Independent wrestlers pay their dues

While many casual pro wrestling fans know the business only as the domain of World Wrestling Entertainment, more serious aficionados realize the existence of the distant number two company, TNA, as well as Ring of Honor (which is generally viewed as the third major promoter) and a slew of smaller independents that dot the professional wrestling landscape in the United States.

True wrestling fans will often attend the smaller indy shows because they provide an opportunity to see up and coming talent working hard to hone their craft, develop a style and earn a reputation in an intimate setting devoid of extensive physical barriers and sophisticated security forces.

It's akin to baseball fans going to minor league games. It's still baseball, but it also has certain advantages and disadvantages over a trip to the big show. Pro wrestling indy shows have a unique vibe that seems to elude adequate description, but you know it when you experience it.

A few years ago, I attended my first Pennsylvania Championship Wrestling Alliance card at Ryan's Catering Hall in Mount Carmel, a facility that was once a Catholic church. Talk about a difficult vibe to describe. You do get to pray when you see someone jump off the former choir loft only to completely miss his intended targets and landing buffers, but that was another night and another story for another column.

On the occasion to which I first referred,, there was the usual assortment of decent matches, some poor ones, amateur hour at times on the microphone and intended and unintended humorous moments galore. Then the main event hit the ring with a battle royal, normally not an attraction that typically delivers a lot of wrestling highlight moments, but somehow this one was different.

After the rest of the contestants were unceremoniously eliminated, only two wrestlers, Arbo and Unbreakable Andy, remained in the ring. Instead of a quick ending with someone taking a wild swing and knocking himself over the top rope or a collision with somebody getting inadvertently spilled out, we were treated to an incredible display of back and forth wrestling maneuvers and high spots usually reserved for highlight tapes I would see from Ring of Honor. When the dust cleared, Arbo was victorious, but both he and his opponent Andy received a standing ovation from the fans and two new stars were born.

Recently, I spoke via telephone with a young man who has become one of the most popular wrestlers in PCWA, Aaron Arbo. He will be wrestling in the main event of the next PCWA card on Sept. 11 against former ECW and WWE star, Stevie Richards, who is now working in TNA.

Arbo, real name Tommy Arbogast, has been wrestling professionally for almost eight years, having been trained initially at the tender age of 17 by Mike Quest. He is a 2002 graduate of Shamokin Area High School and currently resides with his wife and daughter in Kulpmont and is a department manager at Wal-Mart.

Athletically, he played some basketball as a youngster and developed the gymnastic skills he employs in many of his matches on his cousin's backyard trampoline. Saying he grew up as big pro wrestling fan, he indicated some of the bigger challenges of the wrestling profession include taking the risks in the ring necessary to get noticed by fans and other promoters, as well as the injuries that come with taking those risks.

A "stinger" suffered while working for Combat Zone Wrestling in Philly continues to give Arbo sciatic problems that he has to work through. The pain in professional wrestling is not nearly as fake as some people might want to believe. While his wife supports him in his unusual moonlighting career, the risk of injury is always a concern for Arbo.

Travel can be another challenge, especially for the small-time grappler trying to establish a name for himself. Some gigs pay nothing or next to nothing. If you are lucky, you might get compensated for transportation expenses for the longer road trips.

Arbo has wrestled on shows in Florida, Tennessee, Indiana and Ohio, as well as in several Pennsylvania locales.

He credits people like Christian Faith, Bruce Maxwell, and Drew Cordero with helping him along the way and says veteran workers will usually watch your match and offer constructive criticism if you ask them to do so. Friends G. I. Bear, Autumn Breeze and Unbreakable Andy were involved in getting Stevie Richards booked for the next PCWA card; they recently worked a show elsewhere with him on it.

So now Arbo faces one of the wrestlers he admired as a youngster in what will be the highest profile bout of his young career. It will certainly be a challenge to balance the enthusiasm and excitement he feels with the anxiety of wanting what every pro wants - a strong performance that entertains the fans.

Quiet and soft-spoken, Aaron Arbo, who sometimes teams with Unbreakable Andy as the A-Team and at other times is pitted against his local friend in matches, says he enjoys wrestling and hopes to continue to get booked regularly and make the little kids who are among his biggest fans smile. No illusions about working for WWE. Modest goals from a modest young wrestling talent.