On Friday, April 11, the Foundry Theater at Antioch College will step back in times as it hosts Olde Wrestling, a family-friendly event that combines athletics, theater, music and more.
"I'd like to do a wrestling shows, but how do I do something that has never really been done before?," said Justin Notke, who wrestles as Marion Fontaine. "Pro wrestling is already niche, so I was like, well, how can I make that even more niche and transport us to the 1920s? The 20s were such a dynamic period in American history. You've got Prohibition happening. You've Got Babe Ruth, people in sports."
Notke said the era's larger than life archetypes were easily transferrable into wrestling personas, "Let's pluck some teetotaling politicians. Let's pluck some gangsters. Let's plug some circus strongmen. Let's all, let's take all these really unique and interesting personalities and characters and just drop them in a wrestling ring and have them go at it."
The commitment to the "olde" in Olde Wrestling goes beyond who's in the ring, it's also how they get there.
"In boxing or MMA or wrestling, there's the grand kind of entrance," said Notke. "And so you've got this announcement of like, okay, we're introducing the character they're coming out. It's their opportunity to show who they are. Currently when you're in an arena watching like your WWE, there is music playing, there is a video going. But when you think about it, in the 20s, there wasn't video projection, you didn't have amplification for sound. And so, early on, I was trying to think, well, how are we gonna stand out, even in that presentation of just the character? And so I was like, we need to have a live band. And that's where Ragtime Ric came in. He's well-known ragtime musician out of Toledo. I reached out to him before our very first show and told him the idea and he loved it He's been at a majority of our shows. It's him on pianom, his wife on a banjo, tubam drums, so we'll have a full band playing ragtime music for the combatants before they enter the ring. And as far as I know, I think we're the first wrestling promotion to ever include a ragtime music."
