“I don’t care if people think it’s real or fake, as long as they come to the show and have fun and be respectful.” Drew Cordeiro, whose Beyond Wrestling hosts matches at the White Eagle every other week, breaks the reputation of ‘professional wrestling’
WORCESTER—Drew Cordeiro is well aware of the questionable reputation that professional wrestling has, but it doesn’t bother him.
“I think that wrestling has a stigma of being fake,” said the founder and owner of Beyond Wrestling, which stages shows on Thursday nights at the White Eagle Polish Club, “and all I can say is that there is a lot of very real training that goes into being able to perform and compete. When you come to one of our events, the feeling that you feel, the energy of the crowd, is very real. There is absolutely nothing that can replicate it. When it is at its best, it’s like your favorite team winning the playoffs, winning the championship. It’s like the Patriots winning the Super Bowl. The big difference is that with sports, all that is left up to chance, and with what we do we can craft those scenarios so they can happen more frequently than what you would normally experience with rooting on your favorite team.”
The outcomes of professional wrestling matches might be predetermined, but Cordeiro is adamant that the shows are nevertheless enjoyable.
“I don’t care if people think it’s real or fake,” he said, “as long as they come to the show and have fun and be respectful.”
A code of conduct is read before each show to detail which types of behavior won’t be tolerated so fans and performers can remain safe. A crew of 65-70 people help produce the events.
After holding professional wrestling shows in his native Providence, Cordeiro, 38, began conducting them in Worcester at Electric Haze, a hookah bar on Millbury Street, in November 2016. He also started some shows at the White Eagle Polish Club the following summer and moved there exclusively in the summer of 2019 to accommodate the larger crowds. The pandemic halted his business, but Beyond Wrestling returned in April of 2021 with restricted capacity. Now everyone is welcome.
In January 2022, Cordeiro launched Wrestling Open on Thursday nights and the shows have averaged 200-250 fans. Cordeiro said attendance doesn’t drop even if the WooSox are playing at nearby Polar Park those nights.
Cordeiro said fans usually show up at first to check out the scene and quickly pick their favorite wrestlers to cheer on.
“That’s how they get hooked,” he said, “and that’s how you’ll see people waiting outside two hours before the doors even open so they can stand exactly where they want to stand for the entire show so they cheer for who they want to cheer.”
Cordeiro said one of the biggest reasons for the success of his shows is that most tickets cost only $10.
“It’s low risk for them to come check it out,” he said. “Even if people don’t walk away as lifelong wrestling fans, I think they have a newfound appreciation and respect for what we do because of the quality of the performances.”
Tickets for the Wrestling Open on Thursdays cost $10 for standing room and $15-$25 to sit in three rows of seats on one side of the ring. Those shows feature wrestlers from Massachusetts or within driving distance and last from 7:45 p.m. until about 10 p.m.
Standing room tickets can be purchased at the door for $10 cash and assigned seats can be ordered online at shopiwtv.com.
Super shows on occasional Sundays feature wrestlers from across the country and tickets for those events cost a bit more. For instance, tickets will cost up to $60 for one show during a wrestling festival, called “Wrestival,” featuring wrestlers from across the country taking part in 11 shows on Dec. 28-31, including at noon, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. the final three days. General admission seating for all 11 shows costs $240.
Beyond Wrestling is one of 200-300 independent wrestling leagues in the U.S., a lower level of the sport that is not affiliated with the top-level WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and AEW (All Elite Wrestling).
Nevertheless, 30 wrestlers who performed for Beyond Wrestling are currently competing for WWE and 70 have signed contracts with AEW. Maxwell Jacob Friedman, known in the wrestling world as MJF, used to wrestle for Beyond Wrestling and he’s currently the AEW world heavyweight champion. James Cipperly, known by his ring name of Orange Cassidy, is the AEW international champion and he also once wrestled for Beyond Wrestling.
“Big Bacon” Brad Hollister won the Wrestling Open championship recently by defeating Ichiban (no last name), who captured the inaugural title in April. Dustin Waller and Kylon King of the Miracle Generation are the tag team champions. One of the top female wrestlers for Beyond Wrestling is Notorious Mimi, who competed for WWE last year under the ring name of Sloane Jacobs. She drives from New Jersey to Worcester twice a month to compete. She’s only 20 years old and Cordeiro expects her to become a main player for WWE when she gains more experience.
Most wrestling moves might be choreographed, but there’s still a degree of danger in the ring. Cordeiro said an EMT is on site for each event and that three wrestlers have suffered broken necks, but each has made a full recovery.
From 6-9 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the White Eagle, “Kingpin” Brian Milonas, Thomas Santell and others teach wrestling classes for more than 30 students who range from teenagers to people in their 40s. If interested in joining the class, email Cordeiro at beyondwrestling@gmail.com. The cost to attend is $300 per month, but Cordeiro expects that to increase next month.
The school, called Beyond Institute of Professional Wrestling, began in January and so far none of the students have taken part in any of Cordeiro’s shows, but he expects that some of them could soon.
On Wednesday night, Jake Draeger, 25, of Rutland and Alex Quijada, 19, of Worcester were among those taking part in the class.
Draeger began taking the wrestling classes in March to get in shape and he’s lost 40 pounds since. He weighs 195 now and has no plans to stop wrestling.
“Anyone you watch who is putting on a show is doing it purely out of the passion for it,” Draeger said. “It’s not for the paycheck; it’s not for the glory. It’s because people in here love doing it. When they were kids, they wrestled their friends, they wrestled their siblings, the teddy bear on the couch, or whatever. People who are doing it as an adult, they still have that itch to have a physical sport that’s not MMA or boxing. You’re not going to get clubbed in the head like you would there, but you can still be active, fit, and put on a show.”
Draeger hopes to take part in a Wrestle Open in the next few months. In the meantime, he works in the background for some of the shows and watches others as a fan.
“The magic of wrestling is when you tune out the idea that it’s a cooperative effort,” Draeger said. “Most everyone who comes in here, they know what’s going on, but when wrestling is good, it’s good, and you get sucked into the conflict that’s being portrayed. You’re getting sucked into, ‘Wow, look at this guy, he’s cool. We like him, I want to root for him. And that guy, he’s a bully and I want to see that guy beat up the bully and get his revenge on him. When it’s good, you’re cheering for the underdog because you are vicariously that person.”
The wrestlers feed off the fans.
“It’s a raucous crowd, they get loud in here, it’s a great room,” Draeger said. “With high ceilings, it’s real loud. When they start chanting, ‘Wrestling Open,’ and pounding on the mat around the ring, there’s an energy to it.”
Quijada, 19, is one of the youngest wrestlers in the class, and at 5-foot-5 he’s also one of the shortest. He’s gained 10 or 15 pounds and weighs 165 now.
“Just for the love of it,” he said. “I grew up watching wrestling and it’s always been a passion and something I always wanted to do.”
The craziest thing Cordeiro has seen in the ring in Worcester happened last New Year’s Eve when cinder blocks were laid over the mat in the ring and the wrestlers slammed each other on them. No one got hurt.
“It’s a very safe stunt, all things considered,” Cordeiro said, “but in people’s minds it’s like, ‘Why are they wrestling on cinder blocks? This is extreme, this is crazy, this is out of control.’ It adds to the drama and the perceived danger.”
Cordeiro suggested that cinder blocks will likely return for this New Year’s Eve.
Beyond Wrestling live streams all of its shows on one of its websites, Independent Wrestling Television or IWTV. Beyond Wrestling also has 41,700 followers on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Bill Doyle has been a professional journalist for 47 years, most of them as a sports writer for the Telegram & Gazette. He covered the Boston Celtics for 25 years and has written extensively about golf, boxing and local high school and college sports. He also worked for the campus newspaper when he attended UMass-Amherst. He can be reached at billdoyle1515@gmail.com.
