During a recent All Elite Wrestling (AEW) Dynamite event at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, broadcast live on TNT, one of the AEW’s main talents, Cody Rhodes, stepped into the ring to face off against local wrestler “Marvelous” Matt Knicks. Rhodes is a legacy wrestler—his father Dusty Rhodes was a common adversary of Ric Flair—and is known as one of the good guys in the newly popular AEW promotion. More often than not, if he’s about to fight, the audience is cheering for him. But things were a little different when he challenged Knicks. The crowd of thousands started chanting “Freelance Wrestling.”
A typical Freelance Wrestling show features a mix of homegrown talent and other independent wrestlers passing through, looking for an opportunity to get in the ring. Almendarez and a small team plan out long-term storylines with a core group of wrestlers, then adjust month-to-month based on who has been injured, who is in town, and who may have been signed to a contract. It boils down to a battle of good versus evil; before the night of the event wrestlers are told who is the face (good guy) and who is the heel (bad guy), and they do what they can to get cheers and boos respectively. Then, Almendarez says, they just bring their coolest moves into the ring.
Fri 12/13, 9 PM, Logan Square Auditorium, 2539 N. Kedzie, freelancewrestling.com, $20-$30.
