Hoodslam

The Stoner Brothers, a popular duo at Hoodslam, wrestling Bat Manuel and El Chupacabra

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.

History

Sam Khandaghabadi, founder of Hoodslam, wrestling as The Dark Sheik

Hoodslam was founded by Sam Khandaghabadi, who had been wrestling at other venues under the name The Sheik but was fed up with needing to keep his act appropriate for children. He called together other wrestlers he had met on the West Coast and convinced them to come to the Victory Warehouse in Oakland, the place where he lived and where underground metal shows were regularly performed, promising them that profanity and sexuality would be allowed. 15 wrestlers participated in the first Hoodslam, for which Khandaghabadi did not charge admission.

The gathering continued to be held monthly until May 2011, when the landlord of the Victory Warehouse complained about the noise and partying surrounding the event. However, in June 2011, slam poet Jamie DeWolf invited Khandaghabadi and the other Hoodslam wrestlers to perform as part of his underground variety art show, Tourettes Without Regrets, at a larger warehouse venue in Oakland, the Oakland Metro Opera House. The popularity of their performance ensured them a regularly monthly spot at the Oakland Metro – on the same night as Oakland's First Friday art gathering – which continued to attract large crowds. In October 2014, for the first time, the 1,000-person venue sold out before the show began.

Starting in early 2015, an offshoot of Hoodslam, called "Beachslam", began promoting shows in Santa Cruz, CA and Knightsen, CA featuring many of the same performers and characters as Hoodslam--as well as several new, regional or experimental characters.

Style and characteristics

According to Khandaghabadi, Hoodslam, unlike traditional professional wrestling, is a form of performance art: because the wrestlers do not need to appeal to a young audience and do not have to pretend that their act is real, they can unleash their creativity in a more sophisticated way, simultaneously demonstrating their athleticism and poking fun at the absurdity of professional wrestling. Hoodslam wrestler A.J. Kirsch states that the tagline of the event, "This Is Real," is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the obvious absurdity of the show, which features wrestlers dressed as popular video game characters Ken and Ryu, as well as an "invisible" wrestler, Charlie Chaplin, whom the real wrestlers pretend to battle. Unlike the characters and story lines, however, the physical prowess of the performers is real, and their moves are difficult and dangerous.

As the show unfolds, the performers chant, "fuck the fans," which, according to O.J. Patterson, is a "unifying war chant" that functions as "part reminder not to take things too seriously and part demand for hedonistic excess."

Notable performers

Former WWE Tag Team Champions Paul London and Brian Kendrick holding the decapitated corpse of Hoodslam's donkey mascot, Butternuts at a May 2015 event.

Many former WWE and ECW wrestlers have made appearances at Hoodslam: since 2013, Brian Kendrick, Paul London, Drake Younger, Sinn Bodhi, Shelly Martinez, Gangrel, Sonny Onoo and Mustafa Saed have performed on the Hoodslam stage.