Express
Where liberals and conservatives debate the issues with pile drivers and body slams
By Sadie Dingfelder November 22
A foreboding bass line ripples across the Annandale Volunteer Fire Department social hall, temporarily silencing the rowdy crowd. The beat drops, and a shirtless man bursts through black curtains. An announcer calls out: Introducing. From a gated community, inside a gated community. In Great Falls, Virginia. Your champion of the 1 percent: Logan. Easton. LaRoux!
The Gated Community, led by Teflon Don, bring their own velvet rope and red carpet to matches.
LaRoux circles the ring with an index finger held high. A few dozen spectators in suits leap out of their folding chairs and start chanting, 1 Percent, 1 Percent! They are answered by a larger group of casually dressed fans shouting, Sucks! after each 1 percent!
This scene, or something like it, plays out once a month under the auspices of NOVA Pro Wrestling a local, DIY answer to the WWE thats been staging events just outside D.C. since 2015. Over the past few months, however, something strange has happened: Politics have crept into the ring, and its really resonating with fans, says NOVA Pro co-founder Mike E. King III.
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Before LaRouxs match on this late-October night, fans from both sides of the aisle are riled up by another partisan pairing: Daniel The Progressive Liberal Richards vs. Ethan Alexander Sharpe, a wrestler from North Carolina who sports a Monopoly-guy mustache and a smoking jacket emblazoned with dollar signs. ... While Sharpe is clearly cartoonish, Richards, 37, actually is a progressive liberal. His real name is Daniel Harnsberger, and he works as a real estate agent in Richmond. ... I brought my political beliefs in the ring because I predominantly wrestle in the Bible Belt, and I knew it would generate a reaction over there, he says. Hes wearing his usual uniform: a shirt covered in Hillary Clinton faces and underwear emblazoned with Democratic donkeys. Northern Virginia is the only place I get cheered.
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Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, 8900 Little River Turnpike, Fairfax; Fri., doors 7:15 p.m., first bell 8 p.m.; $20-$25.
Sadie Dingfelder will write about anything, but she especially loves art, science, wildlife and quirky people.
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