Wrestling slams into Richmond bars

The big picture: First off, for the uninitiated, there are basically two kinds of wrestling: the youth sport/Olympics kind and then professional wrestling — the high-performance, sports entertainment of beatdowns between characters with origin stories and epic costumes.

• We're talking about pro wrestling here. The awesome kind.
• And in Richmond, there are two major players on the scene: RVA Pro Wrestling and Commonwealth Championship Wrestling They're basically the minor leagues compared to the major leagues of WWE (formerly WWF for my Gen Xers) and AEW, local wrestler Kelsey Biser tells Axios.
• Both groups are Richmond-based and were founded by longtime local wrestlers. And both are behind the shows cropping up roughly monthly around town.

Zoom in: The revival seemed to really take hold last year, Tim Stewart, aka Timmy Danger, with RVA Pro tells Axios.

• Stewart, like most people involved in wrestling today, grew up watching pros like Ric Flair, The Undertaker and André the Giant on TV. Friends in college, at VCU, gave him the confidence to try it himself, including training at the prestigious Ohio Valley Wrestling school in Louisville.
• But for years, being a wrestler in Richmond meant going out of town to do small shows held in high school gyms or an armory.

Stewart got the opportunity to change that in 2023, when his friends at Punks For Presents invited him to help put on a match at Hardywood for their annual holiday gift drive.

• The show was a hit and the Richmond brewery invited him to do four more in 2024. The tickets start flying from there.
• By last summer, wrestling shows at the brewery were selling out in 20 minutes.
• The Richmond Flying Squirrels invited him to do a show before and after a game this season.

A few miles away, Kelsey Biser, who wrestles simply as Kelsey, opened her first Richmond bar last summer, Parlay in Scott's Addition.

• From the start, she knew live wrestling had to be part of it, so she reached out her friend, Richmond wrestler Ace Montana, owner of Commonwealth Championship Wrestlin' and Richmond wrestling school RVA Wrestling Academy.
• Their first show, held in a ring set up in the parking lot, drew huge crowds and set the stage for their now quarterly live events.

Montana noticed WWE events have skipped town since the Richmond Coliseum closed in early 2019.

• Fans, he knew, were jonesing for a place to see live wrestling, and he was eager to deliver.

The vibe: The shows, whether in or outside of Parlay, at Hardywood, The Diamond or The Park (another place Stewart is planning to bring shows) are high-energy, all the local wrestlers tell Axios.

• Wrestlers come from across Virginia and neighboring states with their fully fleshed-out characters and backstories, like Erica Leigh, Jordan Blade, Leo Kirby, Sledge Gibson and Terry "The Flip" Sequoia.
• They bring energy, talent and big fun to the local shows, but perhaps the most critical ingredient comes from the Richmond fans and their willingness to interact, Biser says.

Worth noting: It's likely well known by now that a big portion of pro wrestling is performance, but the athleticism needed to say, execute a flip off the top of the ropes or take a punch to the face if one misses the cue, is very real, Biser tells Axios.

• "I can tell you trying to Power Bomb a guy in real life is very hard," Stewart added.

The bottom line: In the absence of a professional football, baseball or basketball team, pro wrestling may just be Richmond's official sport. And we're here for it.

If you go: CCW's next show is Friday at 7:30pm at Parlay. Tickets are $20.

• RVA Pro Wrestling will hit the ring before and after the Flying Squirrels' game on Friday, April 18 at The Diamond. Wrestling is included with game tickets, which start at $12.
• And they'll be back at Hardywood in May. Keep an eye on Insta for tickets.