Squared Circular Logic is a new weekly, occasionally biweekly, column by PWP redshirt Derek Walker. Born, raised and beaten up a handful of times in Berwyn, Illinois — home to rising independent promotion All-American Wrestling (AAW) — Derek will use his unique(?) insight as he discusses all facets of the company’s output, be it good, bad or blah. He will also throw in a few ’90s references for the people who are tolerant of such a thing.
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AAW Pro in Berwyn – not now nor ever “Chicago,” to this Berwynite – has provided me a lot of entertainment through the years. More than that, I’d say. It’s provided me an escape from my many problems – gambling, womanizing, among them – and it’s given my life purpose beyond sitting around my apartment eating Sour Patch Kids to the tune of every episode of “Ghostwriter” in existence. On YouTube, look it up. They’re all there. These are all topics I will get into in more detail later down the road.
But first, yes, I am from Berwyn. I know a lot of AAW’s talent and staff, and certainly its fans, live close to Berwyn – perhaps in Cicero or Chicago, or a similar surrounding community. But to live and die in Berwyn, and to exist alongside a wrestling promotion like an AAW, that’s kind of a rare thing, one must figure. How many people can say they grew up within walking distance of the same building where world class performers like Daniel Bryan once competed? (Emphasis once. But still.) Austin Aries, Seth Rollins, this random guy WWE is pushing now named Cesaro. This is all occurring in my backyard, and that’s a little strange to me. Hear me out.
I’ve been a child of Svengoolie (a son of Son of Sven, technically) since ’87, and the town has changed. When I was young, the streets were a little safer. Safe enough where we could still host a block party without frightening the clown, at least. Can’t say that anymore. Of course, I went to Morton West, where the “T” is silent. I learned more about how to fight with a padlock wrapped around my knuckles than I did The Great Gatsby. What does that green light mean again, Ms. Ambrosia?
What I’m getting at is, Berwyn isn’t exactly the, ahem, shining green light of hope and dreams for the future. Well, we got a kick-ass mayor, and he’s netted us a new Walgreens and a Buffalo Wild Wings, so things aren’t looking too bad at the moment. But you get the picture.
Where it all begins… the local hot dog cart.
I started seeing the flyers when I was a pre-teen panty sniffer who inexplicably collected New Age Outlaws merchandise and snuck views of his father’s Playboys – but only the ones with the WWF Divas on the cover. Oh, Sable. They called them Divas back in 1999, didn’t they? Hung up all around the local Lucky Dog, advertising big, hulking muscle creatures, similar to the ones I watched on the TV, but, uh, smaller. And more of them wearing jean vests. One of them was probably Johnny Gargano’s dad.
I went to my first match in 1999, I want to say, which is when my love for all things wrestling, including the now groan-worthy D-Generation X, began. My mother, not a wrestling aficionado by any stretch, took me to St. Mary of Celle Church, an odd venue for a wrestling show, but they had a gym and a fire exit, so all was cool. My mom probably didn’t want to expose me to a bloodbath of a deathmatch of a main event – one, after which, I took home a blood-covered thumbtack – but, screw it, I was hooked. Then she took me to WWF Raw the next year, and I couldn’t stop.
It wasn’t till a decade later when I discovered AAW. It was on a flyer, at Lucky Dog. Yes, guys, that “unpaid intern” street team thing really works. Wait, I put the wrong thing in quotes, didn’t I? Regardless, I caught the flyer and my interest was piqued. I knew there was always wrestling in Berwyn, which makes Berwyn a bit of a wrestling town, stupidly enough, but I didn’t know if there was good wrestling in Berwyn.
I don’t want to sling mud here, because maybe they’ve gotten their act together by now, but I didn’t want my experience to be anything like the lone time I visited Chicago Style Wrestling in August 2010. I caught the Danielson match, and it was such a sorry effort from the company; he played an apathetic heel and walked out five minutes before the thing ended. It was tragic, so I had a chip on my shoulder going into my first AAW show. That chip still exists, and they know it, because I tweet them 70 times a week to remind them. I needed this to be good, though.
Everywhere an everyman.
“The Chaos Theory” from January 22, 2011, was my first AAW show, and it didn’t disappoint. The ring canvas didn’t look like a tarp, for one. Kudos to that. There was something about the Berwyn Eagles Club (“world famous”) that really spoke to me. It was darker and dimmer than a high school gymnasium, and that there weren’t those colored stripes on the floor or basketball hoops hanging overhead, that helped immerse me into the action considerably. The place isn’t as gorgeous as the hall PCW runs (few are), but it has chandeliers, so I’m not about to split hairs.
More than the eye candy aesthetic and production – comparative to, say, 90 percent of indies, give or take – I saw something special in AAW that made me an instant fan. Perhaps that something was in fact a someone, named Stache, known better to friends and people holding his driver’s license as Marion Fontaine. Immediately captivating in every aspect, this bean pole stood out and gave me my first real, non-Danielson-inspired mark out moment.
I dug the ‘Stache because he was just a normal dude, and Fontaine was the normalest and the dudiest of them all. From someone who was born in this economic underdog of a city, to see a real person I could pretty much see through as being a real person, in the center of a wrestling ring, it inspired me. That night I Googled Fontaine and found he does graphic design. Well, the guy who plays Fontaine, spoiler alert. And he’s killer at it, probably even better than he is between the ropes. That’s what I dug about him, and about AAW.
The company’s grown and matured and evolved, most definitely, in the three-plus years I’ve been following it. But in the back of my head and from the bottom of my heart, I know what drew me in were the ham-and-eggers. The nine-to-fivers. The everymen. The guys who, not so curiously enough, resemble Bryan Dani—err, Daniel Bryan. Excuse me, I know us Internet folk don’t take too kindly to that sort of talk. Pardon.
It’s March 4, 2014. By now, AAW is a daily motivation of mine, whether it’s checking the company’s Twitter and throwing ideas their way, or annoying the people around me by talking about it so much. Sorry not sorry, mom; you should have known what you were getting me into. If you take a look at last January’s card, and the first card I’d seen from this promotion, your eyeballs would droop lazily out of their sockets. Like Vader. Do you want to end up like Vader? Then don’t do your research. Leave that to me. And my droopy eyeballs.
To put it bluntly, holy shit. Three years is, what, maybe 40 shows, little less than that? And this is an entirely new company. Maybe that’s why Jerry shot me a DM and asked me to write for PWP. Because I’m already sort of a boring humanoid who writes about AAW Ad nauseam, so put that kid on the payroll. Or, however it is they do things around here.
The future is now. Or whenever you finish reading, just let me know.
I guess that’ll be my segue into describing my “green light” for this column. Explain to you, who is still reading, what I hope to get out of this. And what you could expect from me. For one, you can expect a lot of me. This is my bag, and these columns will be about my experiences and perspectives as a fan of this wrestling promotion – and the city of Berwyn. I watch from the perspective of somebody fully realizing he’s dropped a deuce in the same bathroom as CM Punk. Maybe.
I’m also a journalist at heart, and by degree, I suppose, as well. So I would like to enact change, however I go about doing that. Every column, therefore, will have a point, a purpose and a perspective. Refreshing in the age of clickbaiting and short-forming and microblogging and Jesus, it’s enough to make my old school, Bill Kurtis-loving butt cry actual tears. My butt doesn’t cry the tears, shut up. You know what I mean. I want to give you, the reader, something worthwhile.
My final goal with this column is to connect with you. It’s impossible to enact change when people sit on their hands or just nodding along in agreement every question they’re asked. There are people, fans, too afraid to speak up about what they dislike. I have a low tolerance for that kind of crap, so I am going to be intentionally honest and discerning and critical and several other adjectives I’ll fill in later, and it’s going to make some of you laugh, and it’s going to rub some of you the wrong way. In that event, notify your local authorities. Or just me. I am a firm believer in one’s right to an opinion, even if the person carrying that opinion goes to the SHIMMER shows in Berwyn exclusively to take upskirt photos of the women. (I’ve seen things, man.)
There. That’s what I would like to achieve. That wasn’t so bad. Say, would you maybe want to check out the AAW Podcast? Because this column will serve as a little companion piece to that, all told. We’re recording Thursday and it’s going to be pretty good. But I’ll let you be the judge of that. I judge them and you judge me. And then I think I judge you? That’s circular logic, my friend.
Squared Circular Logic. Get it?