How I photographed more wrestling than anyone else in the world
The peculiarities of the pandemic
I landed in Ottawa, Canada on March 4th for a 13-day trip to cover the Pan American tournaments. The Pan Am Championships were March 6th-9th and the Pan Am Olympic Qualifier the 13th-15th.
The Championships went off without a hitch and we had a nice few days of downtime before the Qualifier.
Or so we thought.
While Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and other professional leagues started cutting back on press access to team locker rooms on March 9th, the NBA’s decision to suspend the entire season just three days later sent shockwaves through the tournament.
What the hell is happening? Did you hear so-and-so is sick? What are we going to do?
Since we were already on site when the shutdowns began, organizers opted to go ahead with the Qualifier. They restricted fan attendance, we all started washing our hands more frequently, and we began to keep our distance from each other.
I believe the Olympic Qualifier was the last major sporting event held worldwide as the global lockdowns took hold, sort of straddling the divide between pre- and active-COVID. As I waited for my flight back to New York on the 16th, the TVs at the airport played a press conference by the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announcing that they were closing their border. I went home and, after stocking up on groceries, didn’t leave my apartment for six weeks.
While the normal schedule of the sporting world was shut down, wrestling found a way to have more events. Specifically in the United States and specifically for senior level athletes.
I went to as many as I could.
I consider the Pandemic Era to include any event where there were limited entry protocols in place for fans and/or media. I mark March 12th, 2020 as the beginning of the shutdown, as that’s when the NBA cancelled the rest of their season and national borders started closing. The last time I remember having an entry restriction was the 2022 Senior Pan Am Championships held May 5th-8th in Acapulco, Mexico.
During that time, an interesting mix of organizations tried their hand at producing and broadcasting MMA/boxing fight card-style events, dual meets, and tournaments of various formats. FloWrestling led the charge, with several Regional Training Centers and clubs trying their hand at it as well. It was a time ripe with experimentation.
The absence left by the shutting down of regularly-scheduled programming (such as the cancelled 2020 NCAA Division I tournament) and the postponement of the Olympic Games, offered an opportunity for various organizations to test out new formats and business models.
The first such event was Fite.tv’s Rumble on the Rooftop on June 28th, 2020, held on the top floor of a parking garage in Chicago. Given the indoor restrictions, it was fitting that the first attempt was outside.
Flo had their first venture, an event a month later on July 25th, that was anchored by a Kyle Dake-Frank Chamizo super-match. Then UFC Fight Pass held a series of matches inside an MMA octagon. Eventually, Flowrestling partnered with Titan Mercury Wrestling Club for a women’s dual meet tournament with six teams drafted by designated leaders that was called the Captain’s Cup.
In all, there were something like 52 Pandemic Era events. Of those, I photographed 32. At many of them, I was either the only photographer or one of two to four. While I don’t have an official count of the events that, say, Tony Rotundo or Sam Janicki attended, I feel confident that no one went to as many as I did. I became curious about the idea and started tracking them in the above spreadsheet late in 2020, and since the number of events in the US far outstripped any of those held elsewhere, I don’t see how anyone could have been to more.
