By Sir Lawrence Alegdrop
Some may make fun of southerners for their country bumpkin stereotype or their redneck image, but one thingís for sure: Southerners know pro rasslin'!

I recently had the opportunity to enjoy a rassliní card in the three-tooth town of Louisburg, North Carolina at a local elementary school, an ideal place to get away from the overchoreographed, overplayed, overproduced, overexposed, and overhyped world of McMahonland. What I saw was a number of young upstarts eager to make names for themselves and a few veterans continuing their old glory. These guys didn't have a corporate conglomerate like a Vince McMahon to help get over. All they had was their own ring presence.

Southern Championship Wrestling was the moniker for this particular eveningís festivities, a promotion that has been around for some time under different managements. Their most famous combatants are unquestionably the Hardy Boys, but other names such as Shane "Hurricane" Helms and Shannon Moore have gone through their ranks. Their website is www.scwprowrestling.com. Currently, the promotion has a working relationship with the training camp the Anderson Academy, run by C.W. Anderson, who also wrestles for the group, but did not appear on this occasion.

This was a benefit show for Josh "Tears" Duke, who used to wrestle for the group until a terrible car accident left him paralyzed. All proceeds, including ticket sales, concessions, sponsors, and the wrestlers' gimmick sales went to help this former wrestler financially.

The top matches included current SCW Heavyweight Champion, Otto Schwanz successfully defending his title against Lazz. Seymore Snott, now wrestling on the east coast, won his first title by defeating Caesar Augustus for the vacant North Carolina Heavyweight Title.

Then it was time for the main event. Listed as a "Weapons Match," the Drive Brothers, Jesse and Justin, met Major DeBeers (listed as coming out of retirement for this show) and Brute Shooter, with their manager Count Grog (dressed as a bad Dracula). Some fans may remember Major DeBeers (not Col. DeBeers from the AWA), under a different moniker since he hasan obscure claim to fame in the business. You see, he used to wrestle under a mask in the Mid-Atlantic and Georgia territories in a tag team known as The Gladiators (anyone know where Iím going with this already?).

That's right, Major DeBeers once had the dishonorable distinction of going on TBS to job out to the Mulkeys! (A prominent part of his resume, I'm sure!--Dr. Mality) But the main event was far and away the best match of the night. DeBeers opened up by working the crowd. He may have looked beaten and bruised from his war torn injuries over the years, but this guy can still work the stick. He said anyone can win a weapons match, and challenged the Drive Brothers to a classic style wrestling match. This went on for about five minutes before DeBeers and his partner started getting the worst of things and brought in the weapons themselves (firmly establishing themselves as the heels in the match). There was the usual stop sign, garbage can, and a bat covered in barbed wire (ouch!).

Then Duke Richards (another SCW regular) came out to send one of the Drives on a joy ride in a shopping cart and help Shooter and DeBeers. Brute Shooter was the first to score blood when he had his head scraped across the barbed wire baseball bat. As the battle raged on, blood eventually came from just about everyone involved. But the highlight was certainly when DeBeers and Justin took their brawl to the ladies room. When they returned, DeBeers had a tampon shoved up his nose.

The end came when Grog threw a fireball in Justin's face leading to DeBeers getting the pin. But Louisburg Recreation Director Brent Cardwell stooged on these hot antics, and the match restarted. Before long Justin hit a frog splash (by far his best move) and got the pin on DeBeers.

Other matches on the show included Malaki pinning Ali Steele in a good, but short match. Spank won over Slick Rick Converse with Special K. Hard Times won over Tony Platinum. And The Varsity Slammer Jay-C beat Giant Vermilion in the opener.

I had the opportunity to talk with the Drive Brothers after their match. Both have been wrestling for about two years. Prior to that they had three years of training. They both come from New Jersey where they broke into the business through John Zandig, trainer and promoter of Combat Zone Wrestling. CZW has been promoting in the old ECW arena of late and gaining popularity by continuing the ECW tradition of blood and guts wrestling mixed with high fliers. Jesse Drive, real name Reggie Hunter, complimented Zandig and his promotion. "He (John Zandig) puts his body on the line and you have to respect that," Hunter said. "He's our mentor."

Hunter said he likes working for SCW. "It's a real cool company. It's fun, and you have your freedom." He added that the Southern style of wrestling is a lot slower, and you have to work the crowd more. Hunter and his tag partner Justin (real name Danny Mullins) have big plans for their future and the future of the business. They would like to start their own promotion in North Carolina called Underground Professional Wrestling (gotta love that name) along with a few other business partners. But they want to see less competition among small independents. "I'd like to see bigger companies," Hunter said. ì"'d like to see some of these smaller companies merge into bigger companies." If this comes about, Hunter's Underground Pro Wrestling will work in conjunction with SCW instead of against it. The two groups could share talent and possibly even titles. Overall it seems local wrestling will always live in one form or another. Local heroes like the Drive Brothers are tomorrowís stars of the business, so it can be a great night of bloody entertainment to catch your local wrestling heroes.