Cover Story — Manchester loves to fight

Manchester loves to fight

 

Story by Rob Greene, Seth Hoy & Tabitha Hamilton

 

Punching kicking and flipping to a better life

“Those who live are those who fight,” French writer Victor Hugo once wrote.

Linda Murphy, co-owner of Murphy’s Boxing Gym on South Commercial Street, has adopted Hugo’s words as her personal motto.

The quote will likely hang as a banner in Murphy’s new gym, which she’ll be moving her equipment and coaching staff to in the next few months.

“The Olympics don’t like the word ‘fight’ because it’s not politically correct or something,” said Murphy, a tall, attractive woman in her mid 40s, “but I love the word. There is something about the whole idea of picking yourself up and being strong that I just really love.”

Murphy and her husband Peter opened their gym in 1978, back when boxing was running silent and deep. This was toward the end of Ali and well before Tyson. It was the late ’70s and all about Up With People and Free to Be You and Me. Give peace a chance, Sugar Ray Leonard notwithstanding.

“I remember the ’70s,” Murphy said, “that was a hard time with a lot of negativity about boxing.”

Operating out of a gym on Elm Street, the Murphys kept a low profile and trained fighters. One of the bright spots was Danny Melendez, who eventually became a world-class kickboxer.

There are dozens of such stories in Manchester. There is something about a mill town that makes fighters — Melendez in Manchester, Joey Gamache in Lewiston, Maine, Mike Tyson even spent some time fighting Golden Gloves in Lowell, Mass.

The Queen City has fighting schools, gyms and dojos by the score. You can study wushu and aikido on South Willow Street. You can experiment with the “sweet science” on Commercial and take on tae kwon do on Elm. You can fence on Mast Road , spar on Bridge and bout on Candia. Manchester has an army of in-the-ring warriors, quietly training and striving for self-improvement or just to feel more comfortable walking in a dark alley.

Here are some of their stories.

— Robert Greene

 

Getting ready to rrrrrrrumble

Learning the ropes in wrestling school

As a product of the 1980s, my boyhood consisted of daily doses of Pop-Tarts, Alf and my television pals in the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE).

Because of the regime,  I was chubby, weird and uncoordinated. But who needed friends and popularity when you had “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Rowdy Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan on your side? Sometimes, but only among family, I’d even try to throw down like the Hulk.

With overturned couches and pillows outlining a ring, my older brother and I held our “let’s see who can get hurt first” events in our basement. We called out names of moves like “suplex” or “flying elbow drop” before we charged each other with our fists of fury. The event inevitably fizzled out after Round One when one of us limped back to our corner, or ran upstairs to mom, with a vicious rug-burn or a freshly poked eye.

In my never-ending attempt to humiliate myself in front of strangers, I recently threw myself back into the ring to see what’s left of my atomic-elbow-of-doom and smell what the local semi-professional wrestling scene has cookin’.

I thought this story was a great idea until I was actually standing inside in the ring waiting for practice to begin. Top Rope Pro Wrestling Academy in Manchester is a for-profit program that trains young and hopeful dreamers into professional wrestlers. Head Trainer Steve Bradley, formerly with the WWE, runs the school of hard knocks at Top Rope.

Top Rope looks like the setting for a Rocky movie. Pro-wrestling students walk through the door — each one bigger and more jacked than the one before. I glance at my loose wrist bands and then to my fake tattoo, overwhelmed with shame. Today, I think, I’m going down to Chinatown and I’m in for more than just fortune cookies.

As the students lace up their boots and slide on knee and elbow pads, I inspect the ring, hoping  there are layers of padding and foam, or some weird elevated suspension, to ease the pain of landing directly on my back. But under the thin layer of padding and canvas are wood planks — not the softest material to plant your face on.

Before any instruction is given, the students take to the ring — throwing each other against the ropes, flipping around in the air and slamming each other against the ground. This is way cheaper and a lot more entertaining than the Cirque du Soleil.

As practice begins, the wrestlers, nine herculean guys and two girls who could definitely take me, start with blow-up drills to get their “wind up.” Keeping your wind up during a match apparently allows you to perform quick bursts of action without getting tired.

Blow-up drills put two people in the ring: Wrestler One bounces off the ropes and jumps over Wrestler Two. Meanwhile, Wrestler Two throws him- or herself under Wrestler One. This goes back and forth until someone gets knocked over.

Filled with winces by every thud I hear when someone hits the ground, I naively ask, “Doesn’t that hurt?”

The answer is yes — it hurts. To all those people who believe wrestling is fake: try throwing yourself to the ground while spreading your arms to maximize the sound you make when you hit and the surface area of impact. It hurts, doesn’t it?

Fellow wrestler Alex “The Golden Greek” Pliakos tests his students’ reaction time so that in a match, the wrestlers don’t take a fall unnecessarily or, you know, hold the wrong “hurt” arm. The wrestler stands front and center waiting for Pliakos to tackle them. You’re supposed to throw yourself backward onto the ground as soon as he touches you. Sometimes he comes close, trying to fake you out, but eventually taps you to the ground.

When he taps me, I go against all my pain-avoidance instincts and throw myself backwards. I land on my back and neck, arms out, wondering why I volunteered myself for this story. I get my answer, though  — yes, it hurts.

The next set of drills involves tackling — at full speed — off the ropes. Although it is kind of them to ask me to join, I grab my pen and pad and throw up a shield of questions. The idea behind this drill is to give a wrestler the full experience of  the falls, or “bumps” as they say, that they would normally receive in a match.

While people are running into each other full-speed and getting knocked down, coach Brandon Locke shows me a few commonly used starting positions and maneuvers. There’s the starting position with one hand on your opponent’s neck and another on his arm, kind of like two bucks intertwining antlers. From this starting position, you can take the move anywhere by twisting your opponent’s arm or sliding your hand down his arm to position yourself for another move.

The rest of the practice was spent teaching me how to drop an elbow or leg against someone who was already down and, as you may have guessed, knocking others, and being knocked, to the ground. And at one point, Pliakos even suggested I participate in a little something he likes to call a “body slam.”

“You have not lived until you’ve experienced a body slam,” Pliakos said. “You wanna try it?”

Someone demonstrated said body slam for my benefit. It looks like it really hurts, what with landing directly onto your back after a six-foot fall and all. Pliakos confirmed that it does, in fact, hurt and I passed up that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hurt myself in the ring.

Whatever your spin on professional wrestling is, be it you in the air over someone’s head or the glasses-on-the-nose push move followed by an utterance of “savages,” you have to respect these young kids for taking a beating. Not since Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest have I felt such sympathy.

It’s a hard-knock life for these young and able-bodied professional wrestling wannabes, but a life they choose to pursue. Much like any sport where you take blows to head, you have to ask yourself, is being knocked unconscious or breaking your leg in three places enough to justify this lifestyle? How and especially why do people pursue this lifestyle? Is it for the spectators? The sense of self-accomplishment? The storyline? Or is it for the glory of one day being able to lay the smackdown on your archenemy?

For more information on how to become a pro wrestling star or on Top Rope Pro Wrestling Academy, visit www.topropewrestlingacademy.com.

— Seth Hoy

 

The sweet science

Murphy’s passes on the old one-two

On a recent Saturday morning, when many of her peers were at the mall, MacKenzie Smith, 12, was punching the hell out of her coach.

Smith is a student at Parkside Middle School and took up boxing through Murphy’s Boxing Gym last September.

Now, according to one of  MacKenzie’s buddies who goes to the gym to watch, the middle-school student “eats, drinks and breathes” boxing.

MacKenzie is no Million Dollar Baby. She’s not out to prove anything and, and at her age, the prospects seem  endless. She just likes to fight.

“I like the exercise,” MacKenzie said, “and I guess I just like hitting people.”

MacKenzie has a pretty good right for a 12-year-old, said her coach, Linda Murphy.

“She’s here any chance she gets, practicing her form and learning to hit,” she said.

A few minutes later, MacKenzie proved those words right, chasing her coach around the ring and punching hard at pads Murphy held up for the purpose.

Murphy started coaching about 27 years ago. She started boxing in high school but a lack of female opponents kept her fight time low.

“It looked interesting to me,” Murphy said of fighting. “More importantly, it looked challenging.”

When women’s boxing picked up in the late ’90s. Murphy lied about her age to get a few fights in.

“I did well,” she said, obviously savoring the memory.

Murphy and her husband started their gym on Elm Street, in building that Murphy said still has blood on the walls. These days, the gym is located in a mill building at 55 South Commercial St., but it is set to relocate soon.

“We’ve been in this spot for six years,” Murphy said. “But it is time to move.”

The new gym will give Murphy room to host events, fights and “smokers.”

Murphy’s Gym fields a boxing team of about 30 fighters. Murphy described the group as young, most of them in the 16-17-year-old range. The team has one 22-year-old who fights in the open class and should have three Golden Gloves boxers next year. There are five women on the team, four of them on the card each time the group competes.

Murphy’s offers coaching for every level fighter. Students range from middle-school age to business-exec types who use the sport as stress relief. Murphy said she especially likes seeing kids come out for the sport.

“One of the big things they learn is discipline,” she said. “You can’t get angry in the ring, you have to work hard to get in shape and learn good technique.”

“Boxing is such a fine motor sport,” she added. “You are really your own team, all in one body. You are the defense. You are the offense. To some extent, when you are in the ring, you are your own coach.”

Most students come in at the “basic boxing level,” Murphy said.

“It’s the most natural,” she said. “They are used to using their arms and they can build up to a foundation for everything else. Even if they are 60 pounds overweight and know nothing about boxing, they’ll be OK at basic boxing.”

“Everything else” at Murphy’s includes kickboxing, advanced boxing and Mixed Martial Arts.

“I’ve never gone to a ‘normal’ gym in my life,” Murphy said. “It would bore me to tears. It’s is very dangerous not to be challenged.”

Phone for Murphy’s Gym is 623-6066.

—    Robert Greene

Capoeira is a African-Brazilian that looks like a dance but just happens to be an effective way to defend yourself, said teacher Filipe Maia of Capoeira Escola on South Willow Street.

Some say the roots of the practice can be traced back to an acrobatic challenge dance from Angola, West Africa. Others say it is a fusion of cultures. Either way, it’s likely the last surviving martial art native to the Americas.

Capoeira was illegal in Brazil until the 1930s, because the government considered it to be a sport of thieves and bohemian adventures. It doesn’t help that capoeira was used in a slave rebellion in the 1600s, allowing the slaves to claim a victory over better armed troops, Maia said.

“Capoeira is like a conversation,” Maia said. “We work in a circle. I start with a kick, and you respond. Then you reply with another move and I respond to that.”

Practitioners move fast and sparring is dangerous, that’s why Maia does not allow his students to actually make contact with each other until they have studied the art for two years.

Recently, capoeira has been featured in two major Hollywood movies, Oceans 12 and Meet the Fockers. In Oceans 12, the bad guy uses capoeira moves to get through alarm laser beams, and in Meet the Fockers, Dustin Hoffman’s character plays capoeira.

Manchester is rare in that it actually has a qualified Capoeira teacher, something that is unusual unless you live in New York City or LA. Maia holds the rank of “Alundo Graduado” from the Brazilian capoeira school, Agua de Berber. Maia has studied capoeira for about seven years, but won’t be considered a master until he puts in 23 more.

The Manchester class is still relatively small, about 10 people. Usually, to have a decent “roda” (meaning wheel, or a circle of musicians and capoeira fighters) you need about 20-30 people.

Contact  Capoeira Escola at 858-9448.

— Robert Greene

The sexy side of fighting

Remember the days when you and your friends would wrestle in the front yard or on the shag rug in the living room? 

Odds are decent that there was a neighborhood tomboy who dropkicked and power slammed right along with you. Well, those tomboys grew up and some of them never lost their taste for the tussle. And some of the guys never lost their taste for tussling with them.

Some of these women made it to the big time, appearing on G.L.O.W. (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) on late-night TV. Their former (male) playmates watched the show and likely wondered what wrestling the girls would be like now that they are all grown up.

These days,  guys can find out just that. Wrestlers with girl-next-door looks and personalities can be found right here in Manchester, some of them specializing in “female-dominant” wrestling sessions. One local wrestler, who goes by the name “Page,” wrote on her blog (short for web log), “We kick guy butt.”

These bouts are often referred to as mixed-session wrestling. Mixed-session wrestlers and venues for the sport can be found all over the country and the world. It even has its own website, listing many of the wrestlers and their contact information.

Sessions are a one-on-one athletic activity. The majority of clients, who usually pay to play, are male but mixed-session wrestlers take on women as well. The focus of each session is to have fun while trying to make the other person submit. Bouts are a test of skill rather than physical strength, and there is never an intent to harm anyone.

Mixed-session wrestling may be sexy, but it is not a sexual activity. The women don’t wrestle naked or in Jell-O, nor will they grapple while topless or wearing lingerie.

So don’t ask.

The women generally wear a sports bra and athletic shorts. Special costuming may be requested when arranging a session with the wrestler. Ever wanted to be put into a full nelson by a librarian? Other requests might put a wrestler in jeans, denim shorts, leotards with tights or clubbing attire. One local wrestler, who goes by “Lia Labowe,” even has a Wonder Woman outfit that a client bought for her.

“Just putting the costume on was fun enough, then actually getting to wrestle in it was that much more exciting,” Labowe said of the superhero outfit.

As for the clients ... the wrestlers say most of their opponents are normal guys who act like gentlemen. They range in age from late 20s to late 60s.  Everyone of them is looking forward to wrestling with a beautiful woman, and some hope to recapture a little bit of their youth.

The wrestlers say they understand.

 “When I’m 60, I’d absolutely pay a 25-year-old male to wrestle with me,” said a local mixes-session wrestler who goes by the name “Bethany.” “ It will be my own personal fountain of youth.”

Some clients are more submissive than others, preferring to be pinned without too much fighting back. Others want a semi-competitive tussle where both parties really attempt to pin each other. Others are looking for a little role-playing. The wrestlers are flexible about customizing each session to their clients’ needs.

“Some of the men are CEOs or bosses who carry enormous weight on their shoulders every day,” Bethany said. “In a match, they can let someone else be in charge. They can be the submissive one.”

If you’d like more information about the wrestlers, contact them directly via www.geocities.com/gorgeouswrestlersofnh/.

— Tabitha Hamilton

2005 HippoPress LLC | Manchester, NH