Judgment Slam Promises Slams, Judgment

Pastaman, a living spaghetti creature that only wants to supplex his creator – Luigi Primo, the "best pizza chef in Austin" – into loving him as a father (by Rusk Photography)

Wrestling as a spectacle is not just for Joe Dadbod and his mulleted children. This Saturday at the Midway Field House, the altniks of Party World Wrasslin' promise a night that a different sort of PBR-drinker can enjoy: Summer Slamdown 2: Judgment Slam.

This launches the second season of PWR's ambiguously ironic series of wrestling tournaments, which follows the soaperatic dramas and rivalries of a medley cast of gimmicky characters. Summer Slamdown's main event is a re-match between Foamster, a confused skinny man with carpet foam wrapped around his face, and Deepslam, the near-unbeatable wrestling computer. Last season ended with Foamster crashing Deepslam's processor with a single command line query: "What makes the heart of a champion?"

"The point is to make matches that are ridiculous, but really emotionally charged," says Jared Blondeau, who founded PWR alongside Chris Monica. "It's like a comedy show that is wrestling themed."

Calling it a mere comedy show, however, doesn't do justice to the immense amount of character development and work that happens out-of-ring.

"The 'promo,' or promotional interview, is an ancient form of wrestling promotion and ancillary art. We want to extend the PROMO into all aspects of life," Monica says.

In addition to teaser trailers and promo videos, each wrestler has a Facebook page.

"The Facebook pages provide a great opportunity for the wrestlers to insult their opponents as well the community," Monica says.

It's almost hard to believe that the whole thing is volunteer-run and crowd-funded.

The Facebook page for Hot Dog, the sloppy crustpunk wrestler, is filled with rants about "society" and doodles of Homer Simpson. (Though the description tells us that Hot Dog himself does not run the page, because he can't be bothered with "technology"). Threats from Tiffany Channel Westlake also pepper the page. She's the Louis Vutton-sporting hypersocialite that Hot Dog will face in the Summer Slamdown.

"Who will prove to be the bigger piece of trash? Westlake: a creator of waste and exploiter of the poor? Or Hot Dog: the eater of the waste created by society's upper crust? This match asks a lot of important questions! Wow!"

“[We make] people really care about really dumb/ridiculous characters,” Blondeau says.

PWR's "party wrasslin'" events have grown in popularity. Attendance has roughly doubled with each event held so far. Over 800 people have RSVP'd on Facebook for Summer Slamdown.

This Saturday, come get slammed with $1 beers; stay for the wrestlemania. Midway Field House. Saturday, 7pm. Free entry.