Williamsburg's Outlaw Wrestling is 'Broadway with body slams'

Several hundred people gathered in a church in Williamsburg to watch indie wrestling on a recent Friday night.

“Get ready for a circus,” said Sonny Kiss, one of more than a dozen wrestlers who performed. “It’s Broadway with body slams.”

In the center of the gymnasium at the 137-year old church, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Annunciation, spandex-clad warriors with names like Manbun Jesus and Mikey Whipwreck spent the next three-and-a-half hours engaged in various forms of foot-stomping, eye-scratching, groin-kicking and body flipping for cheering fans.

Bull James, a former WWE wrestler and a church parishioner, founded Outlaw Wrestling in 2017. Indie wrestling is to the WWE a bit like what the minor leagues are to Major League Baseball – a place where athletes can stay in form while they wait to get picked up for the big time or enjoy a more relaxed career while still earning a living. Industry insiders say the scene has picked up considerably in recent years, particularly as pandemic-era restrictions have receded.

Outlaw Wrestling is one of at least a hundred indie wrestling groups that host shows at locations around the tristate area, James said. Performers are paid per appearance, generally by the company that organized the event. Wrestlers can also sign multiyear contracts with groups like Outlaw and work their shows exclusively.

There wrestlers said that while every bout has a winner, the event isn't actually a competition. There is no prize money, no bracket or advancement.

James said the city’s indie wrestling scene was dwindling while he was competing on the WWE circuit.

“There were shows going on for years with five, 600 people,” James said. “And then a lot of the houses were down to 50 or 60 people by the time I got back on the scene.”

John Radio, who owns Long Island wrestling organization Victory Pro, said attendance at indie wrestling tournaments has just about recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

“Wrestling is back,” Radio said. “Wrestling is good again, and the audience is evolving, a younger crowd is coming in.”

That evolution was on full display at the Williamsburg event, where a mix of first-time visitors and die-hard wrestling fans from Long Island and New Jersey mingled with newer Brooklyn transplants.

First-timers Leah Yassky, Eleanore Winchell, and Eva Sturm-Gross had come up from Crown Heights with a group of friends, and marveled at the mixed crowd.

“The punks are here, the hardcore Williamsburg wrestling fans, bottle-dyed middle-aged ladies,” Yassky said. “It’s everything you could ever imagine and maybe more. We are beyond excited.”

Wrestler Sonny Kiss, a former dancer who calls herself “the Concrete Rose,” was in one of the night's eight matches. She was in a tag team with the Silk City Kings – a wrestling duo from Paterson, New Jersey, consisting of partners Kenny Bengal and Bulldog Pittman.

The trio was up against another threesome: a tag-team called the Slimeballs, plus semi-retired wrestling legend Mikey Whipwreck.

Kiss and the Silk City Kings had an acrobatic style. They jumped off the ropes and wrapped their legs around their opponents’ heads in elaborately choreographed spin moves that flung their partners across the mat.

The referee would start a count whenever someone was pinned, and the victim would inevitably wriggle free just before the third count signaling the end of the bout.

The crowd would sometimes work harder than the performers, with seasoned wrestling fans running back and forth across the gym and heckling enough to make their voices hoarse.

“You can’t do that!” one gentleman holding a beer in each hand repeatedly shouted. “That’s illegal now! That’s illegal in ANY league!”

James, who founded Outlaw, said that the neighborhood was home.

“I was baptized at this church, so I have a lot of history here,” James said. “I saw my first live sporting event in this gym, a Golden Gloves boxing match when I was about 4 years old, sitting on my dad’s shoulders.”

But he said the neighborhood's changes have been challenging as a born-and-raised local. As transplants have descended upon North Brooklyn over the years, the Italian American community he grew up with has thinned — and so has his built-in fanbase.

“Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, that building is the heart and soul of our company,” James said. “But it’s not just the building, it’s the people in it. A lot of our regular fans have left the neighborhood and moved away, so now we have to target new people.”

He said he appreciates the mix of attendees at Outlaw’s wrestling events, which is a little unusual compared to the crowds at the Westchester and Long Island bars and breweries where they also perform.

“There’s a hipster crowd here, but also people that grew up here, the diehard wrestling fans that travel from all over,” James said. “It’s an eclectic group.”

The next Outlaw Wrestling event takes place on Saturday, March 2 at West Babylon Junior High School in West Babylon, New York. Tickets start at around $21.