At Last, My Dreams Have Been Realized

One of the benefits to having a moderately successful comics blog–actually, the only benefit, now that I think of it–is that after four years of daily updates, people start to get a handle on what I like, and every now and then, one of them will offer to send me something they think I’ll like.

And sometimes, it turns out to be one of the most ridiculously awesome things I’ve ever seen.

 

 

Case in point, a DVD of Slamtasia 2, a show put on in February by Inter-Species Wrestling.

Yes, Inter-Species. I’ll get to that in a moment.

As long-time ISB readers (and anyone who had the misfortune of sitting through the punishing Monday Night Raw live-blogging I did on Twitter and swore never to do again) may recall, Professional Wrestling ranks only slightly behind comics and video games in the Holy Trinity of my misspent youth adulthood. Still, as we’ve seen time and time again, comics and pro wrestling just weren’t meant to go together. But if there was some way to tie pro wrestling into one of my favorite aspects of comics–like, say, all those times where Batman and the Punisher have punched out gorillas and bears–then you might just have something.

Enter Mike “Llakor” Ryan, who was reading through the ISB archives when he hit the sentence about my desire to start “the world’s first all-bear cagefighting league” and rightly assumed that he had something I might want to see: A wrestling promotion that, among other things, involves a panda luchadore named El Hijo de Bamboo:

 

 

He is, of course, on a quest to avenge his murdered panda luchadore father.

See, Ryan’s the commissioner and ring announcer for ISW, a Canadian promotion with close ties to the similarly acronymed International Wrestling Syndicate, which the sharper marks out there will know as the company that gave us the greatest wrestler working today, El Generico, as well as Kevin Steen, who I recognized from a phenomenal match on Pro Wrestling Guerilla Sells Out, which is still the best wrestling-related purchase I’ve ever made. As a sort of mutant conjoined twin to IWS (to borrow Ryan’s phrasing), ISW draws from the same talent pool, except that instead of going head-to-head against each other in hardcore death-matches, they’re more likely to be squaring off against a vengeful panda or Moohammad, who is a cow that is also a terrorist, and–as we find out when he joins the commentary team for the second disc–talks just like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

 

 

Not to put on The Old Man Hat here or anything, but one of the things I really miss about pro wrestling of my youth is the gimmicks. There was a time when the WWF expected us to believe that there was a man on their roster who may or may not be dead, but definitely drew mystical power from an urn carried by his obese, shrieking sidekick, or that a multimillionaire wrestled for the heck of it, or that the Ultimate Warrior was completely insane (kind of a freebie, that one), but they’ve slowly moved away from that. There are exceptions, of course–Santino Marella, for example, who has brought new life to the cross-dressing gimmick that Vince likes to drag out every few years–but by and large, WWE and TNA are pretty much just about two wrestlers-who-are-wrestlers beating each other up for some reason.

ISW, though, is the crystal meth of gimmick-themed wrestling. Slamtasia 2 isn’t just an event that asks you to believe that they’ve got a zombie on the payroll, but that there are two of them, and they are wrestling in a Body Bag Match. There’s a guy whose gimmick is that he’s homeless, and he goes so far as to pass his hat to collect change from the audience after his matches. And of course, there’s El Hijo de Bamboo, who is on the card wrestling Damian, a Quebec-Separatist Ex-Nazi whose moves are inspired by Tony Jaa, and who is the very same wrestler that killed his father:

 

 

Also of note, it’s the only wrestling event I’ve ever seen that takes place in a bar, which is actually pretty appropriate. And that’s not a knock on the quality of the wrestlers either; it’s just obvious that everyone, from the crowd to the wrestlers to the guys behind the scenes are there to have a good time. Even the commentators get into the act, with what is unquestionably my favorite bit of wrestling commentary ever:

 

He’s going for the Surfboard! That move is utilized by Hulk Hogan in WCW vs. NWO Revenge! He doesn’t actually use that in real life, that’s a BULLSHIT move!

 

And with that, the ISW stole my heart.

If you’d like to find out more about them, there’s a website with a YouTube channel, and the DVDs of their programs are available to buy online, although to be honest, I’m not sure if there are references to the N64 in any of the others.

23 thoughts on “At Last, My Dreams Have Been Realized

  1. If you are not familiar with them, look into CHIKARA. Gimmicks include a knight transported through time who is in a tag team with a younger version of himself.

    The team had tension when young Lance was friends with Dragon Dragon (who is, as you might expect) a dragon, and Old Lance was angered by this, since he had long since gotten tired of fighting damned dragons.

    Also the commissioner is Dave Coulier.

  2. Sorry to doublepost but it also featured the following exchange on commentary, the funniest damn thing I ever read:

    Larry Sweeney: Ricochet hails from Paducah, Kentucky. That’s also the hometown of Miss Elizabeth.

    UltraMantis Black: Ah, yes. And now she is dead.

    Larry Sweeney: …………………….

    UltraMantis Black: Sorry to have to be the one to break it to you.

  3. I’m passingly familiar with Chikara. It’s worth noting that the current ISW Champion is Chikara’s King of Trios, Player Uno.

  4. I just went to Youtube and saw what Damien did to Hijo’s father. Maul his nuts, HDB! He deserves it.

  5. I do not think any of these beat my favorite animal wrestler of all time however. That being, CP Munk.

    Think about it.

  6. Oh, Sims. First your love of OMAC, now you love the same sort of whacked out independent wrestling that I love (I spent a day recently watching all nine hours of the Pro Wrestling Guerilla Sells Out DVD. You’ve got to love a promotion that features a Commissioner of Food and Beverage.) Needless to say, I’m buying me some of these DVDs as soon as humanly possible.

  7. I will probably come back and say more later, but I should just stop by and mention that the cover above was very graciously done by Jesus Marquez and Dan Ramirez (who also did one of the alternate covers to our most recent DVD release WHAM! BAM! Thank You Ma’am!)

    Also, I am happy that Chris missed the same obvious joke that I did.

    One of the matches saw ISW/IWS Air Guitar Hero Twiggy against Chicken Caesar, the Emperor of Wrestling Poultry only to have the match interrupted by Samson, a hirsute Greek strongman who uses a hangman’s rope as a weapon.

    As the Worst Ring Announcer in the Multiverse, I completely failed in my job (as usual) to yell at Samson to “Stop Choking the Chicken!”

    So Chris missing the joke too cheers me up.

    Also go check my (just started) blog:
    http://llakor.blogspot.com/

  8. And just like that, the longlasting drought of pictures featuring people punching pandas is broken. Gods bless you all. However, it seems curiously appropriate that said panda-punching is carried out by modern-day patricidal neo Nazis. Fantastic.

  9. “patricidal” ?
    That would mean El Hijo de Bamboo and Damian are half-brothers …

  10. I’m passingly familiar with Chikara. It’s worth noting that the current ISW Champion is Chikara’s King of Trios, Player Uno.

    If you’re curious you should check out Best of Chikara 2008, a compilation of the best of 2008. And there’s even a reference to the N64 when Player Uno’s opponent plugs an N64 controller into his ass and starts controlling him with said controller.

  11. My life is incomplete without your assessment of John Cena’s freakishly rubber face in 12 Rounds, Chris!

  12. Damn. As soon as I saw this post, the first thing that popped into my head was “Chikara, Chikara, CHIKARA!” but someone beat me to the punch in the very first post.

    Seriously man, if you miss the sillyness and/or gimmicks in wrestling, you’d love CHIKARA. The Young Lions Cup tournament from last year (I think YLC VI) was fantastic.

    And of course, Player Uno really is one of the best:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P9qgbT1YwY

  13. Oh, man, WWF in the ’80s, that was the definition of rad. In fact, I’m pretty sure ‘rad’ was written on the cover of all their official magazines and possibly emblazoned on the shin guards of The Rockers. The glory days when you were expected to take seriously the idea that an Elvis-impersonator called the Honky Tonk Man had a grudge with Brutus the Barber, a man who ran around cutting opponents’ hair off with giant hedge clippers. Or the visceral hatred that exists between an American cop wrestler with a nightstick and a Canadian Mountie who tasers people indiscriminately with a cattle prod.

    What’s passed off as wrestling on TV since the mid-’90s just isn’t the same.

  14. Yeah, I’m disappointed I knew nothing of this at all, as a fan of wrestling and awesome. And I thought we had a good indie wrestling team at Inside Pulse!

  15. Are you sure this isn’t some kind of Furry thing?

    This completely RUINS my joke about ISW being “X-Rated CHIKARA”

    ISW is not a Furry thing. It’s better and worse.

    It would be impossible to explain without explaining in detail Moohammad’s relationship with Kelly Clarkson, the Beef Wellington/Giant Tiger feud which took the better part of two years and started because Giant Tiger ruined Beef’s childhood by breaking up the marriage of Beef’s parents, and there is no way that I can explain Steve.

    Buy some ISW. Watch some ISW. If your mind does not explode, write to me and I will make a full contrite public apology at the next ISW show. (I am the Commissioner AND the Ring Announcer. I can do that.)

    Oh and Brad, check your e-mails.