I will start by saying that, growing up, I always thought Professional Wrestling was really dumb. I used to privately laugh at the other kids at school who debated the abilities of Randy “Macho Man” Savage, Hulk Hogan, and the rest of the largely muscled, loud-voiced gargantuans of the ring. Not having cable, I never watched it, and being a timid young boy, I never cared to.
But then, by some quirk of fate, after working here at Design Reactor, I started getting in to it. It’s a guilty pleasure, I admit, but there’s something oddly mesmerizing about the whole spectacle and drama of it. It’s like a soap-opera for young men … and as long as you’re not taking it too seriously, it can actually be kind of fun.
So, when the opportunity to see some of the wrestlers and “Nitro Girls” up close and personal at the Campus Clash event they were holding at Berkeley, I thought it’d be fun to go check it out with the rest of the Design Reactor Wrestling Crew.
Sunday’s Campus Clash event was fun .. I didn’t get pictures of it, unfortunately, but the RSF (Recreational Sports Facility) gym on campus was loaded with all sorts of ‘American Gladiator’ type activities. Obstacle Courses, climbing walls … that sort of thing. It was fun playing around with those and winning boxer shorts and free gum from Cinnaburst. The highlight of the event was the appearance of the “Nitro Girls” Chae, Spice and Storm (where do they get those names?) dancing, flirting and giving away free tickets to the Superbrawl and Monday Nitro events.
One thing I noticed is that these women were incredibly over-the-top. The first thing I thought of was a cross between Baywatch and Penthouse. Not really the kind of women you’d take home to mother. And they were slightly over-endowed … I believe Chae actually was unable to do the dance number because she was afraid her “privates” might come loose and expose themselves.
Of course, the whole place was populated with 99% men and about 3 women. But what else would you expect. I was actually hoping to spot one of the wrestlers there but unfortunately they don’t show up at these kind of things. We did manage to hand out a bunch of Beijing Wushu Team flyers though, so that’s a good thing.
They also gave out these free tickets to their “Monday Night Nitro Party”. You would go there, watch the wrestling match, hang out with the Nitro Girls and maybe get some free food and drinks.
Well .. a bunch of us got there late (Raffi was the only one on time) and of course the food was all gone. Actually, the whole event was a little surreal for me. A small room filled with 45 guys, 5 women and a camera crew. Basically, they would cut back to the Cal “party” in between segments of the wrestling show and Ricky Rackman, former MTV VJ and the three Nitro Girls, Spice, Whisper and Fire (the names again!) would show off in front of the camera.
They also had some limbo party where the over-endowed Nitro girls would strut their stuff and all the guys would cheer and jeer. It was like some Fraternity guy’s own private version of heaven.
After a while we filmed a segment with everyone doing a limbo party and Ricky Rackman telling the viewing audience how great the party was and how much fun they’d have when the Campus Clash event came to THEIR town. All I can say is … total false advertising. If you were just sitting at home watching you’d think we were all having the time of our life. But it actually went something like this:
We all would stand around .. watch some wrestling on TV while the Nitro Girls would sit around and talk amongst themselves and everyone would wait for the segment to start. It was just a room full of people standing around picking their noses. Then, when the filming starts we all are supposed to get really hyper .. have a wild time .. scream and yell and make silly faces at the camera. Then as soon as it’s over we all colapse in a heap because everyone’s exhausted from acting so excited. I can’t imagine anyone keeping up that level of excitement for very long. I was exhausted and it only lasted about 3 minutes.
After the excitement was over they had everyone line up to receive some free t-shirts and boxer shorts. I just took pictures since I had won some boxer shorts the day before. After that was over a bunch of us took off (I went to wushu class) and I think Raffi stayed behind. He actually got on TV more than the rest of us. Eric, Brandon and I were on during the “Limbo” segment, but Raffi got some prime exposure during the other segments. I only wish we had brought a Beijing Wushu Team Performance Poster to show on TV … Oh … and there was some guy who wanted to get copies of my pictures to download. (yes .. I took many more pictures than I’m showing here.) If you’re that guy then please e-mail me and I’ll let you know where you can find them.