Lord Steven Regal and Belfast Bruiser Brawl in an Albany Parking Lot

400 years of British/Irish tension have brought us here: a Waffle House fight in a parking lot.

Lord Steven Regal and Belfast Bruiser Brawl in an Albany Parking Lot
WCW

In my collection of wrestling photography, there’s a series of snapshots taken at a USWA spot show at the grand opening of a used car lot. There has never been a more perfect match for the great sport of professional wrestling than the gala affair of a small town auto dealership’s invitation to browse a selection of low milage Oldsmobiles, but while the ring looks great — correct, even — underneath the tinsel overhang, there’s something decidedly off about the presence of the wrestlers themselves. Garishly overmuscled and wearing wrestling trunks under the sweltering sun, the cartoon forms of “Gentleman” Chris Adams and the assorted misfits I can’t quite make out feel oddly fragile, as if the violence they’re meting out to each other for the assembled dozens could turn really ugly out on the asphalt.

We’re inured to this sort of spectacle now — some combination of backyard wrestling’s ubiquity, elaborate shows in odd places, cinematic matches, and hardcore handicap matches against the APA in the fucking parking lot in WWF No Mercy have killed the shock of the setting — but for a very long time the spaces televised wrestling existed in were as follows: the television studio and the arena. To go out into a space like the parking lot meant that your name was either Jerry Lawler or Eddie Gilbert, and some shit was going down. To agree to a match out there? You’d have to be blind with hate for your opponent.