Each week sports reporter ROBERT CARRY tries out martial arts from around the world. This week it’s Professional Wrestling
“No lads. Ya have to hit harder. It has to be f***in’ believable!” roars Justin Bred, one of the instructors at NWA Ireland, a professional wrest-ling promotion and training school affiliated with the US-based National Wrestling Alliance.
“Watch – I like Johnny, but I’m goin’ to f***in’ mince him!” And with that, the unfortunate Johnny was sent hurtling across the ring before bouncing of the ropes straight back into a perfectly executed dropkick.
I popped my gear bag on the floor and introduced myself to Danny, another instructor and one half of the NWA Ireland tag team champions, Team Mega (the other half being Justin). I would generally just jump straight into a class, but the 10 or so trainees at the premises on the old Dublin Road in Bray were training at a level beyond beginner, so I opted to sit this part out. We lined up at the apron of the wrestling ring while two members practiced a particular move first demonstrated by Justin. The rest of the lads (and one girl) quickly broke out a range of moves I used to be mesmerised by when watching the WWF as a kid. Clothes-lines, dropkicks, armdrags – the lot.
For those of you who are unaware, ‘pro’ wrestling is, in fact, fake (or ‘worked’, to use wrestling’s traditional parlance). The matches are ‘booked’, or predetermined, and the animosity between the fighters is pure theatre. For this reason, many would say that pro wrestling is much more performance art than martial art. However, NWA Ireland navigates the view that other martial artists (for example) might have about pro wrestlers as being incapable of actually fighting, by making it a requirement that members be trained in the all-too-real shoot/submission wrestling style. And that’s what we moved onto next.
Danny, a big friendly dude with a long, dramatic haircut, invited me to join in as we warmed up for the genuine fighting part of the class. As we jogged on the spot and stretched our necks out by putting our foreheads on the ground and rolling them back and forth and from side to side, it struck me as interesting that it was safer to jump straight into the training geared towards actual fighting than the ‘fake’ stuff.
Next we paired off, and I was put with, you guessed it, the unfortunate Johnny, for a spot of sambo wrestling-influenced fight training – like a cross between Judo, which revolves around how to take your opponent down, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), which teaches you how to submit them once you’re there. I had a shot at the BJJ stuff about a month ago for this column so I wasn’t a total beginner, and the drills, which began with how to take someone down, were totally do-able.
Apparently, in the type of wrestling being practiced here, when you’re turned face down, the defensive position you should adopt is on all fours with your head bent low. It seemed an odd one, but we started a drill whereby one person adopted that position and a second had 30 seconds to flip him over, using any of a number of techniques we had been shown, with the winner staying on. When it came to my turn I managed to flip my victim without too much trouble but my win meant I got to discover that being on the receiving end isn’t quite as pleasant.
First up was a tall, slim guy wearing combats, a vest top and sporting a ponytail. Danny shouted “Go!” and the fight was on. I decided that the best way to fend off his attempts to flip me over was to keep my centre of gravity low, and extending a leg or arm in the direction he was trying to flip me. The bloke crawled all over me in a desperate attempt to not be the lad who couldn’t flip ‘the new guy’, but to no avail! I grimly hung on, and after a 30-second eternity, Danny called time.
Next up was the biggest dude in the class, and he had a haircut worthy of his stature – his black, spiked hair had two thick, crimson streaks running backwards along his head. I had the idea of just quitting there and then, but I decided to give it a shot. Once again, Danny signalled the start, and this lad charged forward at full tilt, before diving into the side of me. As the two of us skidded a couple of yards across the deck, I dreamily recalled a similar experience from my childhood – namely, being crashed into by a small car.
Somehow I didn’t flip over straight away, but the idea that I could stop this lad from turning me by simply extending a leg or arm seemed faintly ridiculous, largely on account of the fact that he had one hand on my chin, the other on top of my head, and was rotating my neck.
My new plan was somewhat basic – I grabbed his arm with both my hands, tucked it in underneath my chest, and refused to let go. This put the kibosh on his efforts to separate my neck but, undeterred, he started breaking out a few dirty moves, which began with him driving his elbow into my lower back and his centre knuckle in behind my ear. It hurt, but I couldn’t bring myself to give up. I gritted my teeth, hung on to that chunky arm like a builder to his breakfast roll, and thought of Ireland. Eventually, Danny again called him and I was victorious!
But my moment of glory was quickly snatched away, and in a stunningly cruel fashion – next up was the sole female of the class: Jenny, from Sweden. Jenny was probably slightly smaller than me (and half the size of my previous opponent), but she threw herself into the scrap like a terrier. She knew the grappling techniques (which are commonly taught in US schools) fluently, and I had no answers. So that was that. After fending off two of the biggest lads in the class, a girl flips me over inside 10 seconds. Typical.
Now I know I say this a lot, but I had some really negative preconceptions about what this class was going to be like before I arrived, and once again, they were pretty much blown away. The NWA Ireland team put on shows around the country, and although they’re far from ‘real’, the skills involved in putting them on can’t be faked – if you’re not good at what you do, as Justin might say, “you’ll break your f***in’ neck”.
As for the ‘shoot’ wrestling stuff they do, it is inarguably effective and is up there with the most usable one-on-one fighting styles I’ve tried. They may have dodgy haircuts, but these lads can fight.
