NOT AS FAKE AS YOU THINK IT IS: By the end of the night, Psycho Sailor (above left), the Hollywood Studd (above right) and Matt Farmer all required stitches.

by SAM SOULE
243-2122

It wasn't the four cruisers rolling up with their lights flashing that made the night worth talking about. The 60-odd-person mob chanting profanities as two cut-and-bloodied men hurled each other against signposts and construction barriers along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard wasn't even the most memorable scene of the evening. No, the defining moment came when the Hollywood Studd put the Psycho Sailor's head through the plate-glass front door of the Straight Blast Gym. Then you knew: This was not your father's pro-wrestling match.

The Feb. 16 event was the latest offering from Portland's newest independent wrestling promotion, New Dimension Wrestling. Originally conceived as a single-elimination tournament to decide who would hold the NDW Heavyweight belt, it was a story line that would never reach its conclusion. But, as the scripted chaos of the night's proceedings spun out of the ring and out of control, it was as if the clichéd antics of old-school rasslin' were being tossed out the window. Right behind poor Sailor's head.

Local professional wrestling has been in Oregon for 60-plus years, reaching the height of its popularity in the '80s, when the region's most venerable promotion, Portland Wrestling, could sell out the Coliseum with a big match. Today, however, the independent-wrestling scene in Portland is virtually nonexistent. Some in the Portland area feel that the wrestling old guard running the existing promotions relies too heavily on tired, family-oriented "good guy vs. bad guy" performances that simply can't hold the attention of the new generation of fans. They point to East Coast promotions with minuscule budgets, which comparatively flourish as they experiment with high-risk moves, frequent bloodletting and themes too outrageous for the World Wrestling Federation. And they applaud the arrival of New Dimension Wrestling.

"What NDW is trying to do is be innovative and give people things they haven't seen before," explains Jim Valley, host of a two-hour professional wrestling talk show that airs Saturdays at 1 on 1010 AM.

For example, NDW took local wrestler Billy Two Eagles--a longstanding Indian stereotype, complete with feathered headdress and war dance--and updated the cliché. Enter B2E, the Pit Boss, whose war cry is: "The white man took our land, now we're going to take the white man's money!"

Other NDW favorites are the high-flying hardcore Awesome Adam and the appropriately retro C.C. Poison, "the wrestler 1982 forgot."

New Dimension Wrestling came to Portland this past year in the guise of one Johnny Fairplay, a former booker for the original NDW based in Greensboro, N.C., which has been promoting independent wrestling on the East Coast and through the Midwest since 1994. Fairplay's executive charge: to bring the excitement, intensity and presence indie wrestling enjoys on the East Coast to the West.

Currently, NDW is in a "developmental phase." That is to say, wrestlers work for free. Things are not much easier on the promotional side. Revenue taken in at the gate and earned through sponsors is funneled directly to paying for venue and production of the NDW television broadcast. "For any indie wrestler or indie wrestling promoter, it's definitely not about the money," says Fairplay.

Not everyone who saw NDW's latest show approved of the apparent recklessness. "The show got out of hand, frankly," says Ivan Kafoury, the most recent owner of the long-running Portland Wrestling promotion. "When you go outside the building with as busy a street as MLK is, you're just opening yourself up for nothing but trouble. It should never happen."

Kafoury's comments might seem self-serving, but he actually enjoys a friendly, competitive relationship with NDW. Both promotions share the wrestling talent pool, and Kafoury helped NDW secure the Straight Blast as a venue on the 16th. "There are some very good wrestlers in that group, and I wouldn't hesitate to use them," he says. "I'd just pull their reins in just a little bit. Let's face it, you're looking at potential liability, and they ain't going to sue the wrestlers."

Valley has a different take on the match between the Psycho Sailor and the Hollywood Studd. "It was boys being boys," he says. "They just got carried away with their fun. It was an accident. Hours later everything was all cleaned up and the window was fixed."

The "boys" got some unwanted attention from the nearby North Precinct. Shortly after the match, a group of officers arrived to investigate the scene. Although they determined that no criminal activity had occurred, the tournament was cancelled as it entered the semi-finals.

As potentially disastrous as last month's show might have been, Fairplay sees it as something of a watershed moment for his struggling promotion. "I've been in the wrestling business for over five years now, and I've never seen an event shut down by the police and had fans chant the name N-D-W as they stacked chairs and cleaned the place."