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Bulked-up wrestlers beating each other with folding chairs, crashing opponents though tabletops and pile-driving each others’ skulls into the canvas mat is nothing new at Viking Hall.
For more than a decade, the arena has been regarded as the city’s premier venue — and one of the best-known in the northeastern United States — among independent wrestling organizations.
But Viking Hall’s new tenants have some residents in the area ready to tap out — or at least that is what someone would like people to think.
For the last two weeks, an unidentified group or individual has been circulating a two-page flier, mainly via e-mail, warning people that "pornography is coming to your neighborhood."
It is a response to Xtreme Professional Wrestling entering into an exclusive lease with the owners of Viking Hall, Swanson and Ritner streets. The missive makes allegations about XPW’s connections to the hardcore pornography industry, problems it has had with licenses for past promotions and even claims that the promotion’s management had something to do with severing the thumb of one of its former wrestlers.
It appears that few neighbors in the immediate area of Viking Hall have seen the flier so far. Janet DeGiovanni, executive director of Whitman Council, said last week she had not seen it, nor had she received any complaints about XPW’s arrival. First Councilman Frank DiCicco said the same thing.
But residents should be concerned, believes Bob Magee, the owner of an industry news Web site called Philadelphia Wrestling Between The Sheets (pwbts.com), where he writes a weekly column called "As I See It." Last week he reprinted a copy of the flier on the site.
Magee said he is not affiliated with any of the local independent organizations — the major ones being Combat Zone Wrestling, Ring of Honor Wrestling and Pro Pain Pro Wrestling (also known as 3PW) — but he does promote them through his site, all except XPW.
"I don’t feel comfortable to promote people that blatantly don’t seem to give a damn about following the same regulations everyone else does," Magee contended.
XPW’s lease on the arena began Jan. 1. Carmen D’Amato, property manager for the company that owns the arena, S&S; Family Partnership, said he was unsure of the length of the lease and its terms, except to say it gives XPW exclusive rights to promote all sporting events at the venue.
The company will be prohibited from hosting events such as concerts or teen dance parties, D’Amato said, contrary to what had been suggested in the anonymous leaflet.
Several other sources report the lease deal is for three years at $120,000 annually.
Shane Douglas, a wrestler as well as the executive producer of XPW’s television programming and head talent booker, would not confirm that amount. However, Douglas did respond to the statements made on the flier.
For most of XPW’s three-and-a-half years, the business has been part of a larger company owned by Rob Zicari — also known as Rob Black — called Extreme Associates, Douglas said.
Among the Los Angeles-based parent company’s other business interests are filming and distributing hardcore pornography films and running an adult Web site. Its catalog includes movies featuring rape, underage girls and snuff films. (To the best of anyone’s knowledge, the actresses are all of legal age and the violence is staged.) Several of the actresses featured in the films now participate in the wrestling business.
Douglas, known to wrestling fans as "The Franchise," has wrestled for 22 years with various organizations. He worked for seven years with the popular Extreme Championship Wrestling that held many shows at Viking Hall.
He has been affiliated with XPW since May and insists the promotion firm cut its business ties with Extreme Associates when Zicari established the wrestling arm of the business as a separate company before Christmas. Zicari remains owner of both.
"This porno issue is something our enemies keep trying to use against us," Douglas said from his home in Pittsburgh. "I have scoured this clean because it is something that I know will hold us back."
Distancing the organization from its porn roots, Douglas said, will make it easier to promote XPW, especially to television stations. XPW used to feature more explicit sexual situations, Douglas said, but that has stopped. However, Extreme Associates’ adult movies star several of the female valets who accompany its wrestlers ringside, like Lizzy Borden and Veronica Caine.
Douglas acknowledged this, but insists those working with XPW no longer shoot new films.
"If you dig, you will find a load of dirt on XPW over the years," Douglas admitted.
You do not have to dig that deep. There were two incidents in August. One was related to XPW’s Aug. 31 card.
The company was new to the area and instead of attempting to secure its own license from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission as well as a $10,000 surety bond — which ensures customers can get their money back in the event a promoter cancels a show — it decided to borrow one, Douglas said.
XPW management believed it had a deal to use the license and bond owned by Ring of Honor Wrestling. Such an arrangement would have been perfectly legal under state law.
XPW contends Ring’s owner, Rob Feinstein, backed out of the deal two weeks before the show. Magee said Feinstein’s attorney has told him there never was an agreement and Zicari had tried to sign on Feinstein as a co-promoter without his consent.
Greg Sirb, the state athletic commissioner, declined to be interviewed for this story. Feinstein could not be reached for comment. Douglas explained XPW has since obtained its own license and surety bond.
Not long before that conflict, two assailants attacked former XPW wrestler William "The Messiah" Welch at his California home and cut off his thumb using gardening shears. Los Angeles County detectives told the Los Angeles Daily News that the attackers went to Welch’s home specifically to attack him.
Despite allegations against the wrestler’s former employer, police investigations have found no evidence connecting Zicari or XPW to the incident.
"We are amazed how we’ve become a target," said Douglas, reflecting on his company’s recent bad publicity. He suspects most of the heat is coming from the local organizations who are not happy to see XPW in Philly.
Magee does not believe it. Philadelphia is one of the most competitive independent wrestling markets in the country, he said, but there is plenty of room for new comers.
Another wrestling insider, Eric Walker, leans toward Douglas’ theory, although he doubts XPW and the porn industry have completely parted ways. Walker writes for Magee’s site and runs his own, wrestlingbeltworld.com, and also is affiliated with a wrestling promotion in New Jersey.
"[XPW] is better financed than any of the other companies," he said, "and that is one of the things that is probably upsetting the other three [CZW, 3PW and Ring of Honor]."
Plus, he said, the company has exclusive rights to one of the best-known local wrestling arenas.
Said Douglas, "I’m not concerning myself with Ring of Honor. I’m not concerning myself with CZW or 3PW. I am concerning myself with XPW and placing all of my energies towards that because I believe the other companies are bottom-dwellers and time will weed them out."
