All the story lines are for the gay community because they don't get that anywhere else."
Shows are designed and produced for the gay community.
"We have straight villains," Pride Pro Wrestling founder Thomas Neiss said. The results were a stellar affirmation that impressed everyone involved."įor those looking for villains and theatrics, the launch of Pride Pro Wrestling in the backroads of Pennsylvania offered promise. This year a contingent of our best WWB wrestlers from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago also competed in a local competitive open tournament the day before competing in our Don Jung tournament. Today's generation of LGBT athletes can compete anywhere successfully, and do not need LGBT events for anything more than a social outlet. "The diversity of options offered this year to the wrestlers is probably the future template for gay sports in general as it struggles to find an identity in a 'post-gay' world, where we have become victims of our success. "These past few years with the institution of the Alliance youth program and the involvement with the Mission High School team, has not only changed for the better those targeted programs, coaches and youth wrestlers, but it has totally changed our mission, modus operandi, and, most importantly, how we are perceived by the mainstream community," Dermody said. Things have changed for the better in the past few years, Dermody noted. "The result was a policy of overreaction to insulate ourselves to the point that we were hindering our potential as an agent of true social change." "Our mission in the 1980s was focused on proving our competitiveness on the mat building bridges to USA Wrestling as organizers, coaches and officials and dealing with confidentiality, investigations and the closet," Dermody said. Gene Dermody, president of GGWC, has been involved in all 24 of the Don Jung Memorial tournaments and has seen changes over the years. (Although my private scorecard indicates that once again gays beat straights 8-6 in head-to-head competition â€" but hey, who's counting?)
straight, but rather gays and straights coaching and wrestling each other. The bouts on the mat were intense and technical, but the camaraderie was invigorating and respectful.
Four coaches and two graduates of GGWC's Alliance Wrestling program, through which free coaching is provided to high school wrestlers in San Francisco to help raise the level of their competitiveness, wrestled in the tournament, and a few of the Alliance wrestlers worked a tournament volunteers. But what made this event unique was the cultural blend it had in the tournament itself and the clinics and parties that surrounded it. There were 23 wrestlers in the tournament this year, two more than in 2008, and 33 matches, including Greco-Roman exhibitions in which wrestlers may not use leg attacks.
San Francisco's Ross Capdeville won the Wrestling Citizenship Award SCWC's Christopher Lorefice was named Rookie of the Year Most Improved Wrestler honors went to San Diego's Tim Montalbo Eddie Chen of SCWC won the Leadership Award and New York Metro's Elliot Saavedra won the Ambassador Award, which included a free registration for Gay Games VIII in Cologne. Last year, when the inaugural WWB Cup was held in Chicago, the Guests were barely able to eke out a 21-20 victory. Guests Challenge, the Guests prevailed 22-13. Host Golden Gate Wrestling Club scored a narrow victory over archrival Southern California 13-11 in the tournament at Eureka Valley Recreation Center, but in the more significant Hosts vs. Last month it was the Olympic discipline of freestyle wrestling at the 24th annual Don Jung Memorial Tournament played host to the Wrestling WithOut Borders Cup Championship, the "official bragging rights" event for WWB. Those two styles of wrestling were showcased this spring with dramatically different interpretations for the LGBT community at opposing ends of the continent. Others will instantly think Hulk Hogan, the Rock, and a bloody Mickey Rourke getting staple-gunned by a sweaty goon in The Wrestler. Say "wrestling" and some folks will instantly think of Dan Gable, Rulon Gardner, and the Olympics.