This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

It's an unseasonably warm Saturday night in March as 500 people fill metal folding chairs in Salt Lake City's Fight Coliseum.

Of course, a chair is never just a chair during a night of Ultra Championship Wrestling.

The homegrown professional wrestling show has the same over-the-top characters, logic-defying storylines and aerial showmanship that many UCW participants saw on TV as kids and emulated in their backyards. It's just done on a shoestring budget and more for the sheer thrill of performing than for a Hulk Hogan-size payday.

As the announcer hypes the next match, Paco and his partner, Damien, slip on their masks and adjust their tights before bounding out from behind a curtain and slapping high-fives with the front row. Balloons and streamers in the colors of the Mexican flag fill the air as the duo jumps in the ring and sprays its opponents, Dallas Murdock and Cassidy, with Silly String, unofficially kick-starting the match.

With the crowd at a fever pitch before the opening bell even rings, Paco, Damien, Murdock and Cassidy spend the next 20 minutes or so pummeling each other with mysteriously named specialty moves like "Caballito," "The Famouser" and the "Dallas Driver." And when the match spills outside the squared circle, the wrestlers incorporate any object they can reach. On this night, that includes long, cafeteria-style tables, a stop sign and a slew of metal folding chairs.

A couple of days later, Paco is describing some of the injuries he's incurred with the high-flying style that helped his team win that March night. The diminutive 23-year-old West Jordan property manager hardly looks like a pro wrestler without his mask.

"I remember one time, I missed a drop-kick off the top rope. I knew I was hurt, but I didn't do anything about it," Paco said. "I was young, you know, so you never think anything is really hurt, right? But I went to the doctor about a week later and found out I had a broken wrist. I was out about four or five months. I've also had torn tendons, and I fractured my hip and was out for about eight months."

Even with a medical dossier to rival a professional bull rider, Paco's family remains supportive, he said. They come to his matches, and his mom still appreciates how backyard wrestling with his friends kept him out of trouble as a teenager.

Seeing the smile permanently fixed on Paco's face as he talks about wrestling, you understand why wearing a mask in the "real" matches is a good idea; it's hard to look like a bad-ass with a grin on your face.

"It's great," Paco said of his wrestling career. "It lets me be someone I can't be in everyday life."

Steve Neilson is the man who gave Paco and about 15 other wrestlers that chance when he formed UCW about six years ago as a way to keep his own kids from hurting themselves backyard wrestling. They don't wrestle anymore, but he does. Neilson is the CEO of the league and also "manages" under the name Stevie Slick when he's not working his day job as a hearing specialist. Neilson organizes the league's events, offers free training for newbies and sketches out the storylines the wrestlers follow from match to match, with input from the wrestlers. He is also the only UCW "character" whose real name appears in this story; the rest are using their "wrestling names."

A heel's heel

For the muscular, tall and bald Validus, his character has a lot to do with who he is in real life.

A district manager for PC Laptops, Validus was hired when a vice president saw him wrestling and thought anyone who could get a few thousand people to instantly hate him would be great in sales. Turns out he was right; all the rah-rah energy and positive attitude that works for Validus in the business world also works when he amplifies it to obnoxious degrees for his "heel" (aka "bad guy") wrestling character.

"I've never been the good guy. It's funny. I'll go into a town where nobody's ever seen me before, and as soon as I walk out I'll start getting booed," Validus said. "I'm like, 'You guys don't even know if I'm going to come out and yell "Go team go!" ' I could come out in a rainbow shirt and toss out candy and they'll boo. Maybe it's the bald head or tattoos.

"A lot of the people I work with don't even know my first name," Validus added, noting that he even uses his wrestling name on his business cards, and the folks around the office just call him "Val."

At 30, Validus is a veteran compared with many of his fellow UCW wrestlers - he grappled in several leagues before breaking his neck in a match two years ago when a move went awry and his neck took the brunt of his 280-pound foe's weight during a slam. He vaguely remembers the sound of his vertebrae breaking - "a little like a watermelon being smashed" - and he remembers finishing the match before noticing his neck was sore and experiencing a wave of nausea.

The March UCW show was Validus' first time back in the ring since the injury. "It kind of gives you a natural fear. I don't think I'll be doing that move again." Still, performing for fans is too much of a draw. And his March match was the first time his new wife and his three kids, ranging from 6 to 10, were able (or old enough) to watch him in person.

Validus is a natural heel. His physical presence is imposing even from a distance, but he makes sure to get up close and personal with the fans, hurling insults at them about their weight or their ugly dates - anything to make the fans more emotionally invested in the show. The guy is a pro.

"The worst thing in the world to hear is silence at a match," Validus said. "If they don't hate the bad guy, there's no reason for them to want the good guy to win. . . . In my matches, there's a lot of energy because they want to see me get beat. They want to see me shut up."

Sunday services

A week after the March show, the UCW wrestlers are meeting in a now-silent Fight Coliseum for practice on a Sunday afternoon. Longtime in-ring rivals joke and punch each other in greeting before starting an intense and violent two-hour training session. Validus sets up his three kids in a corner with lunch before he hops in the ring with about a dozen other wrestlers. Neilson works one-on-one with an aspiring wrestler while the experienced guys throw each other around inside a practice ring.

Anyone who thinks pro wrestling is "fake" hasn't heard the smack a 200-pound guy makes when he lands flat on his back after springing a good 15 feet in the air. The storylines and match results might be predestined for maximum dramatic effect, but the welts, bruises, muscle strains and torn tendons are real.

Tristan Gallo considers himself one of the lucky ones when it comes to injuries.

Gallo has been one of the UCW's popular heels for three years, but outside the ring the Bam Margera lookalike is an outgoing, friendly West Jordan native, barely 22, who works in information technology for Zions Bank. In the same breath, Gallo will tell you that he hasn't had "any serious injuries," but suffered a concussion in one match, and that ever since he "took a chair shot" about 18 months ago, he hasn't been able to sleep on a pillow.

Gallo grew up a fan of pro wrestling thanks to his grandparents, who watched it on TV. He heard about the UCW through a flier handed to him at a WWE event at the E Center a few years back and called Neilson. Unlike Paco and Validus, Gallo's family wasn't thrilled with the former high-school athlete's decision to enter the ring.

"My family actually hates me doing it, with a passion," Gallo said. "My mom came to one match, my first match ever three years ago, and she hasn't been to one since. I got beat up on. I got thrown out of the ring. I actually landed with my head on her feet, and I looked up at her and she was crying, just seeing me in pain."

Now, Gallo is addicted to the thrill of performing for a crowd. He still gets butterflies before hearing the ring announcer call his name.

"The fans are crazy," Gallo said. "They're actually the reason I do it now. Listening to them, I go crazy. There's a reason we do everything. Whatever will get the crowd more into it and coming to the shows, that's what we're going to do.

"There's drama, as there is with every team. And I do consider this a team. But we really do care for the welfare of each other. And we have fun. If we weren't having fun, there'd be no use in doing it."

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* DAN NAILEN can be contacted at nailen@sltrib.com or 801-257-8613. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com. You can read Nailen's "Urban Spelunker" blog by visiting blogs.sltrib.com or hear him on the "ReMix" and "PopCast" podcasts available at http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment.

Fight night

* ULTRA CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING is Saturday at 7 p.m. at Salt Lake City's Fight Coliseum, 751 W. 800 South.

* TICKETS are $7, or $30 for a group of six, with kids 6 and younger admitted free. Visit http://www.ucw-zero.com for more information and a schedule of coming events.