Sketch Comedy Group creates Pro Wrestling Themed Show!
IWTV features content from over a hundred different wrestling promotions, but perhaps the most unique outfit operating on the platform is the New York City based Xtremely Serious Wrestling who will be streaming their event Warped Summer Extravaganza 19 on IWTV this Friday (6/28) at 10:30pm EDT.
A New York City based sketch comedy group that puts on wrestling themed events in a theater in Manhattan, XSW is in a sense both a comedy show with wrestling as its subject and a wrestling show performed by comedians. Though not trained as wrestlers, the comedians participate in matches, deliver promos and exist as characters in a universe governed by many of the rules generally associated with professional wrestling.
Sound weird? Let XSW producer "Hot Boy" Fesh explain:
"I 100% think of it as a wrestling show. It’s just run and occupied by comedians. We have the twists and turns and soap opera-ish storylines that helped us fall in love with wrestling when we were kids, we have matches with rules and outcomes that factor into each characters career/arc and we even have “holy shit” moments, just, it might be someone doing a less than perfect bulldog through a cardboard box rather than a top rope Canadian destroyer through light tubes."
Like a more conventional wrestling show, XSW events combine elements of scripted performance and improv. While the characters and scenarios are plotted out in advance, live commentary reacts on the fly to what is presented and the performers play off the reactions of the crowd.
Here is a brief sample of the sort of characters one can expect to see on an XSW event (descriptions courtesy of Fesh).
- Shawn From Michael’s - the Art Make Kid, the Master of the Art & Craft of professional wrestling
- The Bad Habits - Kickass Nuns
- Boulangerie - The Beast From the Yeast, a French Bread lady
- Crackers the Luchador Parrot - A fun loving parrot who was murdered by The Bad Habits a few months ago
- Kandy Cane - a candy cane version of Kane
- Douglas Fir - A living tree from the Yukon
- Mr. Bubbles - The Cleanest Player in the Game, The Master of the Splish Splash, he has a move for all 3000 of your parts!
If this sounds absurd, good! It's supposed to be, and to a large extent XSW is a celebration of the wild and wacky world of pro wrestling.
In addition to these homegrown characters, XSW has seen an appearance from IWTV Independent Wrestling Champion Orange Cassidy in the past (he and Shawn From MIchael's still have unfinished business) and Friday nights event will feature the XSW debut of Beyond Wrestling sensation Thomas Santell who will be looking to teach a new submission move to his cousin Johnny Pop who is in the XSW Championship Tournament.
At the end of the day XSW events are special not just for the fans in attendance, but also for the comedians performing. "Everyone on the show does a bunch of other comedy shows, but there’s no other where they get to go out there and get physical and be cheered or boo’d, or make a turn," says Fesh. "I think everyone on the show would agree that it’s simply the most fun place to play."