Rage in the Cage

Gather around lads, it's story time.

This might come as a surprise to some folks but I was once, in fact, a child. Shocking I know, but like all children I got myself into some shenanigans, some relatively harmless and others less so. Well this is one of those times where I and some other kids did what kids do and pulled some stuff that most people would consider a little "messed up".

I don't remember the exact year or my exact age, but if I had to guess it was maybe 2002 or so and I lived in a trailer park. Now this wasn't one of the really trashy ones nor was it a super nice one, but it was fairly large and while not technically a gated community it did have a tall fence all the way around the property. This was apparently enough for all of our parents to just let us run around and do whatever as long as we didn't leave the park. Naturally small cliques of kids formed as we rode our bikes around and did dumb shit like catching toads (SOOOO many fucking toads) making rickety bike ramps, playing baseball and partaking in the seemingly now lost American past time known as "Backyard Wrestling".

Pretty much all of the boys in my neighborhood, regardless of age, were obsessed with wrestling. At one point, we were all banned from this rich kid's house because we'd all show up to watch on his dad's big screen TV for like two months and were so loud and excited this kid's dad couldn't hear anything over us so he threw us out. We'd argue over our favorite wrestlers, who had the best finishing moves, who had the best intro, you name it. Some of the teens in the neighborhood even built this VERY sub par ring and would smash each other around in it. But I digress, as this story isn't about that.

So why bring it up? Well I'm getting to that. You see, the younger boys like myself couldn't hang with the teenagers because they would just absolutely abuse us by throwing us into and off of things, but we didn't have the stuff to make our own ring and wrestling in someone's yard seemed lame after seeing what those older guys made so we looked around. Now this trailer park had a fairly large playground, and in it, it had one of those large steel cage domes for kids to climb on. We tried to do our own cage matches but it was a little too small for us to do much in. Now I'm not sure who thought of it but at some point someone realized there was a very large group of like five and six year olds in the neighborhood who would do nearly anything for ice cream from the ice cream truck that passed through during summer vacation. So we did what any sociopathic, Lord of the Flies tier child group would do and started bribing the little kids with popsicles and fudge bars to fight for our entertainment inside the cage.

Now I know that sounds bad, but it really was mostly harmless. 90% of the time it was just some little kids pretending to wrestle and over selling moves and nobody got hurt. We'd toss in hollow wiffle ball bats, a kick ball or some other random thing and they'd whack each other and like fall in slow motion, no biggie. Sometimes, one of em would mess up and actually hurt the other kid or themselves and we'd buy em like a fifty cent cotton candy bar from the truck if they promised not to run home to their mom's or whatever, fairly harmless kid stuff. Occasionally it'd turn into a real scrap and we'd have to break it up so our parents didn't stop our Little Tikes Thunderdome, but one day it got a bit too crazy.

We were having a match between this little girl (who's name I forget) and this kid named Jay. Now we mostly put up with Jay because were afraid of his older brother who was always in and out of juvy for stuff, but Jay was an absolute shit heel for a five year old. It wasn't really this kid's fault mind you, his dad had run off, mom was an addict, brother had been arrested like seven times before his sophomore year, you get the picture. But Jay took the whole cage match thing way to seriously and would actively try to hurt the other kids, and while he was usually okay, that day he wrapped a jump rope around this girl's neck and tried to throttle her. We of course stopped it and were freaked out because "what the fuck bro?" and were fussing over this little girl thinking he'd hurt her real bad and our game was going to be ruined and we'd all get in trouble. Far from it actually, as not only was this girl not hurt she wanted a rematch. A "REAL rematch" as she put it. We were all a little shook up by it but it was getting late (the streetlights were coming on) so we agreed to hold the match next Saturday.

Now the details have become hazy over the years, but we had always let the younger kids give fake names for their matches and we'd play it up like it was a big deal for them. So naturally we told them to come up with a name for Saturday but we told them to like wear costumes and what not if they felt like it. Even though it was supposed to be a bit of a secret to avoid our parents finding out, news like that just can not be held in by children. Within a few days, what was now known as "Rage in the Cage" had spread like wildfire throughout the trailer park and even a few of the older teens were wanting to come watch. One kid even swiped his dad's portable stereo for intro music for the "fighters" to come into the cage during their introduction. Before Thursday even hit, kids were betting Pokemon cards, allowance money, candy, etc, on which kid would win and we had setup a small pool from those bets so that the "fighters" wouldn't back out and ruin the hype.

Finally the big day comes around and there are like 20 or 30 kids flooding this playground, just waiting to see what will happen. Both contestants have arrived. the swiped stereo is powered up by it's 6 C Cell batteries blaring Linkin Park and our announcer/ref (a kid named John) is talking to the two kids getting their ring names. Jay has arrived wearing a Spiderman mask and a cape made from a bed sheet, and is announced as "The Flying J". Jay's hopping around, hands in the air doing poses for his friends etc, but in doing so he was not aware of the straight unadulterated hate radiating from his opponent. The little girl had forgone any costume and arrived with her hair up in a pony tail, a faded Disney princess T-shirt and some torn up pink jeans. We're all assuming she either won't use a name because she just wants to get this over with or was going to tell John a "girly" name. As John leans in to hear the girl whisper over the noise of the stereo his eyes go wide, before he straightens and introduces her as "Christy Benoit".

CRISPEN WAAAAAAAAH

We all practically lost our minds at that, and laughs were mixed with cheers and the omnipresent OOOOOO that children are so apt to do. Apparently he was her all time favorite, as not only did she use the moniker, she emulated Benoit's entire demeanor all the way to the cage. If "The Flying J" felt any unease we couldn't tell because of the mask and the cacophony of cheers and overly loud Linkin Park blaring from the stereo. Finally when everyone calmed down (and we were able to convince boom box boy to stop the damn music) John explained the rules. This was a "Hardcore" match, and anything goes. There would be no ringout counts, no pins, and the only way to win was for someone to tap out or say "I quit". At that, someone shouted DING DING and it was on.

Now we expected some grappling, maybe some throws or tackles, but oh no no no. "Christy Benoit" immediately just started punching Jay in the face. Over and over and over again. Any time he tried to run away, she'd grab him and throw him to the ground at the center of the dome and taunt him until he got up. To Jay's credit he had to have taken at least ten or so good shots to the face without going down, and was finally able to manage some kind of offense with a solid tackle. Not that it helped him much as this little girl would just start throwing elbows.

It went on for some time before Jay got jump kicked into a bolt that held part of the cage together. it ripped the back of his mask and cut his scalp. Jay of course started screaming since he was just a five year old, so we stopped the match and dragged him out of the dome to make sure he was okay. Little did we realize that his opponent did not give a good god damn and had climbed to the top of the dome to frog splash onto Jay's back while we were distracted.

Jay, who was clearly no longer having fun and terrified out of his wits was scrabbling to get out from under this blood thirsty girl. None of us tried to intervene as we were just in awe of the spectacle before us. The girl tried to grab his head but couldn't get a grip due to his Spiderman mask so she tore it off his face before locking in the meanest looking crossface submission we had ever seen. To make matters worse, she wasn't doing it right because she was just a five year old, so instead of putting pressure on his face with her forearm she was just wrenching his head painfully back like she intended to rip it the hell off. Everyone is screaming for Jay to tap with John our faithful referee, on hands and knees watching to see if he'd give up. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, Jay tapped and the girl let go of his head, which to add insult to injury whipped forward and smashed Jay's already bruised face into the hard packed dirt of the playground.

In the end, Jay had a busted lip, a black eye, a bloody nose, two staples in the back of his head and a fear of fighting girls. "Christy" got however got $11 cash, a bunch of pokemon cards and the new nickname "Princess Wolverine". We all got in huge trouble for letting Jay get hurt and we never did Little Tikes Thunderdome ever again.