Magnum vs. Skyler II: Swan Song of a Carolina Legend

Wrestlers, like actors, are a rare breed of eccentrics.

Once the music hits, and they make their way to the ring, it’s all character. Whether it’s face or heel, the mask is on, and the audience prepares for the show.

But it’s those moments behind the curtains, when the music isn’t playing, when it’s the man behind the character pacing back and forth with headphones locked in or sitting in solitude on bleacher steps that show everything that goes into the show in the squared circle.

On this evening, I have the privilege of working backstage interviews for OSCW’s Tag Team Wars 6. It is the first time I’ve been booked for a show in years. Even though I am not wrestling, I’m still excited to don the sunglasses again and be my alter ego: Mr. Showtime.

I do my job before the opening bell sounds. I get to interview Bradford Steele and Brandon Paradise (OSCW’s tag team champions), their manager Reginald Vanderhoff, and even former WCW star Lodi, which is a personal thrill as one who was a teenager in the heart of the Monday Night Wars.

My first effort in the interview capacity with prop microphone and John Huston safari jacket is a limping performance. I know I can do better; much better. But I also get the opportunity to interview John Skyler, the self proclaimed “Southern Savior” with his OSCW Undisputed Title in hand.

It is that title and the man he aims his rant at, Josh Magnum, that I am really in Charleston on this Sunday in September. The return match to end all return matches in independent wrestling in the southeast.

…

It was in July they squared off last in a bout to unify the two singles titles they held for the local promotion. It was a match that went beyond the confines of ordinary fare and ended with a bloodied Magnum passing out to the Skyler’s Sharpshooter in the center of the ring.

Everyone could have easily taken that July bout in Hanahan as the Match of the Year and been satisfied if Magnum and Skyler never squared off again…. 

Fortunately that was not the case.

It was that same night that OSCW Commissioner Bob Keller immediately booked the return match between the newly crowned Undisputed Champion Skyler and Magnum for September.

But the stakes would be raised.

This time, Skyler would have to hold off Magnum in a ladder match, which in his career Magnum had never lost. And this would not be the one he would want to lose since his career would be on the line as well as the OSCW Championship.

September 16^th. For all of the marbles.

Magnum vs. Skyler II.

…

I catch up with Magnum after the huddle up Keller has with all of the talent about match lengths and expectations for the night.

He sits on a set of bleachers behind the entrance curtain, hunched over, resting his arms on his knees, head down. Between his duties as a roofer and the travel with his family to the event, he’s exhausted.

We catch up from the last time we spoke back in October at the Fall Brawl event at the Loose Cockaboose in Columbia. As tired as he may seem, it doesn’t take much to get him talking.

What I refuse to ask is if this is his last hoorah tonight, giving away the finish of his match with Skyler. As much as I know wrestling is a show with a decided beginning and end separated by a unique brand of physical improvisation in the middle, I still want to hold onto the suspense of the main event.

With his wrestling dates having slowed down, he talks about how busy his day-to-day job is. An eleven year veteran of the ring and the road, nowadays life has boiled down to the same base elements that inspire and put fear into all of us everyday: financial prosperity.

Magnum doesn’t miss wrestling shows and he doesn’t miss work, when either one might put him in such pain that he might be better off. When we talked in October, he talked about how lucky he was to escape series injury over the years and keep working.

He points to his knee and talks about a work injury that should have required surgery and extended time off from the ring. His response is this sort of Han Solo smirk and blatant confession that he defied doctor’s wishes and wrestled that very Saturday.

After awhile, I join him outside for a cigarette, and the fans that he’s close to come by to wish him luck and squeeze in a quick chat; like this tall Richard Harris looking gent that might be his own kind of Lebowski. Magnum puts on the good face and puts good stock into the match coming up later. He does the same with some of the other wrestlers that pop outside for a smoke. Like Burt Reynolds' character Hooper who always seems to be up for the next big stunt, even when he wonders how close he is to risking it all.

But there’s a cautious far off look in his eye. It’s not nerves because he doubts he can put on a good match. On the contrary, Magnum can work a variety of different matches that are high octane and risk taking or slowed down mat wrestling fares.

No, Magnum’s fear is like the classic stage performers that prepare for an unedited Shakespeare or a sprinted marathon Mamet performance. They know the dialogue. They know the blocking. But it’s all about being absolutely, positively above and beyond brilliant. That’s the bar they set.

It’s the same bar Magnum has set for himself tonight with standards that might be unattainable for anyone else but himself.

But nevertheless, he befits the image of Sam Magee from Robert Service’s poem. “Cool and calm in the heart of the furnace roar.” That’s what he projects with everyone he talks to.

Back inside, we sit on the bleachers again, but this time Skyler (who I must mention wears a Kurt Russell “Jack Burton” tank top from Big Trouble in Little China) comes into the scene and starts talking with Magnum about the other matches going on and eventually start working out some spots for their encounter later.

Even having worked a number of matches myself, the pace of their lingo is impressive and a language all on its own. It’s a treat hearing the two virtuosos trade ideas about how to use the ladder in their contest. They must spitball at least twenty different sequences, picking out the ones that stick and discarding the ones that stand to break their symphony of the brawl.

But after their back and forth session, it all boils down to one loud Magnum proclamation: “Ah fuck it, we’ll call it in the ring.”

Skyler walks back towards the curtain to get a look at the tag match going on. Magnum stays at the bleachers and once again keeps a quiet, stoic stair into the distance.

He starts into a mini monologue about how most younger wrestlers are all about making themselves look good in the ring and criticizes a lot of the selfishness found on the independent level. Looking at Skyler he says to me “That guy there knows how to tell one hell of a story. He knows how it works. He’s going to make it.”

…

Some of the wrestlers that finish up their matches head home not long afterwards. I can’t blame them. I have to make the three hour journey home myself. But I stick it out through the rest of the card and take a seat with the audience. A peephole through the curtain won’t cut it for Magnum vs. Skyler II.

A group of ladders are positioned in the entrance way, and the OSCW Undisputed Championship is hung from a wire between two poles set up at two opposite ring posts. The belt sags the wire, making the climb not terribly high to win the match, but it’s an easy obstacle for two performers of their caliber to overcome.

Their entrances don’t hold up the start of the match. They both sell the notion that the stakes are too high to start the match pandering to the crowd. Even Skyler, who notoriously gets under the crowd’s skin by prolonging his entrance to the ring, gets right into the action.

Reminiscent of The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin in their WrestleMania matches, Magnum and Skyler start with right hand exchanges until one of them yields. It quickly jumpstarts the crowd’s involvement in the main event.

What becomes apparent early on is that even with a ladder match with an unmated floor, both men take to the high risk between suicide dives to the outside and power bombs into the ladder, which are unforgiving in their impact. Nothing aluminum and collapsible here.

The ladders as well are uncooperative in being positioned at times that delays some spots and reworks others. But it doesn’t detract or look amateur. It actually becomes a couple of moments of comedy and other moments of unpredictability for Magnum and Skyler.

The pace becomes a consistent flow of two to three exchanges that are punctuated by a high impact spot and as the match gets beyond 30 minutes, the spots get higher and higher in risk and pop from the crowd.

It’s not often a crowd gets to its feet for a wrestling match on the independent scene, but everyone in Hanahan is standing and locked into how this bout is going to finish. Even Keller and the remaining wrestlers in street clothes are watching the match from the other side of the curtain. No peephole for them either.

The sickening thuds with each bump give everyone at least one cringing moment. From the superplex from the high ladder to a sunset flip that Magnum executes from the same height that folds Skyler like an accordion, the crowd applauds with each high impact in the squared circle.

But Magnum saves his coup de gras for the end. He positions Skyler on a ladder and goes to the top rope as he has done countless times throughout his career. He mimics Jeff Hardy and mimes two guns with his hands. Everyone knows what is coming next.

Magnum executes a perfect Swanton Bomb that Skyler avoids at the last minute. The only thing Magnum connects with is the ladder that cradled his opponent. His neck and back brace the fall. The crowd reacts in awe and horror.

With everything Magnum and Skyler have given thus far, it becomes apparent that this finish will have to be epic and fitting for what they’ve done in their first two and half acts.

A wayward ladder toss knocks referee Scott Grady to the floor. He’s responsible for declaring the winner even in this ladder match.

Skyler goes for his finisher off the ladder, “The Spoiler Alert,” but Magnum blocks it and gets in position to grab the belt, which he safely unclips. The crowd erupts for Magnum, still undefeated in ladder matches.

But the bell doesn’t ring.

Grady remains on the floor, unaware that Magnum has grabbed the belt. Skyler, the opportunist uses the moment to knock the belt away from Magnum and feign a dramatic seizure of the OSCW belt himself.

It’s the first image Grady sees when he gets back to his feet. It is then, he rings the bell.

It’s Skyler’s music that plays.

Winner and still champion.

The crowd erupts in boos as Brett Wolverton regretfully announces the referee’s decision. And it’s also on him to announce that the career of Josh Magnum has come to an end.

Skyler doesn’t savor the victory. He takes his title belt and quickly retreats to the back. It’s actually a very classy move by the champion. He gives Magnum the final moment of the night.

It would have been easy to overdramatize the moment and error on the side of melodramatic. But Magnum’s look and reaction are the opposite. He doesn’t even get animated to dispute the referee’s decision.

Instead, he leans against the rope and accepts the situation. The crowd applauds his effort, not only in this match but for the years he’s been the devil-may-care hero of OSCW; from Weekend’s Pub to the Hanahan Gymnasium. He waves back and limps to the outside of the ring.

The same knee Magnum was referring to earlier during our talk in the back looks to be giving him quite the hobble as he grimaces in pain with every step. His family is at ringside and he carries his little girl back into the ring for one final goodbye to the fans.

One final goodbye to Old School Championship Wrestling.

Maybe it’s fitting Magnum’s big moment in the match was the Swanton he missed into the ladder below. A Swanton for a Swan Song. And maybe his “take it on the chin” reaction to losing in such a controversial fashion was fitting because Magnum left it all in the ring anyway. Maybe he knew there was no way he could have topped what he did on this night with Skyler. Besides, wrestlers love to end their career coming up short in their final battle.

And wrestlers love even more to pass a torch in their final battle. 

On this night, it was a torch passed to one of the highest rising stars on the independent scene.  And just like Magnum said in the back, Skyler told a great story as Magnum’s adversary, giving him his moments and creating his own. The night, although a celebration and culmination of Magnum’s career, is also a celebration of OSCW’s future.

As the clear, battle tested OSCW Undisputed Champion, John Skyler represents where the promotion is headed in 2013. A stalwart heel that has the potential to be for Charleston what Jerry Lawler is to Memphis; the epicenter of professional wrestling in the Holy City.

In the days since the match in Hanahan as I walk my dogs past the apartment complex being erected, I look at the workers on the roof and think about my conversation with Magnum.

Even with the knee injury he might or might not have sustained, he probably made it back to a similar roof the following day to punch his timeclock and work another job, just like he always has. And at some point I wonder if he looks from the roof to the ground and thinks about the moonsaults, the 450’s, the planchas, and the suicide dives that would bring the crowd to its feet time and time again.

Maybe. But then again, maybe Josh Magnum also knows it’s nice to know he walked away on top even if it was on the losing end.

Regardless, “The Carolina Chugger” has earned a toast from all of us.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”