This wrestling stuff – it’s contagious

BANGOR – Everyone should go to at least one wrestling match in his or her lifetime. Seriously. Joke, smirk, tease or taunt this writer if you like, but try it. Why? Because there are few events which offer such pure and earnest entertainment – and where else can you give your inner heckler free rein for a few hours? The JVC Tower of Power “Tour of Defiance” event, held Nov. 4, at the Bangor Auditorium, was fun, plain and simple.

As each of the contenders entered the ring the music blared, the stage lights danced and the announcers barked. We stood on our chairs and craned our necks to see each strut and pose session.

The fun – but wildly tasteless – “Kiss My –” match pitted two of the biggest, and perhaps ugliest, men in the WWE against each other. Weighing in at 350 and 348 pounds respectively, the hirsute Albert and the jiggly Rikishi offered the crowd what was essentially a gross-out match between themselves. Upon his entrance Albert, the match’s villain, chided the crowd with “Bangor, Maine, what a dump!”

Rikishi triumphed, though, and squished all smugness from Albert’s face with his winning backside.

Both cruiser-weight matches were impressive and surprisingly athletic. In one, Tajiri faced off with Jamie Noble, wowing the crowd with acrobatic kung fu-style moves.

A bit ahead of the event’s schedule, saying that he couldn’t wait any longer, The Big Show called Brock Lesnar out into the ring in an attempt to take Lesnar’s WWE Championship belt. Show brutally bear-hugged his way through the close match with the muscular Lesnar, but to no avail. Lesnar proudly kept his title.

A coed tag team match featuring Billy Kidman and Torrie Wilson squaring off with John Cena and Dawn Marie was as gratuitous as one would imagine – skimpy clothes, hair pulling and even spanking.

The spectacle of two women clawing at one another repulses some spectators and whips others into a frenzy. In the end, blonde trumped brunette, Kidman and Wilson over Cena and Marie.

In the first of two No. 1 Contenders’ Matches Matt Hardy abused defending champ Chris Benoit – and the crowd – with his platitude of having “Mattitude.” But dull quips were Hardy’s best and only defense against Benoit. Matt’s “Version 1.0” got him a final smack to the mat, and Benoit kept his title.

It was during this match that my ordinarily sweet wife became a fully converted wrestling fan, evidenced by her passionate cries of “Come on, Matt!” Later, she hurled an accusation that the Guerrero Brothers fought like girls.

The evening’s final contest had its biggest stars, with Edge and Rey Mysterio tag-teaming against the underhanded Edie and Chavo Guerrero. A throwback to wrestling’s days gone by with his full-head black mask, Mysterio dazzled with crazy leg work on the Guerreros. Standing ringside, the gregarious Edge dwarfed his masked partner.

The crowd didn’t hold back during the match, eagerly shouting insults to Edie and Chavo and rhythmically chanting “Edge! Edge!”

Victorious, Edge stopped the fans headed to their cars by asking if they wanted a “5-Second Pose.” To cheers and cries, he asked for the biggest Edge and Mysterio fans to make themselves known, then selected a lucky boy, Brandon, and girl, Kim, from crowd. The whole auditorium was treated to an Edge pose, five seconds to each side, with Brandon on his shoulders and Kim on his knee.

Despite lower attendance this year, the night was electric. There was cheating, triumph, unbelievable comebacks, refs prone to turning their backs for extended periods of time, dirty tricks with folding chairs, intense physical gags, and fighting which occasionally spilled out of the ring and onto the auditorium’s cold concrete floor – all the things wresting is really about.