Students who have longed to watch grown men in spandex body-slamming each other live in an enclosed ring will have their chance when professional wrestlers compete in Alumni Gymnasium Dec. 2.
Last weekend, a group representing the Programming Board traveled to Norwich University in Vermont to watch a performance by professional wrestlers, including Dave Vicious and the Iron Sheik.
The group included Linda Kennedy, director of student activities and Programming Board advisor, Brian Sleet '00, the Programming Board's student co-chair, and Desmond Ahoklui '00, the Board's event chair.
Kennedy said "it was such a blast" that they have already scheduled the wrestlers to perform at the College.
Kennedy said they will meet with a wrestling promoter and put together a slate of seven or eight bouts a couple of weeks before the event.
Although specific wrestlers cannot be reserved, the program will include male, female and tag team matches. Ahoklui said plenty of chair-throwing and body-slamming will make up "a virtual circus brawl."
Kennedy, Sleet and Ahoklui said they thought the performance at Norwich was terrific.
"I got absorbed into the fervor and found myself screaming at the top of my lungs before it was over," Ahoklui said.
One of the controversies surrounding the event was its proposed location. Alumni Hall was too small and lacked necessities, such as lockers for the wrestlers, but the Alumni Gymnasium was already reserved for open gym recreation hours.
Kennedy posted a BlitzMail bulletin requesting student feedback about the show's location. In the first 12 hours after it was posted, only three replies of the first 100 criticized using the gym.
Kennedy said such excited student response made the decision to use the gym easy.
One student who responded to the bulletin by BlitzMail said he was particularly excited because he would finally get to see pro-wrestling after growing up forbidden to watch it by his parents.
Students who did grow up watching the World Wrestling Federation are in for a treat. "I recognized many of [the wrestlers] from my own childhood and was able to meet them after the show and joke around," Ahoklui said.
The show will be free to undergraduates and $5 for other members of the community.
