Some great wrestling matches from the year that was

Gonna get selfish on this one, as this is my home indie. And it marked the first time I had been to it in a year and a half, and didn’t realize how much I’d missed it. I do now, not knowing when I’ll feel comfortable going back, but at least I got this show. For any wrestling fan, I would urge you to go to an indie show at your first opportunity. It’s the best showing of the carny roots that the big companies sprang out of, and you can see the true heart of “The Business.” You haven’t really seen a wrestling show until you’ve seen someone’s grandmother yelling at his opponent from the front row, where everyone can hear her swear, and the room smells of some combination of booze and desperation about 20 minutes in, and COVID is only like sixth on the list of things you worry about catching. And man, does the Modelo taste even sweeter in that setting.

Craig Mitchell is basically the heart of Freelance Wrestling here in Chicago, coming through their school and being with the promotion since its inception. He doesn’t look like any wrestler you’d see on TV, as he resembles a fire hydrant they threw a singlet on, but he can seriously go, which is all anyone cares about at Logan Auditorium. This was part of the tournament to crown a new champ, and he and Trevor Outlaw put on a 20-minute clinic for a room full of people just so delighted to be back there again. And I was one of them. At a show like this you know the guys in the ring are just as big of a fan of it all as you are, and that energy gets passed back and forth. Maybe that’s why they feel more like “yours.”