Who Wants to See This Kid Die?

If you have never seen anything from the NewPro Wrestling series, you need to give it a look-see. Nothing overtly sado-erotic there, but some swell grunt-and-sweat rasslin' matches of the sort early cable TV used to broadcast late on Friday nights and early on Saturday mornings. Many of the NewPro guys are underused independents with heaps of heart, who give the proverbial 110% in the ring. I like the enthusiasm these guys bring to their fights. Plenty of wrestling talent out there seldom get the cameras' attention. NewPro does us all a favor by putting that wrong to right.

My favorite match of the company's latest release, NewPro 19, is the main event: Chris Jones, 5'8", 160#, versus BG East regular Kirby Stone, 5'10", 167#, former pals squaring off against each other. Both guys wear pink and black with their initials stitched to their asses. Stone wears his hair long in this  bout (and in his previous NewPro gig as well). He sports a honey-colored tan and exhibits more fire than his languorous good looks would suggest he's capable of. Dark-haired, pasty-faced Jones looks like he's straight out of Central Casting for schoolyard bullies, and he's got a tight build and a flare for arrogance and sadism. Neither is fitness-model or GQ perfection, nothing airbrushed about either, but it's precisely because they look like regular neighborhood roughnecks that I find the fight so exciting. It may be a prejudice of mine, but I feel that nobody fights as tough as a regular guy who's fit.

Stone shows strong from the beginning. He subjects Jones to a series of painful armbars. Jones pleads, "I thought we were friends." "We were," Stone replies, without expression or emphasis. When Jones strikes back, he proves himself the meaner of the two, the one more likely to cut corners, the one more likely to savor the groans of his opponent and (now clearly "ex") friend. As the action heats up, Stone shouts to the audience, "Who wants to see this kid die?" and then, with unmistakable relish, he turns his attention to the task of dismantling the longhair.

Two friends settling a grudge mano a mano may actually be a bit hotter than two brothers wrestling. Jones and Stone know each other's moves like they know their own, and they work each other vigorously, anticipating what the other guy will try next and attempting to block it. There's a bit of the male catfight in this contest, too, as the two punks want to mess each other up ... and bad. Small handwork, such as hair-pulling and nose-wringing, add detail that's both vicious and intimate. Stone and Jones exhibit a lot of show-offy energy that's lacking in most televised pro wrestling today, where even new talent can appear to be phoning in their glittery performance. Amid the shrieks and moans, wholly believable, Stone and Jones look like they're having a hell of a good time, cutting loose on each other. It's a good time for the viewer, too, let me tell you.