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The Professor's Position - The Mike Levy Incident
 For today's column I'm going to divulge outside of the normal realm of topics and speak on the recent IWA "Mike Levy Incident" that occurred a while back, shortly after Mickey "Moose" Knuckles signed with TNA. This does relate to TNA because of Mickie, but ultimately this is a story about the incident and how far from "wrestling" these places are. If you haven't seen the video, the premise is this. IWA Mid-South is the worst wrestling organization in the world. This is essentially the redneck version of FMW. I used to live in the area and during the height of ECW, IWA began to leech off the names associated and launched their own fed with some of the worst wrestling ever. They are known for their infamous King of the Death match tournaments. Chances are if you've wrestled in your back yard or a swimming pool with a friend, you've already had better matches than IWA ever has. But besides the fact that IWA is terrible and has a total of about 35 fans half of whom also wrestle there, they have achieved some minor fame with Ian Rotten (The less talented of the Rottens) and his "protege" in Mickie Knuckles. Knuckles isn't a great wrestler, but she's a decent hardcore wrestler who is essentially famous for being able to take some real abuse inside the ring. Think a female Mick Foley. Again, she's not particularly good, but you may have seen that she CAN wrestle as evidenced on TNA. But it's her ability to take abuse that's made her famous. Okay, prefacing all this, the scene goes down as follows. Apparently Mike Levy is an indy wrestler who contacted IWA about appearing on some of their shows. Although Levy was billed as being a indy wrestler, it appears that for the most part Levy has wrestled in federations even less qualified than IWA. The setup is that Levy wants into the King of the Deathmatch tourney but they won't let him in and he's placed into the Queen of the Deathmatch tourney instead. He draw Mickie Knuckles who is supposed to come in and beat him down. Things go well for the first few minutes as Mickie beats him up, but then Levy tries to get in some offense to which Knuckles refuses to take. She hits Levy stiff a few times which results in him hitting her stiff a few times as well. Remember that this is a HARDCORE DEATHMATCH, so stiffing someone is pretty common with these sloppy matches and wrestlers. But sure enough Mickie gets upset and since she is a trained fighter, shoots on Levy with a series of stiff knees, forearms and headbutts. She headbutts him so many times that he's dazed in order to get him to "sell". This draws the attention of some of IWA's "officials" who are also crappy wrestlers. They come to ringside and instruct Mickie to continue to beat on Levy as well as give Levy signals to stop fighting back. Eventually Mike Levy goes back to plan after taking what would be a reasonable beatdown. Immediately after though, Mickie runs out of the ring while Devon Moore and Tank (The aforementioned cronies) get into the ring and beat on Levy. Whether or not this was planned seems up in the air, but what follows quickly deviates from the script. They hold Levy down and jump on his face smashing it into a ladder. The first curb stomp could still appear to be a work, even though it's clearly not. However the second is where the work stops and the assault starts. Tank literally smashes Levy's face into the ladder and had the ladder not been so cheap it very well could have smashed his skull. A real ladder doesn't have that much give. From there the guys get on the mic with Ian Rotten and berate him for not selling properly and every time he tries to sit up, they beat him some more saying he's not "selling". Eventually the guy is covered in blood, with huge gashes on his back. Levy is CLEARLY disoriented and trying to escape the beating at the hands of three men, but can't. This mugging continues for several minutes in from a bunch of hicks who think it's and I quote "The greatest thing I've ever seen in my life", and some of them even get in on the action hitting him with kendo sticks and kicking him in the back of the head. At no point is this a work. Levy isn't selling. He's knocked out on his feet getting brutalized. Levy is an UNTRAINED wrestler and Ian and company are very well aware of this as they say as much. Why book an untrained wrestler? If you book an untrained wrestler you can't punish them. And if you didn't like his performance (Which was fine all things considered) then you don't book him again, you don't try to kill the guy. The humiliation continues as they pull his pants down, hit him with a steel chair (Which he appears to sell) and then suplex him onto some garbage. Levy doesn't help with the suplex (possibly because he didn't want to be, or possibly because he was out on his feet) and finally Ian remarks that "It's done" and he leaves. What happened after is anyone's guess. Police were notified and are looking into the incident but they can't figure out if it's real or not. Part of the problem is that IWA is notorious for these sorts of incidents where Police are called in to try and figure it out. In the past they have escaped, but I'm not certain they will this time. Levy apparently hasn't come forward and Ian Rotten says the whole thing was a work and that Levy is booked later this year. So what's my take? Here's the deal. Mike Levy didn't freak out and run because of a few reasons. 1) He was trying to get a job there and this dude is a desperate dork who thought this was getting himself over. That still doesn't change the fact that it was indeed an assault. 2) Ian Rotten and IWA don't make any money. Their cash cow was going to be Mickie Knuckles as she's the most famous person to come from there. They didn't want her hurt and were upset that he stiffed her. Karma being what it is, Mickie suffered a major injury and won't be able to compete for at least 6 months with her TNA career in jeopardy. 3) Even if Levy had wanted to escape or was physically capable, the fans would have prevented him from doing so. These people got in on the beating and were literally moments away from trying to kill him themselves. 4) The crowd was so worked up into a rabid frenzy that had Ian Rotten pulled out a knife and slit Mike Levy's throat, no one would have budged. They would have cheered. All in all this incident makes the Mass Transit and Gypsy Joe incidents look like Flair/Steamboat and it disgusts me to see this sort of stuff associated with wrestling. On a personal note, I hope IWA and Ian Rotten as well as the other two thugs are convicted and sent to the gas chamber for all I care. What they did was nothing short of assault and battery on a defenseless man. As for Mickie Knuckles? I said a while back that Moose's injury would probably result in the end of her TNA sting and quite frankly, I think it's well deserved. Whether or not she intended for this to happen is irrelevant. The entire thing is a disgrace to wrestling and she should not be glorified for having her friends beat someone up because she's too much of a prima donna to get abuse in a match where she was booked to beat the hell out of someone with a baseball bat. If her injury didn't end her TNA career, I'd venture a guess that the stink of this very well might. It'll take a long time before I forget this ridiculousness and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to watch Moose wrestle without the stench of this and Ian Rotten all over it. Let's hope TNA decides not to bring her back, so perhaps she can learn her lesson. Remember folks, wrestling is a sport, it's an entertainment, it ain't ballet... But it's also not a place for thugs and criminals to practice their profession. The full video is available here: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=38440519 Next week we'll talk some real WRESTLING. In the meantime and the in-between time, Professor out! ProfNewtonGimmick@yahoo.com This article has been viewed 1996 times.
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