Actors pay homage to pro wrestling with LCAW

Over thirty fans rose to their feet for the main event.

Two masked luchadores knelt in front of a small white table on the stage in the back of Kaiju bar in Germantown. On one side was El Chubbs in a Tiger mask, the other Trone “The Louisville Lucha” in a blue and white mask. The two locked arms for their third straight round of arm wrestling, with the winner to be crowned the LCAW Lucha Champion.

After almost of minute of back and forth struggling, El Chubbs slammed Trone’s wrist on the table, being named champion. He was handed a special mask on a mannequin’s head as the crowd erupted and his entrance music blared throughout the room.

This is just one of many scenes made by the performers of Louisville Championship Arm Wrestling, a theatrical production put on as a tribute to professional wrestling via scripted arm wrestling matches and colorful cast of characters. The group had its latest show “Christmas is Coming” back on July 25.

Jon Becraft started LCAW as part of the Slant Culture Theatre Festival in November 2014, enlisting the help of his acting troupe Baby Horse Theatre and friends from Hanover College.

“We wanted to put on wrestling shows with the friends but we didn’t have the money, skill or talent,” Becraft said. “We had always wanted to break into the creative side of professional wrestling. So putting on an arm wrestling show seemed like the perfect fit because we could still do characters, good guys, bad guys, entrances, the pageantry and theatrics without any of the money or skill to put on the real thing.”

Becraft was a fan of wrestling as a child, but it was only when collegiate friend Jake Miller reintroduced him to the product when the two attended Hanover College in 2008.

“This thing is fun, it’s not pretentious, it doesn’t pander, it’s just in your face and everyone can enjoy it,” Becraft said. “Wrestling is the most successful form of theater in the world. It gets its audience engaged more than any opera, any ballet or any play could.”

Becraft recruited Miller, who is currently a stage manager for The Second City theater troupe in Chicago, to join him as co-writer and as an active performer on the show as his evil manager persona Gino Grigiot.

“I think wrestling really taught me most of what I know about telling stories, performing and what it’s like for an audience to go into a room and have expectations and the performers meet those expectations,” Miller said. “I think LCAW has been the first time I’ve been able to combine all of those things.”

Since first performing at the Slant Culture Theatre Festival, Becraft decided he was going to focus all of his creative efforts on writing more LCAW shows.

“We were all standing around going, ‘This is the most fun we’ve ever had, let’s just do this as much as possible and make it something really big,’” Becraft said.

Becraft and Miller have since produced two more LCAW events, creating storylines and personas for the 15-plus actors on the LCAW roster.

One of Becroft’s earliest character creations was for his friend Jacquelyn Heinzen, who is the current LCAW Heavyweight Champion as the white trash brawler Lacey Truck.

“I’ll usually have the idea for the character and throw it at them and see what they think about it,” Becraft said. “More often than not, they take it and run with it.”

“I would never have done it if it were super posh theater stuff because I’m not really an actor,” Heinzen said. “But he (Becraft) really emphasized that it’s just about friends doing fun stuff together, and not trying to make high art. When he started talking about Louisville Championship Arm Wrestling, because he’s this super wrestling buff, I was like, ‘Actually, yes I will do this. This is the bomb.’”

Another created character was Trone, played by Miller’s former roommate Jay Petrone. Petrone is moving to Ireland in September, and as a result had his sendoff at the “Christmas is Coming” event, which included him being unmasked, resurrected by a female luchador and allowed to sing multiple comedic musical numbers.

As goofy as it all sounds, Petrone said he, the other actors, and the fans have nothing but fun at each show.

“It has the roots in pro wrestling, which we all really love,” Petrone said. “It’s cool that Jon has found a way to use those elements. We’re all either comedians or actors or storytellers of some kind, so it’s been so much fun to be able to use those elements to tell those kinds of stories. And you can’t beat the crowd; they’re amazing. They cheer for the good guys, they boo the bad guys, it’s just so much fun.”

Becraft said that the main goal at each show is for the crowd to be fully involved.

“Just the fact that people are showing up and actively booing or cheering and holding up signs... they’re a key part of the show,” Becraft said. “I would be having a terrible time if it was a polite audience.”

LCAW next’s event, titled “Never Thanks Give Up,” will be live at Kaiju on November 14.