If anyone still doesn’t think 2017 is when Earth transitioned fully into Bizarro Land, this might just be the last piece of the wall the universe has bricked us up behind with our self-created madness: Reddit has won a wrestling championship.
On March 14th, Reddit’s wrestling forum r/SquaredCircle defeated Jervis Cottonbelly by submission to become the WrestleCircus Sideshow Champion. In a sterling example of not reading the fine print, Jervis had written a post on r/SquaredCircle after winning his title, asking the forum to watch out for him during his reign. He then clicked the “submit” button in view of a referee, and since all wrestling titles can only change hands by pinfall, forfeit or SUBMISSION, Jervis was shit out of luck. To their credit, the Reddit guys were their usual classy selves, sending Jervis a special customized Reddit snoo (their mascot).
To explain how we got to this marquee moment in wrestling history, we’ll need to run the clock back a bit. At WrestleCircus’s Taking Center Stage show on February 17th, inaugural champ Scorpio Sky successfully defended his title against Jordan Len-X, albeit by clocking Len-X with the belt while the referee was distracted by George “Trashman” Gatton. Immediately after the match, though, WrestleCircus management announced that the Sideshow Championship would be defended under 24/7 rules (like WWE’s old Hardcore Championship, or DDT’s Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship, whose inherent absurdity clearly inspired WrestleCircus’s title) until the next month’s show at South by Southwest. This prompted Leva Bates (a.k.a. NXT’s Blue Pants) to come out in a Joey Ryan inspired getup and wrest the title from Scorpio in a hard (heh) fought battle, only to be rolled up less than a minute later by the real Joey Ryan, who’s had experience with 24/7 titles from his time in Japan’s DDT Pro Wrestling. Over the last month, the title’s passed through the hands of Sammy Guevara, Desmond Xavier, Trey Miguel and Sami Callahan, before finally ending up with r/SquaredCircle.
Of course, once the celebration (and self-deprecatory smark talk) is over, the biggest question hangs over r/SquaredCircle: how will they defend their title against Scorpio Sky and Joey Ryan this Friday at SXSWrestleCircus? At last count, the subscribers number just under 200,000, so will r/SquaredCircle choose a single one of their number to step in the ring, or is the Freebird Rule about to get stretched worse than Andre the Giant’s leather pants phase? Might Steiner-nomics be applied to the matter?
All these questions will be answered and more at Emo’s on March 17th, a night with a suitably bananas card that includes Broken Matt Hardy versus Colt Cabana, Matt Riddle challenging Brian Cage for the Ringmaster Championship, and Rachael Ellering defending her Lady of the Ring title against Tessa Blanchard. But the greatest drama has already begun: can the combined forces of one of the internet’s largest wrestling fan communities hold out against two former champs hungry for revenge?
Sam Jackson writes for Cracked. Looper and Grunge, and just about anybody who wants him. He’s on Twitter @darwinaward44.