Cleveland鈥檚 Absolute Intense Wrestling (AIW) is well known in Northeast Ohio and beyond for its professional wrestling promotion. Every month, AIW hosts wrestling shows or 鈥渃ards鈥� featuring locals who do the violent, acrobatic, sometimes bloody but always staged antics that have made professional wrestling a popular form of entertainment for decades.
Since starting in 2005, the company has put on over 300 bone-crunching shows at bars, gymnasiums, concert halls and bowling alleys across Northeast Ohio.
It was at one of these shows in 2016 that Cleveland filmmaker Adam Wilde caught the fever that is local professional wrestling.
鈥�It was at a church gymnasium, like 10 minutes from my house, and when I got there it was a raucous, oversold crowd. People were going crazy. The passion from the crowd and the passion from people in the ring, it was just unlike anything I'd ever seen,鈥� Wilde said.
Wilde runs TRG Multimedia, a production house in Cleveland that serves clients all over the world with commercial video, photography, set design and computer-generated image work. He also runs its offshoot Substance, a film company focused on creating original content with four feature-length documentaries, a docuseries and an unscripted series set for release this year.
鈥淪lowburn Shoot鈥� is a feature-length documentary on AIW and the Cleveland wrestlers that sweat and bleed to put on the shows every month. It was filmed over the course of seven years and premieres Monday at the Cleveland International Film Festival.
Where legends begin
That church gym show that Wilde attended in 2016 happened to be the final show of Johnny Gargano, a wrestler who came up in the Cleveland scene and was the king of the AIW wrestling world before he left for the big leagues. As both a wrestling school and a promotion, AIW trains wrestlers to perform in its own shows with the hope that many of them will move on to larger promotions.
Gargano is now an internationally known superstar who wrestles for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and he is one of the many wrestlers interviewed in the documentary who reflect on the sacrifice and reward of working their way through the ranks of professional wrestling.
鈥淲e've got Eddie Kingston, Johnny Gargano, Britt Baker, Ethan Page, Hornswoggle. So those are some very big names, but they all have a lot of history at AIW. And I think that's the most important aspect to kind of get across,鈥� Wilde said.
Pain and love
Seeing the devotion of the fans and the dedication of soon-to-be-superstars like Gargano drove Wilde to follow the AIW wrestlers and promoters to events across Northeast Ohio and learn what drives them to sacrifice their bodies for little money.
The film covers the ups and downs, the bumps and bone breaks and the untimely death of one of the organization鈥檚 leading creative forces. That loss and the ultimate struggle with time and the pressures of societal expectations, bring a grace and gravitas to the characters, who are otherwise engaged in a pastime that leaves little room for humility and self-reflection.
鈥�Cleveland is such a blue-collar town, and AIW in particular is such like this blue-collar resilient company that started from almost on accident and has just gone through like trauma after trauma after trauma and keeps continuing, keeps moving on,鈥� Wilde said.
That鈥檚 part of what Wilde said he thinks will make this documentary appeal to wider audiences. But there鈥檚 also a special treat in store for true fans of the squared circle. It鈥檚 not often that audiences get an unvarnished look at these unique characters. In a world of make believe and staged fights, 鈥淪lowburn Shoot鈥� is a stiff shot of reality with a chaser of true admiration.
鈥淪lowburn Shoot鈥� premieres at the Cleveland International Film Festival April 13 at 4:50 p.m. at the Ohio Theatre in Playhouse Square.
