HOODSLAM is a raunchy, gritty, West Oakland-native, queer- & POC-forward professional wrestling show. With a shot of performance art and a side of copyright infringement. Slamming beers and bodies since 2010.

Every night, you’ll hear the audience chant “THIS IS REAL.” Of course… it’s pro wrestling. It’s stage combat. But it’s more.

Ever since I was little (and growing up in the burbs), I felt like I missed all the cool stuff. I was five when Paid In Full came out; not quite 12 when Kurt Cobain killed himself; 16 when the first raves cleared out. I’ve been chasing Gen X cool my whole life.

Wrestling never really interested me. I met Hulk Hogan at the Boston Garden once when I was 8. (He was huge.) I went to my first HOODSLAM because it sounded edgy.

And they bring it. The charisma, the surreal storylines, the uniforms with years of references and lore in them, and the postmodern trademarks (like “fuck the fans”). It’s lovingly crafted high-concept art on a boundary-pushing low-brow canvas.

And photography is the perfect medium for it. In motion, the stagecraft is obvious. They lock into careful arrangements. Angle their limbs mid-leap so they don’t break bones. It happens fast, but it’s unavoidable; their job is to make you forget it.

But I get to remove it. A photograph holds you in the moment Vipress starts her downward slope. You get time to analyze it all, and now something else is obvious. Holy shit, she’s going to break Brooke’s fucking ribs. My job is to make it real.