Pro-Wrestling Copycat Kids Step Up The Violence -- In Their Own Backyards Page

Last updated 4 July 2004

Copycat Kids Step Up The Violence -- In Their Own Backyards

Kids across America are mutilating each other in a sick bid to outdo the violent stunts they see pro wrestlers do on TV.

They watch their favorite stars smash opponents with garbage cans, chains and 2-by-4 boards -- and reenact the madness in their own backyards. And now, countless "clubs" have formed to promote the violent play.

Boys beat each other with barbed wire coils, use metal strips as whips, scrape cheese graters across bare skin until it bleeds, smash heads with lightbulbs, grind glass into scalps and even jump off roofs to land on opponents!

Clubs are informal, but often have Web sites to swap new ways to inflict pain!

"Violence is all around us, and it's entertaining," Ryan Van Horne, 16, a founder of the High Impact Wrestling Federation in Tucson, Ariz., told The ENQUIRER.

The 5-foot-9, 250-pound high school sophomore supplements technique by viewing mail order Japanese wrestling tapes. "They use metal chairs as weapons, barbed wire, thumb tacks that they press into each other," he said.

The ENQUIRER tracked down Web sites for groups with names like Extreme Championship Wrestling and the Hardcore Wrestling Federation, whose slogan is "we kick ass in our backyard hardcore style without any rules and anything goes!"

In Ventura, Calif., 260-pound Nicholas Teal likes to jump off the roof and land on his buddy, 17-year-old Andre Verdun. Both are also fond of grinding lightbulbs into opponents' heads.

Ronny Long, who's had a bulb-smashing, bragged to friends that it took eight stitches to close the wound!

World Wrestling Federation boss Vince McMahon denies any responsibility for what these teens are doing.

"This has always been entertainment," McMahon has said. "I think that parents and children need to be wary of and leery of what they do to emulate us.

"Because again, even as pros, sometimes we get hurt. And they need to be very, very careful about what they do."