Last Night at The Tuna

In the Gateway in The Ohio State Campus area there is a local bar called Ugly Tuna Saloona. A place I personally like for their drinks that come in a fishbowl served up with what seems like six billion straws and a toy alligator filled with a shot.

About a week or two ago I got a Facebook event notification from Ugly Tuna about jello wrestling. I'd never seen jello wrestling in person and thought it may be an interesting way to spend a Friday night.

The day of the event I went back to the Facebook event page and looked it over to make sure I could properly formulate plans for the evening. And I got distracted. By prize money.

The flooding in our house has lead to a lot of extra expense that we cannot afford. As a matter of fact, we needed the prize money to make sure we made it until the boys next pay check.

I text messaged some friends and family to see if they thought I stood a snowballs chance is Hades in a wrestling match. Almost all results were positive. My fathers response was (no surprise here) like none other. He basically thought I was going to be in some sort of street brawling prize fight because I was being intentionally vague and avoiding telling my daddy that I'd be jello wrestling. It got to the point where I needed to clarify his little girl had no notions of high-stakes, back ally, wrestling for money.

My text: "In jello"
His: "Crickets"

The boy was kind enough to quickly round me up a small cheering section and we all met at Tuna around 9:30 so there would be enough time to sign up for the event and stake out spots to stand.

The inflatable pool the wrestling was to take place in was already out and up against the stage to keep it out of the way until the time was much nearer and they would lay it out.

[Hunting through your clothes for jello wrestling appropriate apparel is somewhat interesting. I picked a pair of shorts I don't mind if they were destroyed and a shirt that was already partially destroyed and slightly ill-fitting to go over my bikini.]

The event started late (around 11 instead of 10). While we waited for people to sign up and the games to begin we watched the inflatable pool be filled by security with trash bag after trash bag of jello (most of what appeared to be lime but I definitely saw some orange once).

During the sign-up and wait it was revealed that contestants would actually be fishing toy sharks out of the pool instead of a straight wrestling match). The first girl to get eight out of the possible fifteen toy sharks in her bucket would be the winner.

When the time I went up on stage and stepped behind a screen where I was given a shirt and some boxer shorts. When I found out I didn't have to wear them I chose not to and set them with my clothes.

I was not first to go and I was glad of it. I wanted to watch and see what to expect.

I won the first round and had actually thought I lost and was pretty bummed.

Between rounds we were handed a giant wad of paper towels to do our best to towel off while we waited.

I went three or four total rounds, each with a different girl. One in particular, with another brown beauty who if I caught it correctly was named Rachel, had gone a particularly rough two rounds. The shark finding turned into actual jello wrestling / cat fighting and not of her own devise from what I saw. I had no interest in cat fighting this girl so I made sure to shake her hand before the match.

Finally it was down to me and one last girl, Anya. Anya, not unlike myself, had no interest in sudden cat fighting in jello. I assured her I had no intention of picking a fight.

Fortune smiled upon me and I was able to take first prize, adding enough funds to our bank account to insure we make it to the next check. I also got to keep the shirt I was given to wear while wrestling and a Budweiser hat.

The boy was given the camera to get pictures for ya'll, but the bar was so packed (and of course he wanted to watch) so all photos we have are from afterward in the parking lot where I continued to wipe off with some clothes from the trunk of one of our cars. A lot of photos were taken so I feel some may surface on the internet and will keep an eye out to link you to the action shots from the night.

Here are some of my learned facts about jello wrestling:
1) It's only a bit cold when you first get in. You get used to it and it's no sad bad.
2) Jello is beyond hard to just wipe off

3) Your butt is apparently a jello magnet. It will require attention.
4) It turns back into powder when it dries.

Not to over-extend an already lengthy post too far here is a quick, boy's eye view commentary:

Around noon on Friday the wife tells me that she wants to enter a jello wrestling contest. I was stunned, amused, mildly confused, and a bit excited. I told her I'd support her if she chose to do it and went about rounding up a cheering section.

We arrived around 9 to make sure we had time to sign up and were apparently in no danger of not being accepted since they didn't start until after 11. The crowd sucked. I will admit I was disappointed and worried when I found it was shark wrangling rather than jello wrestling since I was confident my wife could whoop those skinny little rich girls but I wasn't sure how fast she could gather toy sharks. Watching the other girls I became confident again that my wife could still beat them, especially the ones who didn't get down and dirty in the jello. So of course she ran through the competition even that last girl who was cheating before the match only to be out-done by my oh so clever wife.

The couple fights in the jello were fun to watch, the fights that almost took place in the crowd were exciting and walking away with a proud yet sticky wife and two hundred dollars richer was fantastic.