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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.

It’s April. That means it is time for Portland Pinbrawl again. After taking photos last year, I was on hand with my camera again to document this 128-player pinball tournament.

Some final repairs being made before the tournament so that every table was running in top shape.

Assembling the crowd to explain the rules.

Games underway.

There was a side tournament on Baby Pac-Man once again, the combination arcade game + pinball table.

Last year’s Baby Pac-Man tournament winner (left) passing off the trophy to this year’s winner.

Pinbrawl is the one day a year that Ground Kontrol allows outside seating (and drinking), and the weather was certainly nice enough to take advantage.

Putting Baby Pac-Man back in storage.

Some finalists with their prize winnings.

Once there were finally two players left — Chris “Specials” Chinn and John Gimera — the championship table was revealed to be Wizard of Oz.

Chris starting off the final match. The game was also displayed on a TV and on a projector.

John (left) was the winner of the entire tournament, taking home a $1,000 cash prize and the Pinbrawl trophy.

Finally, I also made a time lapse video of a very busy area of the arcade. The tournament went all day, and this is only one section, so you can kind of get an idea of what this event can be like.

Congrats to John and all of the other incredible players that participated in Pinbrawl 2016. Already looking forward to next year.

Last week I got to take photos of the Let’s-A-Go! Mario Kart tournament. The event was put on by Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade, The Hollywood Theatre and the Ace Hotel, and it featured 32 players in a Mario Kart 64 tournament playing on projectors on the wall.

People were lined up before the registration even started to get one of the spots in the tournament.

Also featured were the Echo AiR teen artists, part of a program at Hollywood Theatre that gets high school students involved in the arts. They were doing Mario-inspired stop motion projects.

Additionally, Sizzle Pie donated pizza.

Outside the Ace Hotel.

The final two players, who faced off in the championship.

Your tournament champion.

This event was a blast, and many attendees were clamoring for another tournament soon.

I dusted off my camera this weekend to take pictures of Portland Pinbrawl, a giant annual pinball tournament held at Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade here in Portland, Oregon.

Fair warning, shooting inside a dark arcade full of people with lots of flashing lights is logistically very tricky. As a result, these photos are far from the best. But I did what I could to record the event.

The weather was pretty not bad.

Addressing the crowd. There were 128 players in the tournament.

There was also a side tournament on Baby Pac-Man, which is both a retro arcade game and a pinball table.

Techs were on hand to fix problems all day.

Winner of the Baby Pac-Man tournament.

The final match of the tournament was projected on the wall so everybody could see. Setting up the camera was not simple.

My friend JohnNils took all of the photos past this point, as the tournament lasted over 12 hours and I eventually had to leave.

The final match.

Tournament champion with his trophy!

That will do it for now. More photos to come as I take them.

Saturday was the 2014 Arizona Fall League Fall Stars Game. I took photos. Here are some.

The Western Division All-Stars.

Archie Bradley.

Francisco Lindor.

Tyrone Taylor.

Kaleb Cowart.

Corey Seager.

Steven Moya.

Nick Howard.

Eddie Rosario.

Matt Reynolds.

Nick Williams.

Mike Ohlman.

Greg Bird, who was named the Fall Stars Game MVP after this huge homer.

Greg Bird with Peter O’Brien.

Brandon Nimmo.

Peter O’Brien.

Tony Renda.

Dalton Pompey.

Cody Kendall.

Patrick Leonard.

C.J. Edwards.

Francellis Montas.

That’s it. Champ Game is in two weeks. More photos then.