Dayton Daily News Article on Rock N’ Wrestling

Downtown Bar Turns Into Wrestling Ring

DAYTON — In the ring, Ben Kimera is a bad guy, the kind who might smack you with a metal chair.

But in the basement of Club Aquarius downtown, as the hulking Detroit man picks through the contents of his suitcase or slicks back his blond hair, he seems anything but evil. Polite and friendly, Kimera was one of a dozen or so professional wrestlers who’d come to Dayton to face off in the ring Saturday, Feb. 28, at Rock ‘n’ Wrestling.

Unlike some independent wrestlers, Kimera said he makes a living at the sport, participating in a dozen or so matches per month. He enjoys pro wrestling in part because it offers a modern version of a simple morality play — good versus evil.

And even though he’s a bad guy, he also appreciates the e-mails and other contact he gets from fans, he said.

In the ring, Andre Heart bills himself as “Sweet Sexy Sensation” and he wrestles because he loves to entertain the crowd, he said.

The 27-year-old Cincinnati man said he has been wrestling professionally for two years, competing in rings in high school gyms, armories and garages. During his career, he said he has wrestled all over Ohio as well as in venues in Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Kentucky and Illinois and even refereed matches for the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) organization.

Heart was slated to wrestle against his former teacher, Cody Hawk, the owner of Ego Pro Wrestling, the organization that put on Saturday’s event.

Hawk, a pro-wrestling veteran of 14 years, said preparations for turning the club into a wrestling arena began early in the afternoon, with he and a few others bringing the 18-foot-by-18-foot ring from his house to the club. After the matches were finished, he said, he and some of the others would tear down the ring, haul it home and celebrate.

Source: Tim Tresslar/Dayton Daily News