From May 2019 through August 2021, I had just the most fun with a bunch of my friends when we put together the world's first Professional Thumb Wrestling league.
Calling ourselves NDWA (later NDWAThumbs), short for National Digit Wrestling Association, we spent a lot of hard hours putting on a love letter to professional wrestling and improv acting.
It's been long enough gone from our last episode that I think it's time to do a retrospective on one of the most unexpectedly entertaining things on the internet.
BEFORE WE STARTED
I used to be a stand-up comic. I spent 15 years with every waking thought about pursuing that dream. Then, in late 2018, I called it quits. I had changed, and what I wanted had changed. There's a bigger story to it than that, but for this article, what's important is: I stopped doing stand-up but I didn't want to stop performing.
I had spent ten years in Los Angeles pursuing my dream, and moved back to the midwest to activate my radio career in Springfield, MO. I had gone to college there and grew up in a small town about an hour and a half away. So, when I moved back to Springfield, I picked up with the bar hoppers I hung out with in college.
One day, I was waiting for some people to show up for a thing, when I realized the stage at the bar where we lurked looked like it could easily be a wrestling ring sans ropes. It was a very clear box. I had stopped drinking before leaving LA. So, being sober in this terrible bar, my mind had to wonder.
One idea lead to another, and I came up with the idea of doing a one-off sketch about a Professional Thumb Wrestling federation.
SEASON ONE
KAYFABE!
The NDWAThumbs had been around for a while, but we finally got our flagship primetime show Thursday Night Thumbderdome.
The OG battle of good an evil was fought by the forces of Beefsteak McHurtlocker on the heel side and Mayday Marauder on the babyface side.
From there, Beefsteak's legion would grow to include characters like Tad Bagler (a ineffectual burglar) and Louie the Lush (an alcoholic rodeo clown). They would call themselves the Thumb World Order (tWo), and later recruit babyface The Marvelous Madcow.
Babyfaces would include the vein Hot Mott, the rough and tumble Texan Thumblina, and "Ric Flair meets Macho Man" Ric Fiero.
And looming over all of it was the money hungry, but loveably indifferent, Baron von Satan (played by me).
Storylines were mainly confined to the tWo vs. the forces of the NDWA, plus some world building. During this season we showed clips from several "past episodes" and performed live on two separate locations (a bar and a comic book convention).
View the complete first season here.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Figuring out what we were doing.
Stand-up wasn't my only love. I also did sketch comedy and improv comedy. When I decided to do a sketch, I immediately went to my two most frequent collaborators. I knew a couple of cats from the bar scene that would be good on commentary. We filmed a sketch.
Someone at my work saw the sketch and wanted to be in one. So we scheduled another shoot. Then, someone else saw that one and wanted to be in it. By the end of season one, our roster for the first phase was set.
We filmed at a local arts council and confined ourselves to tables. All the competitors would sit. Season one would end with our first PPV ThumberSlam! 2019: Cookout Chaos, which was filmed in a backyard and we officially ditched the tables. We used my personal video camera and audio equipment and royalty free music from YouTube.
Season one was a truly fun experience, but the best was yet to come.
STAY TUNED OR A RETROSPECTIVE ON SEASON TWO!
Instagram and Twitter: @greencircleyall
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