I’m Indigenous and we have a big sprawling family of cousins and relatives. When I was about ten, I was part of a small gang of about 20 kids my age and we all played together and loved wrestling and the WWF. A bunch of my cousins built a shitty looking wrestling ring in their backyard with old mattresses and lined it with old boards and dirty old rope with turnbuckles made of old clothing, duct tape and hockey equipment. We played on it for a long while until the literal body count of broken fingers, twisted ankles, bruises, cuts, scrapes, a dislocated shoulder, a few broken bones and a daily train of crying children forced the adults to shut it down.
But before it was closed, we all learned how to do a ‘figure-four leg lock’ … and how to reverse it! … and it was glorious to watch my buddies climb a turnbuckle, stand with arms raised and jump off into the air like Super Fly Jimmy Snuka … of all the dumb pictures I take now with my smartphone, I wish I could have taken tons of photos back then.
My older brother and I would do the moves after watching Sunday afternoon WWF. DDT onto the bed mattress was common practice. Jake was a badass.
I’m Indigenous and we have a big sprawling family of cousins and relatives. When I was about ten, I was part of a small gang of about 20 kids my age and we all played together and loved wrestling and the WWF. A bunch of my cousins built a shitty looking wrestling ring in their backyard with old mattresses and lined it with old boards and dirty old rope with turnbuckles made of old clothing, duct tape and hockey equipment. We played on it for a long while until the literal body count of broken fingers, twisted ankles, bruises, cuts, scrapes, a dislocated shoulder, a few broken bones and a daily train of crying children forced the adults to shut it down.
But before it was closed, we all learned how to do a ‘figure-four leg lock’ … and how to reverse it! … and it was glorious to watch my buddies climb a turnbuckle, stand with arms raised and jump off into the air like Super Fly Jimmy Snuka … of all the dumb pictures I take now with my smartphone, I wish I could have taken tons of photos back then.