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Hard-hit Wilmington to benefit from wrestlers’ hard hits

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By Christopher Magan, Staff Writer Updated 10:01 PM Friday, July 10, 2009

WILMINGTON — Brian Hendee, better known as “Fr3akshow,” and the rest of the Ultimate Impact Wrestling family will take a few “bumps” Saturday, July 11, to help feed the needy.

“It’s for the community,” says Hendee, who’s had a decade-long career. “That’s my main thing with wrestling. I love to go and do a benefit because it makes me feel like I’m doing something for somebody.”

Those “bumps” refer to the occasional hits and bruises more and more “Indie” wrestlers, or entertainers, across the country are taking for the love of their sport.

Often they’re a little more serious than the wrestlers let on. But it’s what the crowds come to see and Fr3akshow and his father Lee Hendee are expecting as many as 500 to attend a free “Bash on the Blacktop” pro-wrestling event beginning 6 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot of Royal Z Lanes.

The event is designed to raise awareness of the Hendee’s organization, Ultimate Impact Wrestling, but also to collect canned goods to help the Sugartree Ministries food pantry. Called Your Father’s Kitchen, it is currently feeding hundreds in this city that has been hard hit economically since DHL announced plans to pull operations from the area.

“There’s so many people who depend on it,” said April Zurface, a Sabina resident who uses and volunteers at the pantry every week. “If it wasn’t for this place the crime rate would be way up. People would be stealing from grocery stores.”

Allen Willoughby, an associate pastor at Sugartree, said he’s thankful for the help his pantry is getting to feed the area’s needy.

“We really are blessed,” he said from the middle of a crowd eating a free lunch earlier this week. “We’re giving out 7,500 cans a month and feeding 200 a day. However the food comes in, we’re blessed.”

Willoughby admits it’s a little unorthodox to combine a food drive with a form of entertainment that regularly includes face paint and hitting participants with metal folding chairs. “But we welcome them helping us out,” he said.

For the Hendees, who have been training aspiring independent professional wrestlers for three years, the move is just another way to get their name out there and help out a community reeling from a depressed economy.

“This community has been torn apart,” wrestler “Fr3akshow” says. The stay-at-home father of three when he’s not wrestling said he and his dad launched Ultimate Impact so he could continue his career and help out locals interested in the sport.

“I’ve always been interested in wrestling,” Hendee said. “I’d love to go back on tour, before my boy was born I was all over the east coast.”

Family life led the Hendees instead to launch what is becoming a growing trend in Ohio and across the nation — small independent groups where wanna be wrestlers can get a taste of the limelight. They polish their chops in backyard rings and perform at small events for rabid fans.

“It’s the greatest occupation in the world,” said Brian Fr3akshow Hendee. “Business really is booming.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2342 or cmagan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

How to go

WHAT: The Bash on the Blacktop
WHEN: 6 p.m. Saturday, July 11,
WHERE: in front of Louie’s Lounge at Royal Z Lanes, 2667 U.S. 22/Ohio 3, Wilmington, Ohio.
COST: Event is free, canned good donations accepted
MORE: Go to ultimateimpactwrestling.com
DONATIONS: Donations to Sugartree Ministries can be made at 180 E. Main Street, Wilmington, Ohio or online