After a show at a brewery and a show at a railway museum, Hammerlock’s next event was set for the great outdoors at the Dorchester Fair! With The Zipper and funnel cakes in the background, it was a great chance for the wrestlers to reach a diverse and bundled-up crowd.
The show started with one of my favourites, Chilly Brown, going up against The Backwoods Butcher Rusty Blackwell. Despite being almost a head shorter, Chilly took the fight to the Butcher with some mid-rope moves that got the crowd on their feet. After that, The Drifters (Wade Allan and Isaiah Cross) clashed with Bricks N Bones (Brickhouse Mick McGuire and Moondog Ethan Dux) in a hellacious match that ended in a double count out and a brawl that spilled out into the crowd and to the back.
Once everything had settled down two wrestlers I hadn’t seen up to this point, Humble Jack and Dale Kilburn, squared off in a technical match that ended with the Barrie-born brawler coming out on top. Before the dust could settle Ballroom Blitz lit up the crowd as The Ballroom Blitzen Miley defended her Hammerlock Pure Wrestling Women’s Championship against The Venezuelan Vixen Cici Galavis. Cici Galavis brought high energy and high kicks to a match that ended with a 619 and Miley holding the title high.
As the afternoon got colder, the matches heated up with a #1 Contenders Match for the Hammerlock Pure Wrestling Championship that pitted The Young Lion Bryce Hansen against The Honourable One Brian White. Hansen has become a great heel and got the crowd riled up to the point where The Young Lion and a young lion from the crowd got into a yelling match before the opening bell. Despite a couple rock-solid clotheslines, The Honourable One was no match for Hansen as he dug deep into his bag of tricks to pull off a win. To round out the day, the main event saw Books and Looks partners Rodney Matthews and Michael Greyson go toe-to-toe in the squared circle for the Hammerlock Pure Wrestling Championship. The match was high-flying and hard fought as Greyson went down and rallied with the support of the crowd. However, Matthews pulled off some gnarly moves to hold onto his title.
Shooting outdoors was a nice change of pace from the darker venues Hammerlock typically works in. While the cold got my arms a bit stiffer than I’d like, at least I didn’t have to do it in ring gear!
After my first shot at photographing live pro wrestling, Hammerlock reached out again in August for their show at the Elgin County Railway Museum in St. Thomas. I’d been to the railway museum, I’d seen the live wrestling, but I’d never seen them together through the viewfinder of a camera. It didn’t take much convincing for me to be there well before the opening bell!
The show opened with a High Octane reunion in the form of a match between the Young Lion Bryce Hansen and Chilly Brown. The sunlight streamed through the museum’s huge windows and lit up Bryce Hansen’s win, setting him up for more action later in the show. After that Mick "Brickhouse" McGuire and the powerhouse Ethan Dux went at it, with McGuire leaning into his face persona as he high-fived the front row. Ethan Dux even sanded off some edges as he raised McGuire’s arm and gave him a solid hug after losing a close-fought match. After that it was a slugfest between The Survivalist Bruiser Battersby and Brian White, with the heel Battersby coming out on top and taunting the crowd after dealing some serious damage to White. Before Cody Deaner’s lead-in to the intermission The Punjabi Prodigy Vikram Prashar got a chance to work the mic and get some heat before matching up against "The Saturday Night Delight" Tyler Tirva, a wrestler I had never seen before. Tirva put on a fantastic show and his headstand corner rope signature move left the crowd speechless!
Leading into the intermission Cody Deaner issued an open challenge that was accepted by Bryce Hansen. The challenge quickly escalated and in a few minutes the match turned into a contest for Deaner’s Border City Wrestling Can-Am Heavyweight Championship. When the dust settled and intermission was over, Miley and Beaa Moss wrestled a phenomenal match before a matchup had Wade Allen and the enormous Isaiah Cross take on crowd-favourite Books and Looks (Rodney Matthews and Michael Greyson). The tag-team match had the crowd on the edge of their seats that eventually had Wade Allen surreptitiously take the chair out from under a kid in the crowd and bait the ref into seeing it near Michael Greyson. After a few quick hits Books and Looks were down the the count until they were rescued by Mick McGuire and Ethan Dux, who rushed the ring to fireman carry the battered bodies of both Books and Looks to safety. Finally, the evening wrapped up with the title match between Bryce Hansen and Cody Deaner. Deaner had promised to punch Hansen in the face several times during the match and delivered on that and his trademark DDT. After a ref bump and some anxious moments for the crowd, Deaner managed to pin the Young Lion and retain his championship!
Shooting at the railway museum was one of the more challenging photo gigs I’ve had in a while. Light was low and the pace of the action demanded fast shutter speeds. The wider aperture missed a few shots, but luckily Adobe’s new AI noise removal features worked their magic to deliver some crisp shots. I get the feeling it won’t be long before I’m back ringside as Hammerlock Pure Wrestling tours across southwestern Ontario!
Over the last few years I’ve become a pretty big pro wrestling fan and have seen some great performances by stars in the WWE and smaller indie wrestling promotions. One of our local pro wrestling companies is Hammerlock Pure Wrestling which operates throughout Southwestern Ontario. The last time they were in town I approached the owner about photographing the next event and, despite having no experience, he gave the green light to get ringside!
The big highlight of the May 13th show was the unveiling and first match for the Hammerlock Women’s Champion title. The afternoon show started with a great match between Miley and Beaa Moss before switching over to a bit of a squish match between and Wade Allan and Jesse Loon. When the dust settled another women’s match with Vanna Black and Bella Bronx that got the crowd on their feet.
The second half of the show saw the massive Isaiah Cross take on the Young Lion Bryce Hansen and Bruiser Battersby win on a disqualification against Brian White. The main event was a phenomenal matchup between Rodney Matthews and Cody Deaner that went back and forth, even after interference by The Punjabi Prodigy Vikram Prashar!
The afternoon show was a sink-or-swim introduction to photographing pro wrestling. My shutter speeds were high, aperture wide open, and ISO cranked to not miss a beat. With a non-stop two hours of action under my belt it was time for the evening show!
After an afternoon crowd made up mostly of families, younger kids, and a few older people, the evening show was a huge tone change. I’ve been part of one of these crowds before, but it was a whole different story catching the action while they shouted, got up to get more drinks, and got right into the excitement in and out of the ring.
The evening show started off with a great match between Brian White and Jax Williams in his Hammerlock debut. After a hard fought win by Brian White, Vikram Prashar made an iconic entrance for his match against Mick "Brickhouse" McGuire. The first half of the evening show ended with a wall-to-wall brawl between Cody Deaner and the powerhouse Ethan Dux that ended with ten elbows on a folding chair and a DDT.
The second half of the evening show saw the tag team Books and Looks (Rodney Matthews and Michael Greyson) take on High Octane (Bryce Hansen and Chilly Brown) in one of the best choreographed indie matches I’ve ever seen. There were dropkicks, assisted cutters, and flying elbows galore. After that, it was time for the Women’s Championship match between Vanna Black and Miley who put on a clinic for high-energy pro wrestling! The match spilled out into the crowd and up on the ropes as the two fought to become the first Hammerlock Women’s Champion. After a long, hard-fought match Miley came away with the belt to wrap up an awesome night of wrestling!
After popping home for some supper and charging my batteries (figuratively and literally), the evening show was a fantastic opportunity to build on what I’d learned in the afternoon. I got much closer to the action and missed fewer key moments as the flow of the matches got easier to anticipate. The biggest change was simply where I was standing, as I shifted from being around the sides and back in the afternoon right to the main view from the front in the evening. Big poses, great expressions, and some heavy hits made for a very busy two hours!