Bronze and Silver City

Current mood: pissed off

Sunday could very possibly have been one of the longest days of my life. I knew it would be because wrestling tourneys are famously tedious and drawn out and if the club running the show is even remotely disorganized, you're in for a mammoth case of bleacher butt by the time you leave.

What you may not know is that Amanda decided she wanted to wrestle this year. Yes, my classically trained violinist cheerleading little red-headed girl wanted to wrestle. Reluctantly, I agreed. The kids wrestle for Team Bliss and in this league, girls have to wrestle boys. Jeeze, just what you want, some dude tossing your daughter around. I bit my tongue and let her do it. Our decision to allow her was not so much because I am a feminist (because I am most certainly NOT), but more because we have always told both the kids that they were capable of doing anything they wanted to. What idiots we were.

So, she and Nolan both started workouts as soon as Nolan's football season was over. Last year, Nolan didn't have a single win on the mats. He hated practice. He hated conditioning. He hated matches. He hated losing. And then, true to Bubba form, as soon as the season was over, he missed it. He missed his coaches and he wanted to wrestle more. When the season came around again this year, he had a cow over when I was going to sign him up and then she chimed in.

Our first match was the first weekend of December and our team was the host. Nolan went out and lost both his matches. He was royally pissed. Tears, running snot, huff and puff- the whole nine yards. What made it worse was that his little big sister (he's 5'4" and she's 5'2") won a gold because she was the only wrestler in her division and class. That was also the day we had her belated birthday party.

The next match was the following weekend at Ysleta High, hosted by the Texas Tribe. Nolan went out and kicked butt! He was amazing and scored his first two wins on the mat ever. One of the kids he beat was coached by his coaches from last year. The other was a boy from the Tribe. His third match was against another boy from Team Fox (last year's coaches) and that boy beat Nolan, although Nolan did hang in there for a full three rounds. I was so incredibly proud of him because doing that is very hard. And, for a heavyweight, it is even harder. After that loss, he was due to place second but was challenged by a boy who had beat him the week before. Nolan's challenge round came right after his loss so he was pooped, but he did his best and was pinned in the second round. He took third, which broke his heart. Amanda only wrestled twice and it was the same kid both times. She wrestled up and that boy wrestled down because neither of them had anyone else in their brackets. Basically, the boy was a good foot taller than her and had her by somewhere between 20 and 30 pounds. He put her in a headlock and took her on a death spin in both rounds and pinned her relatively quickly. She didn't seem to mind. In fact, she walked off the mat, yanked off her headgear and told me, "Mom! He was hawt!" Jeeze. Just what I needed to hear. Nolan needed some Momma therapy during the drive home, and he was fine by the time we got here.

Our next match was the Sun City Nationals hosted by the Eastside Wildcats. That is a massive tourney and kids come from as far as Arizona and even further. He did very well. He won, he lost and he lost again, to Greg from Team Fox. He took fourth in his bracket and he was happy with his placing. Amanda didn't make the tourney because she had her Christmas performance with the El Paso Youth Symphony.

We took the week after Christmas off (along with everyone else in the city) and then Sunday was the Silver City meet. Because we lowered the price on the house just before we headed out for what seemed like all time and eternity, I wanted to make sure the house looked great. Amanda and I stayed up late Saturday cleaning and I went to bed sometime around 1:30 in the morning. By the time I went to sleep I had passed the tired/awake continuum and lay in the bed awake until well after 2:30 afraid I wouldn't hear the alarm ring at 3:20 so I could clean a little more and get our bag ready with changes of clothes and food and activities for the day. We left the house at five after five and got to the bus on-post at 5:30 for the three hour drive to Silver City.

When we got there, we got set up with the other families from our team and camped out our spot in the bleachers. The tots and division 1 went first, then divisions two and four, and around 3:30 divisions three (Nolan) and five (Amanda) started. Nolan got out on the mat and won his first match. There weren't many kids there, so divisions were combined and some kids wrestled in more than one division. That's what happened with Nolan's bracket and his second match was against Geno, a boy from our team. He's been wrestling practically since he was potty trained and his dad is one of our coaches. Coach Brandon decided to sit out coaching Geno for the match and just watch. Nolan did pretty well, but then he outweighs Geno by a pretty good bit. Geno got him in a headlock-type-thingy and when Nolan felt the compression on his neck, he started gasping and tapping out. The very stupid ref didn't pay attention to Nolan so he kept tapping until finally the ref had no choice but to call the match. Geno got the gold and Nolan took silver and he was happy with that.

The problems actually came from Amanda's mat. There were only two people in her bracket at the start of the day. None of us went back to check her bracket throughout the day and we all just assumed that she would wrestle the same boy, Francisco two or three times. As the day wore on, a boy entered the gym who was so obviously out to intimidate everyone there. He was different from the other kids there. Generally, the mood at a meet like this one is pretty chill until certain kids take the mat and their cheering section goes off. That's normal. And, once the kid is done, his c.s. goes back to their section and starts to eat their nachos again.

So, there's Mr. UFC. That's right, as in Ultimate Fighting Championship. He had on his long socks and shorts (prolly one of the stupider looks to ever grace fashion), his fat-brim hat with all the idiot markings and a TapOut hoodie with his name emblazoned across his shoulders and MMA Fighter at the bottom. He had facial piercings and no social graces. Truly.

Eventually, we figured out (because one of us critical thinking masterminds went to the brackets to see what was up) that he was wrestling my little princess. Sheesh. He wasn't in the bracket at the start of the day or the middle of the day or the later part of the day, until right before he actually had to wrestle Amanda. Francisco was her first opponenet. She hung in for a little over a minute until he eventually pinned her. She did pretty well. By that point, Coach Brandon was about to blow a gasket the way only an Infantry Sergeant Major can. He was pissed with a capital SS. His other son, Jerry, wanted Amanda to forfeit, but she said she would be embarassed to forfeit so she made the choice to get out there. I'd have had a heart attack before I even set foot on the mat, but not her. Then after a couple more matches, Mr. UFC went out on the mat for the showdown. You could tell by watching him he wasn't there to wrestle clean. He was there to hurt someone. That's what he wanted. So, he punched himself in the face a few times a la Captain Caveman, jumped around a la Jane Fonda and did his best Baloo impression in circles around the mat. Yes, seriously.

They shook hands. The ref signaled the start and he went at her. I'm not going into all of it because my blood pressure can't take it, but he actually picked her up and launched her out of the ring. Yes, seriously, launched her. I never knew she could fly, but she coulda shown Mary Poppins a thing or two after that. The ref re-set them and started the match again and eventually he got her in a death grip and pinned her. The problem with it all is the smirk he wore. I am not sure if the smirk was because he was stunned he was wrestling this cute little thing, because he was shocked he had to actually (gasp) wrestle a girl, or because he just didn't take her seriously. Truth- it was likely some combo of the three. But, he went out there way ugly and that didn't change. After he cleaned her clock and the bout was over, she went to his coaches' corner to shake hands with them and he walked around for a bit revelling in his own glory. Ass-wipe. So, then it dawned on him that this sport does actually foster sportsmanlike conduct and he shuffled over to homeboy our coaches.

And then, the enemy of her enemy became our friend. So, we partied on over to the mat to catch Francisco take on Mr. UFC. Somehow his whole demeanor changed on that mat. He was nowhere near as obnoxious as he had been when on the mat with my kid. He locked up with Cisco (I think that's what his mom called him) for a long time and never would shoot on him. It took quite a while but they eventually hit the mat and started to grapple, but it became clear that although inexperienced, our homie, Mr. UFC, was just so over-aggressive that he was going to win. Jackass. Amanda took the bronze in her bracket. Overall, I think she was satisfied but she was pissed too.

What really stuck me wrong was the way his friends were talking about Amanda on the edge of the mat. Whether they knew I was her mother or not, they should have really not made sexual references to a wrestler, a lady, a competetor. Ever. But, they did. They also joked that she was a girl out there. Well, no shit, Einstein. What was your first clue? The boobies? So, these knuckle-draggers left that day patting Mr. UFC on the back, feeling like champions themselves. I got home and surfed YouTube to see if the video they took had hit the 'Net yet. Nope, but I'll look again.

Yes, she can do anything. She went out there, knowing what she was up against. He out-weighed her, he was stronger, and assholier, and she still wrestled him. She wrestled clean. She went longer than you thought she would in the round. She even flew. Tweet. Tweet.

So, we got back on the bus and had dinner in Silver City with the members of the team and their families who were also riding the team bus that day. We had a good time, ponied back up and headed down the mountain. We got home some time around 10:30 and although I would have liked nothing better than to have crashed when we got here, once again the time/awake continuum had taken hold and I drifted off in my beddy-bye around 1:00.

Saturday we wrestle in Deming. I'm not sure if we are taking the bus. But, we'll be there one way or another. And hopefully I'll be better rested. But, tired or not, my kids are learning about wrestling clean and living right. So take that and poke a hole in your face with it Mr. UFC!

Currently listening : Tap Out By Aggressive Dogs Release date: 2001-09-12