Backyard Wrestling - All Pain, No Brain

For generations, suburban kids have turned their backyards into makeshift sports arenas, where fantasies of stardom flourish. That was me, the skinny blond kid, magically transformed into Elgin Baylor and always - I mean, always - beating the evil Boston Celtics.

I download this snippet from my memory's hard drive because I hear that such backyard glory endures in our tranquil 'burbs. Nice to know some things don't change, that today's kids still imitate their heroes.

Oh, but did I mention that young 'uns emulate not Micheal Jordan but Stone Cold Steve Austin and other legends of the professional wrestling circus - er, circuit?

Throughout the Bay Area, but especially in Contra Costa and the Tri-Valley, teen boys face off as combatants in an incredibly real re-creation of the incredibly fake TV wrestling. Yup, inarticulate grunts, broken bones, numb skulls and all.

Excuse me for a moment while I shed a tear for my lost youth.

All we did, decades ago, was pretend we made the winning basket at the Boston Garden. Gosh, we didn't think of beating each other over the head with chairs, jumping off the roof to smash tables and flip opponents against a brick wall. These kids today, so innovative, so cool.

"We do most everything you see on TV, even the brutal stuff," says Andrew Medina, a 17-year-old high school senior and charter member of the Krazy Wrestling Federation in San Ramon. "It appeals to male youth, for sure. We've got 12 guys, and we're always recruiting more."

The KWF is one of many backyard wrestling clubs that publicize their exploits on the Internet. A group of Danville boys calls itself the A-Whompin' Federation, and a Pleasant Hill Group's exploits recently were featured on KPIX's "Evening Magazine." Many groups videotape their gruesome antics and sell the footage to lurid video and Internet producers.

Parents may be justifiably horrified by what goes on in backyards, but orthopedic surgeons needing to finance yachts probably love all the new business. According to a recent Time magazine article, two deaths this year have been caused by backyard wrestling injuries. And the World Wrestling Federation, the one that gets the big TV ratings, run public-service ads during bouts to tell kids not to try the moves at home.

Fat chance.

"It may not seem like it, but it's just like a group of kids going out to play football," says Kevin Ahamdi (you spelled my last name wrong, you idiot) of the San Ramon wrestlers. "It's a competitive sport that takes a lot of energy, practice, and skill - and we consider it fun."

Danville wrestler Dave Carson views his participation as a political act.

"I'd like to show those people a disillusioned generation with nothing to stand for, a generation brought into a world where all the pain in it is so distant that it is almost impossible to concern ourselves with," Carson says. "We are given a government that is a lie, no more real than the choreographed endings of wrestling matches where major corporations pull the strings of our pupper governmental figureheads like Vince McMahon pulls the strings of the superstars working for him.

"Underground backyard wrestling gives me a way to make the kids of this generation feel again, it gives me a way to act out important lessons of humility and put forth ideals of good and evil in a way that even the desensitized youth of today can take to heart. Extreme underground wrestling allows me to work with the anger inside that has built up as I grow older and become more aware of the lies prepared for us by our fathers for many generations."

These guys ooze stoicism. Pain and injuries do seem inevitable, considering that some groups use yards of barbed wire strung around baseball bats and break dinette sets over one another's heads.

One time, Medina says, a KWF wrestler got a jagged piece of glass stuck in his wrist after a stunt involving smashing a long flourescent light tube over a foe's body. (you liar! the glass was in the grass that wasn't cleaned up because it wasn't found, it had nothing to do with smashing a lighbulb over someone)

"But that was the worst," Medina says. "I try to, like, not let my parents see the bruises I come home with and stuff. One time, I came home with a trash can outline on my face. My parents didn't like that."

Ah, yes, the parents. How do these kids get away with such bizarre backyard rituals?

Ahamdi says the group's parents "were rather squeamish about us wrestling, but we showed them we are very careful about what we do, and they eventually agreed. We do not allow any KWF member to wrestle behind their parents' back."

Except for the occasional broken bones (what?!?! what broken bones?! you slob) and obligaroty mountain range of welts on their backs, KWF participants almost seem liek actors or performance artists. Much role-playing goes on.

"Everyone has his own personality," Medina says. "One of mine is 'The Real Santa Clause.' Another guy is 'The Mad Professor.' He wears a wig, the whole thing."

Gee, what say we get somebody to play the part of "Responsible Adult"?