Longview News-Journal from Longview, Texas • Page 94

Longview News-Journal TV WCCK Marshall News Messenger Page 6 Feb. 13-19, 2000 Li Cj5L 4 T4- i (fa I if: WWF an WCW shun midget wrestling, but it thrives in smaller wrestling organizations Exploited Vr or exercising their rights? About a year ago, a school district in Virginia sponsored a wrestling show that included little people, and critics complained the little people were being exploited. Michael O'Brien has an answer for tiiat "Maybe they are midgets, but they're working. They're not gonna get jobs as salesmen. Are you gonna want to buy a $300 suit from someone who's 3-foot-6?" O'Brien is president of Northeast Wrestling, an association that regularly uses little people on Its wrestling cards.

Northeast has never run into problems using little people, O'Brien said. Cara Egan, vice president of public relations tor the Uttie People of America, disagrees With -O'Brien's reasoning about little people needing the work. 1 don't think that's true anymore Egan said. "Our members are physicians, lawyers, auto mechanics, plumbers, ministers, writers. We're really part of what's become an increasingly diversified workplace." i 11 7 1 Photos by Northeast Wrestling Half Nelson, top, puts a move on Tiny the Terrible during a recent match.

At left, Ur Killa sizes up his opponent Right, Ginxz displays his flashy outfit IT and showed up on the live cards as well. Sky Low Low, whose real name was Marcel Gauthier, died in 1998 at age 70. He may have been the most recognizable midget wrestler because of his bald pate. Back in Sky Low Low's era, midgets (the term used then, as opposed to the now correct "little were in the ring mostly for comic relief: to give the fans a few laughs and give their frayed vocal cords a rest. That's not the sole sion now, O'Brien said.

"The guys that we use, they don't go through the referees' legs and bite their butts. They do some funny, comedic stuff, but at the same time they're using wrestling moves, suplexes, jumping off the top rope with elbows. They are unique, but they also show some athleticism." What happens after the little people's matches isn't always serious, though. Sometimes the loser has to sit in a high chair. In one case, Tiny lost a match and had to put on a blue dress.

Even so, he and O'Brien draw a distinction between the match itself and the consequences for the loser. Anything that seems to demean little people must be approached carefully. About a decade ago, there was an outcry over the fad of "dwarf bowling," in which lit- tie people wearing helmets played the role of the bowling ball There was no similar backlash against little people competing in the ring, but nevertheless, wrestling opportunities for little people have cununished since. Jim Byrne, the senior vice president of marketing at the WWF, said there are no little people under contract now. The same 0)) v.

-1 By Kevin Braun Cox News Service J' 1 he era of Sky Low Low I may be over, but that doesn't mean the little people have left the building. Just ask Tiny the Terrible. "I have the ability to make people feel said Tiny, the midget champion of Northeast Wrestling. "When you have that power, people don't want to test you." -Little people aren't featured in the two major wrestling groups, the World Wrestling Federa- tion and World Championship Wrestling, but regional associa- tions such as Northeast still use them. Northeast, which promotes matches in New York, Massachusetts, Con- necticut and New Jersey, features little people in about three-fourths of the -shows, said president Michael O'Brien.

"I think maybe Vince McMa- hon and Turner are missing the boat on them a little bit," said O'Brien. "They are a very big draw, and they get as big a reaction as some of the big-name WWF stars," Tiny, whose real name is Doug Tunstall, would say "amen" to that. "If Vince McMahon gave me an opportunity to go in front of an audience," he said, "I guarantee I'd have a nation screaming myname." Sky Low Low had a nation Che wrestling nation, anyway streaming his name from the 1940s to the 1970s. He and his contemporaries the likes of Little Beaver, The Haiti Kid, Fuzzy Cupid and Little Tokyo were known as the "Mighty Midgets." They were semi-regulars on TV wrestling shows goes for WCW, said a source who wished to remain unidentified. "It's a function of novelty," Byrne said.

"For now, the audience has lost its appetite for that specific novelty." But, said Byrne, "Little people do find their way into our story lines. We look at virtuaUy every performer in the some way, and that is, can they deliver? Are they entertaining? Are they fun?" Tiny, who has no doubt about how he'd answer those questions about himself, begs to differ with Byrne. "You don't reauy need a story line," he said. "Just throw them in there. You want to see how the crowd reacts.

You gotta give the shock first, then let it trickle Tiny's held the championship a few months; he won the belt from an opponent named Half Nelson, who is actually his brother Jason. Now they often wrestle as a tag team: the Low Blow Brothers. "His brother's the better athlete, but Tiny has the better personality," O'Brien said. "He's more of a showman." Tiny, 32, has his sights set on more than wrestling. He's majoring in television production at the Community College of Rhode Island.

He's made some guest appearances on "The Jerry Springer Show" and is set to appear in a Jim Carrey movie, "Me, Myself and Irene." Tiny said he's been involved with athletics since he was about 5. He participated in Pop Warner football, playing running back and outside linebacker. When he was a teen-ager, he said, he saw Sky Low Low wrestle and got to meet the midget star afterwards. "He brought me a ginger-flavored brandy," Tiny recalled. "He probably thought I was about to try to rob him." Even though Tiny acknowledges the influence of Sky Low Low and his contemporaries, he clearly was not in awe.

"I shook his hand and thought, 'Now I'm ready for the midget.