2008 Woodie Awards
Orlando's pro wrestling entertains with bizarre costumes, body slams
Whitney Hamrick
Issue date: 6/26/08 Section: Variety
Alpha Epsilon Pi alum from the University of Central Florida bring their love of beat downs, intro music and rope dives to downtown Orlando professional wrestling fans every month, in a place where wearing tight spandex underpants breeds the norm and the sadomasochist parallel of hero verses heel brings heckles and cheers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Downtown Recreation Center in Orlando, Florida, for a night of live professional wrestling," said owner Ari Goldstein, 27, UCF business management alumus, performing as announcer Jonathan Gold.
Goldstein shared pro wrestling as an interest with his father
"We just watched wrestling and just loved it," Goldstein said. "It's kind of like the one bonding thing between the two of us."
Growing up in Orlando, pro wrestling lacked a niche for enthused fans Goldstein, professional wrestler Chasyn Rance and Josh Rich, criminal justice alum.
"We had nothing in Orlando that was pure wrestling action that's a good traditional show for the fans," Goldstein said. "It's something I've been working on for a couple of years and we finally brought it for Orlando."
During his years at UCF, AEP held a wrestling fundraiser in Oct. 2002 featuring Rance and Montel Vontavious Porter "MVP."
A mix between a greater part of character acting and stunt work, and a lesser part of the type of wrestling you'd find in your local high school, wrestling is a discipline and a physical skill set blended with the bizarre costumes and cheesey smack talk.
Rich performed as the arrogantly wealthy Josh Rich, a member of the Frat Pack duo for the AEP show and the janitor during his time as a wrestler, and now he enjoys his work with promotions for the indie wrestling company.
"I hadn't watched wrestling in years since I was a little," Rich said. "I watched it, and when I went to college that was right when wrestling was kind of in the big-bomb period with The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Goldberg and the NWO. My roommates were watching it; I told them to turn it off because wrestling was stupid, and they said, 'No, no, no it's really cool. Watch it.' For whatever reason I went, 'Wow this is really awesome, I want to be a professional wrestler.'"