Cook: Folding chair to the heart: inside live pro wrestling

David Cook

Hockey, schmockey. And LeBron can go LeBye. Pro football? How deflating. NASCAR? Gentleman, start your naps.

Of all our sports, nothing compares to wrestling.

Wrestling most reflects the struggle and triumph of the human condition. It is hand-to-hand honesty, not complicated with balls or bats, bulky shoulder pads or pricey Ping drivers. Lincoln wrestled. Biblical Jacob? When he squared off against the riverbank angel, it wasn't over 18 holes. They didn't throw horseshoes.

They wrestled.

Yet sometimes, traditional wrestling isn't enough. We want something more. More drama. Emotion. Something that hits hard, like a folding chair to the back.

Welcome to live pro wrestling.

"It's action, drama, melodrama, live and right in front of your face," said pro wrestler Chris Crunk.

By day, Crunk, in his early 20s, with glasses, is a phone technician. By night, he's a hated tag-team villain, who flies through air - his favorite move is something called "The Un-prettier" - while the crowd boos.

To see him, we didn't have to drive to Atlanta or Nashville. Didn't fork over $75 for WWE seats.

We went to Red Bank.

Every Saturday night, a nearly deserted shopping center at the end of Dayton Boulevard is transformed into something called Total Wrestling Entertainment. When we went a few weeks ago, more than 200 people had packed into the room the size of a small church. Six matches lasted nearly three hours. My son, dad and I paid $8 each. It was worth twice that.

There were double clotheslines and Cesaro swings and bodies flying off the top rope and fans yelling as loud-mouthed managers yelled back.

"Dad," my son said, "this is awesome."

It was PG and family-friendly. Between matches, wrestlers came out to shake hands, smile for selfies, sign autographs.

"That's wrestling," said Brandon Collins. "We're walking billboards."

Since 2006, Collins, 28, has wrestled from here to Detroit and back. (He said Empire Pro Wrestling in North Georgia taught him everything.) It's constant self-promotion, as wrestlers send emails, video submissions, photos, all trying to convince promoters near and far to put them on the ticket.

Collins, who may make $250 for three matches, trains more than 20 hours a week, working on moves, conditioning, and, most importantly, ways to work a crowd.

At TWE, fans loved him.

"It's like theater," said Bud Higdon. "A rough-man's theater."

A few years ago, Higdon bought a used ring - it's 16-by-16, made of steel and wood with maybe an inch-and-a-half of padding - and opened TWE. He made it nice: three bathrooms, air-conditioning, multicolor entry lights that strobe, in-house TVs, and a concession menu that reads like a restaurant's.

It was a "Field of Dreams" move. Higdon, who owns Higdon Electric, wanted a place to watch his grandson, Jaden Newman, wrestle. There wasn't one, so he built it himself.

Jaden, 17, is a crowd favorite. The Soddy-Daisy High senior has wrestled nearly every event at TWE.

This Saturday, Jaden and Crunk go head-to-head.

"If I've got the crowd booing, and he's got the crowd cheering, we'll have done our job," said Crunk.

During a lunch break last week, I went back to TWE, bringing my favorite tag-team partner with me. (My son.)

The place was empty, save Higdon, grandson Jaden, Crunk and Cody Robinson, who used to play the role of Crunk's bad-guy manager and is now developing a masked, Kane-inspired character.

For such roughhouse wrestlers, they were kind, witty, gracious with all my questions. At one point, I mentioned the F-word.

"It's not fake," said Robinson. "Falling on your back on the concrete? That's not fake."

"My first match? I got cut from here to here," said Crunk, hand on his head. "Eleven staples."

"I broke my nose," Robinson continued. "My ankle, wrist."

"I've had two concussions," said Jaden. "We don't have stunt doubles."

Then - ironically, it now seems - we all got in the ring. They went slow-mo through some moves, like the clothesline and Irish whip. All of it felt like going backstage, or running the bases. I tried to hide it, but a big part of me wanted to jump off the top rope.

"What's your favorite move?" Crunk asked my son.

"The curbstomp," he said.

"Do it to me," Crunk said.

Oh, you should have seen it. Then, somebody brought out the folding chair. It was the icing on the beefcake.

Of all our sports, nothing compares to live pro wrestling.

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.