Beyond Wrestling Has Had a Star-Crossed Couple of Days

Guns are bad, and they got the latest Beyond event at Fête Music cancelled
Photo via NBC 10 Providence

Beyond Wrestling has been in a rough way the last couple of days, to say the least. The promotion has had a strong 2014 so far, cementing Fête Music as an independent stronghold in Providence, RI, and providing a stage for wrestlers like Kimber Lee, Silver Ant, Biff Busick, and Drew Gulak to solidify their resumes. However, an unforeseen closure to said venue at the last possible minute throttled Makin' Moves, what would have been seventh show Beyond staged there this year alone. Furthermore, the venue for the ambitious, limited-entry craft-beer themed show Beerly Legal cancelled on the promotion with two weeks notice. If you're among the the throng of Beyond's fans who looked forward to either show, then the only person who's had it rougher than you the last couple of days has been Denver Colorado, the man, not the place.

Fête Music's closure came as a result of a shooting at the club Saturday night/Sunday morning, the result of an altercation gone awry. In today's hyper-violent gun culture, altercations tend to get ugly quickly, because hey, if Adam Lanza can shoot up an elementary school classroom like he was the fucking Terminator and nothing can be done to stem the tide of gun violence from leaders on any level of government, then what's to stop grown men getting their pieces to shoot at each other? Thankfully, the victim, who had 13 rounds fired into his car, will survive; his injuries were considered "non-life-threatening." He's expected to make a full recovery.

However, because of the incident, Fête's license has been suspended until at least Wednesday, when officials of the board in Providence meet to decide the venue's fate. While the incident has been classified as isolated, and the neighborhood has been mostly described as violence-free, the standard measures had to be taken and thus the venue had to be closed until the board could go over the facts and get all the formalities out of the way. Of course, for Beyond, whose show was to happen less than a day after the incident occurred, the random act of insane violence spelled the end of any plans made for said event.

As if things couldn't get any worse, What Cheer Tavern, which is a bar, cancelled the Beerly Legal event, which was to happen October 12 with at least one match (AR Fox vs. Christina von Eerie) already slated to go down. The reason?

@SammyJ_D the venue - a bar, mind you - told me they were having difficulty procuring beer for the event. whatever
— IG: @BeyondWrestling (@beyondwrestling) September 29, 2014

Yup, a bar, a place whose sole purpose it is to sell alcoholic beverages for retail consumption, had trouble procuring beer for an event that was expressly promoted to celebrate both beer and pro wrestling. I know the joint probably has its own side of the story with mitigating circumstances, but I still find it incongruous that a bar would have problems getting beer. If you've purchased tickets for Beerly Legal, you will get your refund at the point of purchase.

Anyway, if you want to help Beyond recoup some lost revenue from these shows - and you really should since the company is one of the top two or three in the country right now - go to its website. You can get finished footage of older shows on DVD, a la carte matches, or you can even get raw footage of the most recent shows, all the way up to Battle of New England, for cheap comparatively speaking. Help out a company that needs it, and get some righteous wrestling in the process. No company should have to have even one show cancelled on it by outside forces, let alone two.