By day, Jake Gomez works as a special-education teacher in Downtown Brooklyn. But on a Friday evening in June, the stocky, mohawked 31-year-old was professionally elbow-dropping opponents in the ring. Within the cinder-block recreation center of Most Precious Blood Church in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn, he was Logan Black, the King of Chaos.

Mr. Gomez is part of New York’s underground wrestling scene, a D.I.Y. community of performers, referees, managers and fans who embrace the violent pageantry of a sport usually seen on pay-per-view or in arenas.

For a few hours a week, they congregate in gyms, nightclubs and social clubs to perform under the guises of brutish and flamboyant personae, before returning to their otherwise routine lives.