Self Inflicted Wounds?

The majority of WNBA fans out there are women. The majority of NBA fans are men. So imagine the shock of walking into a midget wrestling match and not seeing one little person in the crowd. It made me a little uncomfortable. I was among a group of about eight normal sized men and women out celebrating a friend's birthday. After dinner we had decided to try and find a karaoke bar, but while checking a few surrounding establishments, the birthday boy stumbled upon a "Midget Wrestling Match" at a bar down the street.

I was next to him while he was calling the different bars and could only hear half the conversation.

"What?..."

"Are you serious?..."

"That's going on tonight?..."

"When?...."

"OK. Thanks...."

At this point, I had no idea what he was talking about, but he seemed really excited. He announced to us all. "There's midget wrestling going on tonight."

Everybody was excited. He asked if we wanted to go. As I shook my head in dissent, I heard the excited "hell yeses" behind me. I was clearly outnumbered and I worried the rest of the group may be drunk enough to go through with it. Sure enough, we were on our way in less than ten minutes.

When we got to the bar, it was immediately depressing. Not because I was embarrassed, though I'd be lying if I walked in there with my head held high, but I was sort of depressed by how few people turned out for the show. It was sort of ironic. I felt bad that the community couldn't show more support for the little people, and at the same time I was a little relieved more people were proud enough to find better things to do.

The show started uneasily. "Puppet The Psycho Dwarf" came out doing a little stand-up to loosen the awkward crowd. I don't think anyone knew how to act in this situation. The jokes were pretty predictable, lots of little penis jokes, or in his case big penis jokes. He was a self proclaimed "tripod" which I'm sure excited the ladies. At one point he brought a woman on stage to demonstrate how he made love to "normal" sized people. He had her get down on her knees while he stood behind her thrusting while he chanted "Oom...pah...Loom...pah". A thrust for each syllable. It was a huge hit for everyone. Including the woman being dry humped.

After about ten minutes of jokes, we finally got into the action. The first match was between "Beautiful Bobby", who was anything but, which doesn't refer to his ill-proportioned body but his beer gut and less than becoming long blond hair. Bobby fought another small person and for whatever reason I was surprised at how fake the fight was. The advertisements introduced the show as "hardcore," so naturally, I thought things were going to get pretty nasty. In reality, it was no different from any other professional wrestling match. Lots of pulled punches and fake groans of pain, some hard chest slapping. I was actually a little relieved, this seemed harmless enough. Unfortunately though, the feeling didn't last. It didn't take long for it to turn a little too hardcore.

After Beautiful Bobby went down for the count, another little person came out on the stage to perform some sort of challenge. Puppet was at the mike and the little person at his side held an empty pitcher. Puppet gave him a nod and the little person began to piss in the pitcher. Our table was open mouthed with disbelief. After the pitcher was quarter full, we looked at each other shaking our heads, Nah, couldn't be real. He then poured a glass of the yellowish water and drank it with groans erupting from the crowd. Puppet asked the crowd, "Would anyone kiss this guy for twenty bucks?" For five long seconds it was quiet until someone in the small crowd yelled "FIFTY".

It was agreed, the woman came to the stage. She got on her knees so she was eye level with the piss drinker, and at the count of three from the crowd, she began kissing the man to the floor. It seemed degrading to me that the woman had to be paid to kiss a small person, especially since I was certain the pee was fake. To find out for sure I went to the front of the ring to the couple that had the best view.

"Excuse me. Sorry to bother you, but was that real?" I asked

"What part?" (as if the kissing was some sort of ruse)

"The piss. Did he really pee in that pitcher?"

"I don't know man, but there was definitely a dick in there. It looked real from here."

I walked back to our table, the fifty dollars now seeming more justified. The little person left the stage, while Puppet announced a different proposal to the crowd.

"I will staple a dollar to my ballsack and keep it there for as many seconds as there are dollars offered by the highest bidder."
"TEN", was yelled from the crowd, followed by "TWENTY". One of the little people was acting as an auctioneer, and eventually got some drunken asshole to bid sixty dollars.

The stapler was brought out. It was one of those old staple guns like the one Clark Grizwald uses to staple lights to his roof in the movie "Christmas Vacation". To prove the stapler was real, it was tested beforehand by stapling a dollar to the back of the chair Puppet was going to sit on. With a pop the staple was driven into the dollar where it clung securely to the chair. It was definitely real. Puppet sat down and took a single testicle outside of his speedo. A Dollar was brought up and pressed firmly to his ball, the bidder was actually to do the stapling herself. With the pop of the stapler and the screech of Puppet, the dollar stuck. When enough time passed, the staple was ripped off like a band-aid. After the yelling subsided, Puppet looked down at his scrotum and squeezed his testicle to show the blood that dripped from the wound.

We went home to continue drinking and with some effort forget most of the night. To avoid feeling ashamed, we sat around the kitchen justifying our support of midget wrestling. "You know it's their job. I mean, this is what they do." "Yeah, it's not degrading if they choose to wrestle." I thought about that. It made sense. We aren't bad people. What would prostitutes do if they didn't have the hideous and lonely to make love to? Probably work nine-to-fives. That's not what we need. We have plenty of people to fill cubicles. There's only a small number of people out there willing to staple dollars to their scrotums. If we don't support them, I'm afraid my kids will just have to read about it in history books.