Yesterday my husband, my daughter and I spent a delightful evening at the Allen County Fair. I will devote this post to a surreal aspect of this year’s trip. Allen County, Ohio, is almost equally split between industry and agriculture. This mix sometimes creates some odd shows and activities at our fair.
Halfway through our evening, we stumbled upon a wrestling exhibition that looked like a hot mess. After we returned home, I did some brief searching about the troupe we watched. They are called Wrestling and Respect, or WAR, and they have a substantial local following. I am uncertain about much serious wrestling this troupe does, but the show we watched last night was pure camp.
Each of the wrestlers donned costumes from different variants or genres of the sport, including high school, 70’s, and luche libre:
It’s too bad I am still fumbling through the video setting on my camera, for if I were more confident with it, I’d be sharing a clip of these wrestlers dancing to “U Can’t Touch This.”
The wrestler who was sporting a 70’s style costume had the letters DDT affixed to his rear end. These letters could stand for his initials. If I were in charge of this troupe, it would signify that his persona is inspired in part by the outlawed pesticide DDT. I’d also advise him to bleach his hair platinum to conform better to his 70’s wrestling look.
Overall, this campy match was a lot of fun, even for the uninitiated (such as myself). For those of you who are familiar with the world of anime, I’d say that WAR match was like the Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo of wrestling.
My daughter couldn’t completely hide her delight in all the wrestling chaos:
Intensity Without Mastery 
You know, I think I’ve been to this fair, years ago.
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Not much has changed in the past 20 years. Some of the rides have LED lights now, and black heavy metal band t-shirts aren’t being offered as game prizes anymore.
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