RINGSIDE [Living the Dream]
2023.08.18… I had the privilege of shooting ringside at House of Glory’s biggest show, High Intensity. This was a night that would change the game for me.
If you didn’t know this about me, I absolutely love professional wrestling… in another timeline, I’d be inside the squared circle, but I digress. I grew up on wrestling as a young kid. We’d get together and watch WCW and WWF pay-per-views. Some time after the whole “Invasion” storyline after Vince bought WCW and ECW, I stopped watching. I didn’t really get back to watching wrestling till around 2012-13. Guys like CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler, Daniel Bryan (Brian Danielson), Sheamus, Zack Ryder invigorated my love for wrestling again. Around that time, I started learning more about inner workings of the sport. It became more than just heel vs face.
Fast forward a few years to when WWE launched the NXT brand, and I started to love wrestling more. There was less of that Vince McMahon nonsense and more wrestling. HHH, Shawn Michaels and William Regal gave us some of the best wrestling out there. Eventually, NJPW became more accessible when they launched their streaming service, opening up an entire new world of pro-wrestling. After that, there was no turning back… I absolutely fell in love with professional wrestling.
Enough of the lore… back to the photography.
Shooting sports, wrestling and concerts has always been something I loved doing. Now armed with a pretty sweet camera, I figured I’d wiggle my way into shooting wrestling shows whenever possible. I’ve managed to shoot a few Legacy Pro Wrestling events (House of Glory’s “developmental” promotion). Those were super fun. I finally got a gig shooting ringside at Intense Wrestling Alliance’s “Ultimate Lucha” show at El Nacho Cantina in New Jersey. It was about 90° that day and the show was outside, but despite sweating my ass off, I had a whole lot of fun and captured some kick ass images.
Not even a week later, I’d get the thumbs up to shoot ringside at HOG’s High Intensity. Once I got that text, I almost shit my pants… I was nervous as hell! Thankfully Chris, Kayla and a lot of the guys at HOG gave me some words of encouragement. That helped a lot. At some point I kept saying I was nervous but I honestly don’t think there was a single bit of me that was actually nervous. I don’t remember if it was after the first or second match, but it was pretty early on that I realized I belong ringside.
The night kicked off with the Matt Travis Memorial Battle Royal… A match dedicated to a fallen member of HOG. Battle Royals are always super fun. VERY challenging but so much fun to shoot. It’s always cool seeing what kind of wild images you’ve made amidst all the chaos. Trying to get sick photos of the 20-30 competitors isn’t easy, but always gives me the chance to take photos of friends and new faces. Andre Moore, “Encore” outlasted all the contestants to earn a shot at a championship of his choosing.
Steph De Lander and Kiki followed that up. I have to say, SDL is so much fun to shoot. She’s full of so much personality… SUCH A HEEL. It’s dope that she actually acknowledges the camera and gave me some of the coolest photos of the night. Kiki brought the fight too. I love her energy and her colorful hair. She ended up getting a HUGE knot on her head, thankfully it didn’t show up in any of my shots. SDL got the hard fought win here.
Next up was the “Suicidal 6-Way” Ladder match… A match I was looking forward to shooting. This match featured GCW’s Jordan Oliver, Joey Silver (Sweet Cheeks), Solo Kitano, Raheem Royal, ECW Legend Super Crazy and AEW star… HOG Alumni, Isiah Cassidy. Another chaotic match, as you’d expect from a ladder match. So many cool spots in this match. At the end, Noel Katana ended up climbing the ladder and becoming the 6-Way champ.
That banger was followed up by a match I would only have dreamt of shooting. The LEGEND, the ACE of New Japan, Hiroshi Tanahashi would take on the Deathmatch King, Long Island’s own… Matt Cardona. This match was SUPPOSED to be for the House of Glory Heavyweight Championship, but after a video package of the HOG commissioner getting attacked, Matt took it upon himself to make it a non-title match. SDL came out with Matt so that gave me a LOT more awesome photos. And Tanahashi… I can write an entire piece on him, his career and how monumental shooting him ringside was for me and my photography journey. Let’s just say, this match was full of so many memories and sick photos. Tanahashi came out on top after landing the High Fly Flow and pinning Matt.
The match after that was another match that I was SUPER stoked to shoot. It was supposed to be my friend, Charles Mason vs MOTHER F***IN EDDIE KINGSTON, however, Eddie had to pull out of the event. Unfortunately, this happens at indie events more often than not. That sucks because I was looking forward to shooting Eddie, but it also sucked for Charles. He has been building up to this match for a long time, so this was obviously a huge moment for him. So, the question was, who’s going to sub in to fight Charles? It just so happened that the bad ass Masha Slamovich came to f**k shit up. Her and Charles had one hell of a match. Masha really brought it to Mason, but my boy came out on top at the end… or did he?
The main event was a cage match for the House of Glory Tag Team Championships between, the champs, The Bookers (Brian XL & Amazing Red) and the Mane Event (Midas Black and Jay Lyon). This was a feud that has been heating up for months, and what a ride it was. There was at least 5-10 minutes of a pre-match beatdown that spilled into the crowd. The wild match ended with Mane Event becoming the new HOG Tag Team Champions.
So not only did I get to do WHAT I love, which is taking photos, but I got to do what I love WITH what I love, wrestling… INCEPTION! If you would’ve told me that one day, I’d be ringside, taking photos of the LEGENDARY Hiroshi Tanahashi or the Deathmatch King, Matt Cardona, I may have said you’re crazy.
I’ll be seeing y’all on September 15th at House of Glory’s FALLOUT!
If you’d like to take a look at the photos from High Intensity, here’s the link!