180 days-Al and Sally's Adventures in New York: Day 105- August 25

By Al

I spent the first part of the day shopping. We are going to Japan at the end of September. I wanted a new carry-on bag. I had been unsuccessful the day before, but wanted to check Macy's. The store was packed. Like Sally, I enjoyed seeing the old wooden escalators. But, they did not have what I wanted. I walked home and ordered what I needed on line. I prefer ordering from bricks and mortar stores, but will not spend days trying to find something I can find in minutes on the net.

That night I went to a wrestling match. It was sponsored by the World of Unpredictable Wrestling(WUW). It was being held at the "Historic Gleason's Gym" in Brooklyn. To get to it, you walked up a flight of stairs that really looked like the "back or service" stairs in most buildings. The gym was part of the show. It is one of the old style boxing/wrestling gyms. No fancy machines. Some rust on some of the equipment. Two boxing rings and one wrestling ring. The fans were about 100 and sat in folding chairs in amongst equipment on only two sides of the ring. There wasn't enough room on the other sides.

The wrestling was better than I had expected. It was mainly young guys hoping to move up the ladder to bigger promotions. It was clear that most of the people there knew the wrestlers. In fact, when I came in the woman at the door asked me which wrestler I was there for. She was pleasantly surprised when I said I had just come to see the wresting. The announcing was not as good as the wrestling. There appeared to be some occasional problem starting each match and the announcers would try to work the audience. They were not very good. Also, the sound system sucked. The would have done better to just shout. But, It was being streamed live on line, so I suppose they needed microphones.

There was one incident that concerned me. There was a Army sergeant in the audience. There was one wrestler who's persona was that he was a Arab. The soldier and the wrestler got into a real shouting match. I don't know if it was for show, but I hope a sergeant in our Army would know enough to know that the wrestler wasn't really from the middle east. The championship match was between this guy and a wrestler who was supposed to be from Mexico. It was ironic that throughout the match, the audience kept chanting "USA" This was meant as encouragement for the wrestler from Mexico, who was the obvious crowd favorite.

All in all it was an enjoyable evening. $15 for three hours of good entertainment, the wrestlers, the gym and the audience.