Last week I went to Hoodslam in Oakland. I have never been a wrestling fan at all, but my friend David said that this event would be insane and that we needed to go while in town. He was right.
Hoodslam is an underground professional wrestling event that takes place in Oakland, California. Begun in 2010 by Sam Khandaghabadi as a regular gathering for wrestlers who wanted to perform edgier acts for adults, Hoodslam quickly became a popular event in the Bay Area, attracting over 1,000 attendees at each monthly performance. Hoodslam performances combine the athleticism and tropes of professional wrestling with more bizarre, absurd characters, as well as profanity, sexuality, and public consumption of drugs and alcohol, which are not considered appropriate at mainstream professional wrestling events.
Perfect.
Additionally, this event was Get Your Ass To March III, featuring performances by the band ArnoCorps.
ArnoCorps is the world’s first band to feature lyrics based exclusively on the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger, with particular emphasis on his action roles from the 1980s such as The Terminator, Predator and Total Recall, with many of the lyrics paralleling movie dialogue and plots, similar to The Misfits‘ lyrical focus on horror films and B-movies.
See? Basically you should hit play on this song before scrolling down through these pictures.
Without further ado:
Broseph Joe Brody is the MC at Hoodslam and he was incredible.
ArnoCorps.
Pizza Cat!
Doc Atrocity.
Ken (of Street Fighter).
Yes, he’s pouring whiskey into some guy’s fake leg…
… and Mr. Freeze.
Ryu (also of Street Fighter).
The Stoner Brothers.
Conan the Barbarian.
The Main Event featured Cereal Man teaming up with Bat Manuel to take on Game Over.
I can’t really describe any of it better than the photos, or any of the (many) videos you can find online. It was outrageous in the best way and I can’t wait to go again.