Me and the wife have the day-before-payday settlement of how much money I can throw into the street as I buy overpriced booze in the Shockoe Bottom section of Richmond- where UWC wrestling is running a benefit for a wrestler who is recovering from a pretty bad accident.  The fact that it was for a good cause makes it easier to pay the ten bux and easier to forgive the general shittiness of the card.   I call [mul]DOOMSTONE and get his answering machine and try again a few other times but round 8:15, I opt to make it on my own.  I get to Alley Catz round 8:30 and I'm trying to remember the last time I was here and it was to see Maude Gonne and the Waking Hours three years ago maybe?  I run into Rob Hoffman- whom I always run into at these podunk Virginia indie extravaganzas-  and we wait a few minutes for the door people to fix their little problems and let us in.  I grow weary of this and decide to walkaboot and see what is going on at the Bottom this quiet Thursday night.  I go Outlaws because there is only one person at the bar and get a Guinness and then a Bass.  The lady tending bar was older and attractive- a bit hard-looking but in that alluring way, a real Tom K dreamgirl come true.  She tells me that they are taking out the Bass soon and replacing it with the Michelob black and tan.  I try not to spew my Guinness all over the bar in a Keystone Cops manner and nod like a gentleman. I ask her what the tap labeled "Outlaw Brew" is and she says "Natural Lite". I opt against.  After finishing the oddly fruity Bass, I head back to Alley Cats, pay my ten bones and mill around the balcony, talking to Rob.  I spot [m]DS and motion him to the balcony.  His first words are repeated by both of us all night, "for THREE dollars more we saw the SUPER EIGHT."

The crowd is an odd mix of old drunks and young drunks. It's running late so [m]DS notices the "Tommy" pinball wizard pinball machine. [m]DS says, "I'm gonna play! Jesus, 50 cents..." None of the folks on the pinball machine look like Roger Daltry or Tina Turner. [m]DS surmises that this is a pinball machine based on Braodway revival cast. [m]DS is the worst pinball player to ever claim to have gotten into the weekly fights with angry Filipino youths at Flipper McCoys by Military circle in Norfolk. Oddly enough, a comely young lady comes aver and asks if she can watch. I surmise that we are both so old and pauchy that she no longer has any inkling that we are sexual beings and figure it would be cool to hang out with the old fuckers at the pinball machine. Either that or my Dr Strange grey streaks are finally luring the girlies to my junk like I figured it would at some point. [m]DS hideous pinball skillz drive her away more than our D&D level wrestling nerd girl skills ever could.

We opt to go downstairs because we can see better from the stage and this other woman tells us about her upcoming gig as a carshow lady at the Richmond Coliseum. She has a pierced tongue and that devil-may-care look in her green eyes. I wonder what the fuck is going on- where were these women when I was young, single and attractive?

Anywhoos, they start the matches and I finally recognize theguy I'm standing next to- he has his hair all spiked up and he looks EXACTLY George Shrink's dad from the current PBS cartoon. He is a friend of FatAss Dave who was on Public Access once with a perfect Nikita Koloff impersonation, answering questions.

The first match is Shorty Smalls vs Johnny Bondage. This was the first and last semblance of actual wrestling. Shorty can work and Bondage is getting better since I saw him last. They did some toprope moves- including a nice superplex by Shorty. [m]DS starts the "Shorty Sux!" chant, as I start the "Shorty rulez!" chant. I forget who wins. This was perfectly fine professional wrestling.

The ring announcer presents us with Neal Sharkey, basic indie heel and he's fun on the stick. I discuss the fact that we are in a bar and thus there are no kids around, so we start calling his mother a whore and I start demanding if he is "cut" or "uncut". I demand that his mother return my cockring. It was great. He garnered fabulous heel heat from the drunken riffraft

The second match was a fat bald guy with a tie-dyed body suit- who had appeared on the infamous Midlothian Middle School card. We give him the heel heat he seeks by yelling out names of Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd songs. I yelled, "Ben and Jerry NOOOOO!" He was wrestling this large man named Angus McNasty or something. I scream out, "Beat his ass, Mama Cass!" He proceeds to hop on the stick with an accent that wasn't quite convincing us that spent his teen years listening to Orange Juice and Altered Images at teen clubs in Glasgow. Somehow he ends wrestling without his shirt and he has three rows of teats! He could feed FIVE KITTENS! This match was a basic fat guy vs fat guy comedy match. Quoth the DOOMSTONE, "Three dollars more- AJ Styles vs Donovan Morgan."

The third match was the artist formerly known as Mercenary Of Mayhem (DO A SEARCH ON THE PAGE! It'S FUN!) doing his new evil preacher gimmick. We, being good upstanding cheerers of the good guys try to state a "SWEET SATAN!" chant- in hopes of counteracting the evil preacher from using the power of Light for his own evil means. For some reason, a bar full of drunken degenerates never gets behind it. When we see his opponent, we understand why. I didn't catch his name, but he looked JUST LIKE Lou Gramm of Foreigner. We have fun yelling out song titles from our youths as Nise Lou gramm throws the shittiest punches I have ever seen. Quoth Dean Rasmussen, "Three dollars more- Jamie Knoble vs Donovan Morgan."

The fourth match was Jimmy Valient (or possibly his dad. He was REALLY old.) vs NOT JODY HAMILTON. This sucked. At least I saw the super boss "Come To Papa" tattoo in person one last time. Moses of Wrestling wins with a Memphis schoolboy and there was a chain involved so I could only hate this so much. QUOTH Dave's friend while the ref was searching AAA Assassin Jr for the chain, "CHECK HIS TAINT! CHECK HIS TAINT!"

[m]DS bails, leaving me and Rob and the horror that is the main event.

The main event was Humphrey J DuPont vs Natasha for the inter-gender belt. This was possibly the worst thing I have ever seen. They blew five different attempts at basic wrestling. The crowd was funnier than the match- as they went into full mysogyny mode but not in an "ECW creepy degenerate losers" mode- more of an "annoyance at bad wrestling" kind of way..

I had a good time. It was fun to be in a bar watching wrestling with a bunch of drunks because we could all yell profanity and verbally assault the heels' moms and stuff without worrying about ruining anybody's good time. The wrestling pretty much sucked but it was for a good cause. Next time, I'd pay five if it wasn't a benefit. To get ten just for the wrestling, they would have to bring in Low-Ki or at least have fuckin' Preston Quinn show up.

THERE YOU GO.