By Uriah Kiser
Photos By Mary Davidson
Woodbridge, Va. — They’re lewd, they’re loud, and they call themselves the biggest midgets and dwarves in all of pro wrestling.
Enemies of anything politically correct, the Half Pint Brawlers came to Hard Times Café in Woodbridge on Saturday night and preformed their mix of comedic antics no holds barred wrestling.
The fighters, all whom are under 5-feet tall, hail from the Spike TV show of the same and all were featured recently in the movie Jack Ass 3-D.
“If I am going to be stared at, then I said, I am going to make some money at it,” said Half Pint Brawlers creator and wrestler Steve “Puppet the Physco Drawf” Richardson.
While warming up the sold-out crowd of about 200 who all stood around cocktail and pool tables, Richardson joked that many people, including his neighbors, used to stare at him when he walked outside to get his morning newspaper. He knew then we would use his height catapult him to celebrity status.
Richardson, who is from Columbus, Ohio, stands 4 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 150 pounds and jokes about his 78-pound cranium, took on the equally as tall Eric Smalls, of Chicago, in an “anything goes staple gun match.” Both wrestled on a small stage that was set up near the cocktail tables, then rolled across poll tables, and back to the stage where a staple gun and garbage can were used a props (albeit damaging props that drew blood) to take each other out of the match.
This was the second stop on the Half Pint Brawlers’ U.S. tour which will take them to places like Daytona Beach, Fl., Texas and Las Vegas, Nev. through September.
But there was more than just wrestling to be seen Saturday night.
To shock the audience, much like a JackAss movie would, Richardson challenged a seven-foot tall man picked from the audience and Turtle – a wrestler from their troop – to a drinking contest. Both competitors stood side by side (the juxtaposition formidable) and chugged their drinks.
The tall man chugged a beer while Turtle was forced to drink his own urine. The man with the beer won by being the first to finish his beverage as the still-drinking half-pint wrestler’s face turned green.
The wrestling act is a departure from the regular Saturday night entertainment here, at a place better known for its chili, wings and large TVs showing the Capital’s game.
This really is the only place in town that is doing something like this,” said restaurant manager Todd Keogler.
Tickets to the event were sold at $15 each in advance and $20 at the door. The show sold out two hours before it began Saturday, at 7 p.m.
