Photos from Inside a Bloody, Sweaty, Glorious Indie Wrestling School
Credit to Author: Jake Bittle| Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2019 18:02:24 +0000
Why wrestling? What is it about this entertainment, this mixture of athletic prowess and campy performance, that lights up the audience’s eyes? It can’t be simple bloodlust, because the pain on stage isn’t real, nor is the malice; the whole crowd knows that, even the children. It’s no different from going to the theatre, except that wrestling is drama made flesh, each punch and kick studding with sudden gravity the time-worn narratives of envy and revenge.
If for the audience, wrestling provides transport, for the wrestlers themselves, the sport provides transcendence. Take for instance the wrestler Matt Travis, who trains at The House of Glory wrestling school in Queens, which hosts regular shows. At nine on the morning of a recent match, he was sitting hunched over in his cramped apartment in the South Bronx. His mother, whom he lives with, was braiding his waist-length hair.
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This article originally appeared on VICE US.