
DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708290058

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: HENDERSON, N.C.                   LENGTH:  204 lines

WRESTLING WITH A DREAMLABORING IN THE SPORT'S MINOR LEAGUES IS A TOUGH, SOMETIMES PAINFUL INITIATION FOR NORFOLK'S STEVE GOWER

FLEXING BENEATH his ``Heroin Sucks'' T-shirt, The Sexecutioner bounds down the back stairs and races through a group of cheering spectators.

He and five other men roll under the bottom rope and, nostrils flaring, right themselves at center-ring, where two wrestlers have been working out a few differences.

Hoots fill this town's National Guard Armory. The Sexecutioner grabs the first guy he sees and pounds away.

This is pro wrestling, the minor-league version, rife with hefty men squeezed into colorful tights like supermarket hams in plastic.

The Sexecutioner is Steve Gower, 21, of Norfolk. He has lived a dream for two months in the bush-league circuit. Night after night, he takes a beating for the sport he loves, pulling down $20 and hoping for a chance to do it again.

Chump change? Absolutely. But The Sexecutioner of today may be the Hulk Hogan of tomorrow.

Tonight, The Sexecutioner takes his lumps. He is hurled from the ring and lands hard on the 2 1/2-inch-thick wood floor.

Good and bad guys untangle.

The wrestlers make jerky, cartoonish gestures as they head away from the ring. The Sexecutioner taunts all in sight as he stalks back to the stairs to the attic. There, Steve Gower turns back into himself while parents, friends and Henderson Boy Scout Troops 691 and 142 cheer below.

All wrestlers hope there are scouts in the audience, he explains. Not Boy Scouts but talent scouts. The Sexecutioner has yet to be watched by more than a Boy Scout. He keeps hoping.

The Armory attic's walls are brick and the rafters are wood. There are benches near a door that leads to the back office. It reeks of stale cigarette smoke and sweat. Bare bulbs on the ceiling light the room.

Wrestlers practice moves. They make faces. Much of their training teaches how not to get hurt. For all the training and choreography, however, they take a legitimate pounding.

The men wear garish, tight-fitting clothes. Some have masks - gruesome, color-clashing masks with gaping mouth and eye holes crossed by jagged black and red stripes.

Gower's face is his own.

He is a good-looking young guy with a quick sense of humor. He sneaked downstairs when he was a kid to watch the late-night wrestling. He practiced in a ring in his parents' back yard. Friends familiar with his backyard wrestling wrote notes to ``The Sexecutioner'' in Gower's 1994 Booker T. Washington High School yearbook.

He developed a style.

``I'm like a brawler,'' he says, ``but I try to use high-flying, fast moves.''

Which he cannot always do. A lot of bush-league wrestlers are too new, old or middle-of-the-road to hang with him. Gower may be a fresh face on the circuit, but he is polished.

``It's tough to find a guy who will take a suplex off the top rope,'' he says of a move in which someone is picked up and slammed to the mat.

There is good news for the 5-foot-11, 225-pound Gower: Wrestlers are getting smaller. The leagues have cracked down on steroid use in a profession that once favored swollen poster boys.

But no more.

``Everybody's scaled down,'' Gower explains. ``It's just the in thing.''

He hopes to join the big leagues: World Championship Wrestling or the World Wrestling Federation. But first he must wade through a host of independent territorial leagues such as this one, the North American Wrestling Alliance.

Slog it out - that's the plan for Gower. Lose a few. Win a few. Get good crowd response. He has a hook. He dresses ``grunge'' except for the ``Heroin Sucks'' T-shirt, its white letters blaring. Consider it The Sexecutioner's little way of keeping Boy Scout Troops 691 and 142 off the junk.

``It's for the kids,'' he explains. ``I'm a heel, but a lot of the kids look up to us.''

He packs quite a message.

``Promoters like that,'' he says. ``It's still a kids sport.''

Especially with his name.

``Just like executioner, but with sex in the front,'' he says.

And he sometimes wears a black-and-white Charles Manson shirt instead of ``Heroin Sucks.'' He is a ``heel'' - a bad guy. A ``face'' is a good guy. Wrestlers often switch sides.

Not The Sexecutioner. His one-man war against heroin abuse aside, he wants to remain a heel.

Downstairs in the ring, a preview of what will come for Steve Gower takes an odd turn. Slade Cain and Soul Man smack each other around and yank each other's limbs to the delight of the crowd. But Soul Man smacks too aggressively.

He clobbers the other guy with a chair. The ref steps in, and Soul Man clobbers him, too. The ref drops - for real.

James Wells, the sideburned promoter of the event, clears the ring and sends all the wrestlers upstairs. As hot dog sales benefiting Troops 691 and 142 pick up during the stoppage of action, Wells raises all kinds of hell in the attic.

He fires Soul Man and, in remarkably loud wrestling-speak, fires the ref as well.

``HE IS IN NO CONDITION TO GO ON!''

The ref is actually OK and tries to tell this to Wells, but the promoter does not want to hear it. Wells paces. His nostrils flare. He begins speaking like an R-rated sheriff:

``I'M GOING TO STRAIGHTEN THIS S--- OUT!''

Wells puts on the ref's black and white shirt. The man who once wrestled as ``Willie Lincoln'' - complete with an Honest Abe beard - is the new law at the Henderson Armory. He refs the next match.

Gower stands outside as Soul Man, carrying a black bag, heads to his car.

``Take it easy, Soul Man,'' Gower says.

Soul Man keeps walking.

Dorothy Kingsberry, who her seat mates say is usually a very nice woman, begins screaming in anger as a manager tries to trip C.C. Panther in the ring.

``YOU PUT A HAND ON HIM AND I'M GOING TO POWERDRAG YOUR ASS!'' Kingsberry yells.

The manager turns her head to the woman, who wears a Panther T-shirt.

``I GOT MY EYES ON YOU!'' Kingsberry warns.

Every now and again someone from the crowd decides to throw down with the bad guy. Off-duty cops such as A.L. Hawkins work security. They try to keep kids out of the way so they are not accidentally powerdragged.

``A lot of these people,'' Hawkins says, ``they take this real serious.''

Upstairs, Spiffy Stevens explains why wrestlers never give their real names to such zealous fans. The bubble, he explains, shall never be burst for fans.

``It's all part of the illusion,'' the 21-year-old manager says.

He is thin. He wears a blue-sequined jacket with a gold tie and puffy pants. His mostly Richmond-based wrestlers surround him. There is The Bodyguard, who carries a briefcase allegedly full of money for Spiffy. There is Gino Blancher, a 5-foot-11, 320-pounder.

``This is a stable of brawlers,'' Spiffy boasts.

Except for Vinni Havens and Nick Smith, who are technicians.

``I'm too pretty to be a brawler,'' Havens boasts.

Not Gino. The 23-year-old is from San Antonio, Texas. He used to get sent home from school for wrestling with the other kids. Now he wrestles for a living.

``No day job,'' Gino says.

The stable talks a little trash in wrestling-speak.

``THEIR PAIN IS OUR GAIN.''

``WE KNOW YOU GOT YOUR SKILLS.''

``I'M ONE MOST EXTREME SON OF A BITCH.''

Steve Gower says nothing. He warms up for his match against L.L. Cool ``The King.''

The crowd loves The King. The crowd hates The Sexecutioner.

The King likes to chop an opponent's chest over and over. Gower had blood blisters after the last match.

The Sexecutioner comes in first, parading through the aisle to a chorus of boos. He ducks his head under the top rope and slithers into the ring.

The King wears a cape and a crown into the ring. He takes the them off and hands them to a member of his court.

The portly wrestler jokes with Peppi Lopez, the gray-bearded ring announcer. Peppi is an ex-wrestler because he has had four heart attacks.

``DID YOU EAT AT ANY BURGER KINGS?'' Peppi asks The King.

``I'LL GET YOU BACK IN THAT RING AND GIVE YOU ANOTHER HEART ATTACK!''

``THE RENOWNED CHOLESTEROL KING!'' Peppi yells into the mike.

The bell rings. The King goes for The Sexecutioner. They end up on the ropes, and The King chops away. Wells, the replacement ref, steps in at one point as The King uses his fists to tenderize The Sexecutioner's head. The King looks to Wells long enough to say:

``SHUT YOUR MOUTH!''

The King pulls The Sexecutioner's ``Heroin Sucks'' shirt up over his head and slaps his sides, which resound with an unpleasant crackling noise. Then The King applies a bulldog headlock, and Gower's face is bashed into the canvas.

There is a pin, but Gower kicks out. There is another pin and The Sexecutioner's shoulders cannot come off the mat.

The King wins, but The Sexecutioner's labors are not without fruit. The Spiffy Stable parades in. Spiffy himself removes the microphone from Lopez' iron grasp.

Blue sequins shining, the manager does the talking.

``SEXECUTIONER! WE'VE GOT A LITTLE PROPOSITION. IF YOU JOIN OUR STABLE, WE'LL OFFER YOU PROTECTION . . . ''

Dramatic pause. Points to the ring.

`` . . . FROM THIS KIND OF CRAP THAT JUST HAPPENED!''

The fans jeer as The Sexecutioner accepts.

Two or three wrestlers smoke in the attic. The ref is there. Not Wells - the old ref, the guy Soul Man clobbered. He is embarrassed about getting yanked. He shrugs. This is Wells' show, right?

Gower is sore. He sits on a bench in the Armory's attic as two guys in tights bounce off each other downstairs. His night is over. His chest really hurts. Thanks to L.L. Cool, The King.

Gower eats some ice.

``Ice never tasted so good,'' he says

He smiles and add, ``I don't feel too good.''

He likes the armory crowd. They seem to get into the show here, especially when C.C. Panther, the hometown hero, is on the card.

Gower's chest aches. The King really chopped away at him.

``He likes kneading a guy's chest out there,'' Gower says.

It will be a couple of weeks before he fights again. He works a day job installing sheet-metal roofs. Five days a week. With regular people.

Then he will again drive from Norfolk to some faraway community gathering place, to a city he knows little about, and he will put on a show.

Some night, Gower hopes he will wrestle incredibly and win while the crowd goes wild. And the promoter will slide him more than $20.

And maybe a scout will see The Sexecutioner shine. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos

LAWRENCE JACKSON, The Virginian-Pilot

Gower, known as The Sexecutioner, is a wrestling bad guy...