the aforementioned Queensborough Elks Lodge, La Boom or the Elmcor Center, no matter the promotion.
As you get older, oftentimes life has a way of changing the things you love to a point where it looks unrecognizable and your role within it becomes questionable. I don’t mean to be bleak but I feel that NYC is its own living organism that changes before you’ve had a moment to even reflect on what you have and how good things are. I’ve lived in this city long enough to watch the ghosts of my old neighborhood linger aimlessly around their old spots. To quote the fictitious Andy Benard: “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
So what happened? The answer is two fold but pretty simple. In 2016, the nearly twenty year ban of MMA in New York came to an end. With it came new regulations handed down from the New York State Athletic Commission that indirectly sent ripples through the indie scene. No longer could promoters “rent out” their promoting license to someone looking to run a show but not willing to or unable to pay the fees associated with having a promoting license - a normal business practice of the time. Add on the requirement of having an ambulance plus one paramedic present at the show and promotions were being priced out of the city. WWE, ROH, NEW (North East Wrestling) were still able to run but outside of that, other smaller promotions had to make changes to combat shows being more expensive to run while many of them just (understandably) folded. The other part in this decline comes from the most known entity in all of professional wrestling, the WWE. Much of the talent pool from the indie scene pre-2010 seemed ignored by the giants in Connecticut. Yes, the likes of Punk, Danielson & Cabana all got signed and TNA had managed to grab Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and so on but the pool was deep enough to be sustainable. Post-2010, many names were coming off the board and by the time we got to the end of the decade, the pool wasn’t dry but it had seen better days.
Little by little all of the promotions I frequented and loved were becoming defunct (FWE, DGUSA), or in cahoots with the WWE (EVOLVE) while some of the promotions I would’ve transitioned to (GCW, JCW) were running on the outskirts of NYC. The wrestlers I had come to know and connect with were now signed. To be clear, indies in NYC still existed and ran shows after the new regulations but they all just blended together for me and didn’t offer anything unique. So I stopped going.
Enter Produce Wrestling, a brand new promotion owned and operated by Adam Abdalla under the Orange Crush brand. Their debut emanating from Pioneer Works, a nonprofit culture center in Brooklyn. With the premise that each show is curated by a wrestler around their style, what they represent and people they want the audience to see. Jonathan Gresham has the reins for the first show and in the video played before his main event match against Japanese freelancer Fuminori Abe, he says, "After I left AEW, I started seeing all of these great technical wrestlers all across the world, and I wanted to bring as many of them here as I could."
And that's why I'm here at this specific show in Red Hook, it’s what drew me in. How could I not love a theme! A show curated for those who love the technical aspect of wrestling, as I do. It's different in every region but you know when you see it. Watching on the outset what looks like a basic move - take an Arm Drag for example - and executing said move in a fluid way, as if they’d done it a thousand times and then a thousand more in their sleep. Working a specific body part because they know their finishing move affects that body part the most and will lead to victory. Effortless but brutal.
The list of talent used on this show feels like a super indie, a term that feels antiquated in this scene but is apt here: Jonathan Gresham, Zack Sabre Jr., Amazing Red, Lee Moriarty, Billie Starkz, Fuminori Abe, Joey Janela, Rich Swann, Tracy Williams, Effy, 1 Called Manders. People who are signed to AEW, signed to New Japan, people working every indie imaginable, international imports, all in an “arthouse arena” in my backyard.
I haven’t even touched on a couple of the facets of this show that make it distinctive! Referees have the ability to issue a “yellow card” or a “red card” to wrestlers breaking the rules - how topical it feels with the World Cup on now. Not just some gimmick but something that we would see have real consequences in multiple matches. And just as unique as the premise of the wrestling show itself, we also got two live performances from Abel Ferrara (Yes, that Abel Ferrara) and his band. The first coming after hour one of the main show, the second preceding the final two matches of the night. Although it may not have landed with some, particularly those conscious of the time on a Monday night, I was delightfully tickled by this. In all my years of watching and attending indie wrestling shows, I had never seen this. I was happy to get back to the wrestling when the performances were over but this was still something worth talking about.
Every match delivered on different levels for me. Zack Sabre Jr. opening the show (wild sentence here) against Iowa native, Darian Bengston was a phenomenal showcase of technical wrestling with a built-in story that somehow pulls on something Sabre said back in 2019, and is incorporated in a fun way. Cowboy Way (Manders & Thomas Shire) vs. Adam Priest & Tommy Billington had an absolute brawl of a tag team match (a form of wrestling I hold in the highest regard) where all four competitors had such impeccable chemistry. Finally, the main event. Jonathan Gresham vs. Fuminori Abe, the latter to my knowledge flying in from Japan to wrestle a 16 minute match in NYC and then fly right back to Japan, in an outright slugfest. Strikes so loud they could be heard across the river in New Jersey. And there I was, sandwiched between the barricade and a brick wall, smiling ear to ear, eyes wide, watching these wrestlers tear into each other to close out a fantastic night of wrestling.
I was once told “nostalgia is a sickness,” and maybe they’re right. But I also choose to believe that nostalgia is the the way the heart reminds you of something you once loved. And so I stand, alone, 35, with all of my friends having moved away, getting that same feeling I had in the 2010s. “Restore The Feeling” is a phrase you may have heard if you’ve been a die hard, day one, AEW fan but today, I take that phrase and re-apply it. Because on a Monday Night, not 20 minutes from my home, Zack Sabre Jr was stretching someone right before my eyes. Rich Swann came out to All Night Long. Tracy Williams gave everything he had and made this Brooklynlite proud and I felt “it”. The feeling has been restored for me.
If you’d like to see more of Produce Wrestling, check out their upcoming shows, which can be found on AEW’s new service.
