Eric Dane’s â€"Secret Wrestling Project†Pt. 3: The Viking War Cult
Posted by Lance Warner on 3 Aug 2015
With a few shows under his belt Dane was feeling pretty confident about his little underground guerilla style… well, social experiment is the most apt term. It wasn’t something he was doing for profit, it was trying to find a grassroots way to develop the next crop of DEFIANTS… wrestlers that have that edge and legitimacy the DEFIANCE faithful have come to expect. Eric’s “take all comers, get out there and get over” attitude to booking the BRAZEN project attracted some of the best brightest… and sometimes most extreme fighters on the scene today. Rowdy crowd, great card, that same fantastic wild atmosphere that makes every one of these shows so special. No TV cameras, no pyro, no announce booth. Just a ring and a few guardrails and a standing BYOB rule that’s made for some crazy nights for grapplers and faithful alike.
It was a show in a little smokey little armory in Alabama. In through the front door walks a six foot three, jacked Scandinavian wearing shoulder pads sporting two ENORMOUS spikes. The show was already underway, a tag match involving the brother tag team of the Louisiana Bulldogs and The Hotboys, the exciting tandem of Sean Peters and Mike Sloan Jr.
(Pictured: Denver and Olly Brandt; The Louisiana Pitbulls)
“The match was great, Sloan Jr. was about to pin one of the little dudes when this HUGE dude… I mean, looks like he walked right off the set of a goddamn Thor movie… he just steps over the guardrail and calmly climbs into the ring.” says one fan in attendance “Like the four guys wrestling weren’t even there… that’s when it got NUTS.”
(Pictured: Mike Sloan Jr. and Sean Peters, The Hotboys)
The huge man single handedly decimated all four men… and when I say decimated, I mean scorched earth DECIMATED. And just like that he was gone, same way he came in… over the guardrail, through the crowd and out the front door. His name, we’d later find out, was Cul… Cul the Reaper. The next several times Cul darkened a BRAZEN show he wasn’t alone two mysterious twin brothers, equally as Scandinavian as cul himself. The three blond warriors would wordlessly enter the building during a match with as many victims as possible and simply run through them all. One by bloody broken one.
(Pictured: Cul and The Holmström Brothers)
With BRAZEN’s “open door policy” and not much in the way of backstage structure and no “authority figures” beyond Dane who’s still at that point the “mysterious man behind the curtain” and Angus Skaaland who I believe thought the bloodthirsty Vikings were, and I’m quoting him directly here “brutally fucking awesome.” It was mid spring when the last two members of Cul’s war party made themselves known.
It was a show in east Texas, just over the border from Louisiana. Some tiny town with a big enough high school gymnasium (and liberal enough school board) and enough rabid wrestling fans to fill the bleachers. It was a match between Frank Dylan James’ protegee, from The Double Dragon Ranch in Tokyo, Texas the giant Asian lariat machine known only as MASSIVE Cowboy going one on one with the big raw boned old school brawler from Lake Charles, Louisiana Howlin’ Joe Wolfe. The two were barely underway when Cul and the twins made their presences known.
(Pictured: MASSIVE Cowboy and Howlin' Joe Wolfe)
The crowd weren’t having it. As Cul and the two identical Viking brothers tried to make their way through the crowd the faithful blocked their path. Cul and the brothers raged against the fans to no avail… that’s when it happened. A seven foot plus masked Viking War machine is already in the ring, having managed to push through the throng of fans, absolutely SLICES Joe Wolfe in half with the single most devastating running spear any of us have ever seen.
(Pictured: Torvald the Destroyer; all seven feet four inches of him.)
“I thought he was fucking dead.” says Angus Skaaland of that night “Joey was definitely howlin’ after that spear, Jesus Christ… but that poor big Asian friend of Frank’s got the worst of it.” At that point Cul and the twins were literally brawling with some of the fans, MASSIVE Cowboy seeing his opponent writhing in pain and his fans in need (not to mention the silent goliath still looming on the other side of the ring) bails from the ring, just as he tries to hop over the guardrail he’s met with a GIANT fireball right to the face. Adding the huge poof of fire to the already riotous crowd thanks to Cul and his twins brawling was a recipe for disaster.
(Pictured: The mysterious "Lord of Bones" in and out of his "armor.")
I caught a glimpse of the individual from my seat, a sinewy middle aged man with stringy black hair. It’s about this point it all really went to shit. Police were called, Cul, his twins… later revealed to be the Finnish tag team of Floki and Ivar Holmström, were all three arrested and later released. In the chaos of the crowd wide brawl the giant masked Viking (later revealed to be named Torvald the Destroyer) and the strange fireball tossing individual (only known as Cul’s “Lord of Bones”) both vanished in the chaos.
“It was cool at first, but those five idiots took advantage of Eric’s good faith. Everybody that stepped into that ring did so with the understanding we were handing out opportunity. Opportunity to be a part of one of the most progressive, popular, and most importantly GROWING wrestling brands in the US.” Angus Skaaland told us “These gimmicky wackos fucked themselves with that garbage.”
Thankfully Dane and company weathered the storm and BRAZEN continues today all over the DEFIANCE heartland. But what about Cul the Reaper? Where have these five mysterious… as Angus put it, supposed “gimmick wackos” gone? What was their goal? There have been some rumblings on the dirt sheets that the strange Viking faction isn’t done with BRAZEN, having once again invaded Dane’s project during a highly publicized show for charity just a few days ago. The five-some brawling with Frank Dylan James and his Southern Bastards in a crowd clearing brawl.
(Pictured: Rebel Yell, MASSIVE Cowboy, FDJ... The Southern Bastards)
“If these five extras from the last Thor flick want the spotlight that goddamn bad? Fine. I’ll tell ya’ what fella’s… “ says DEFtv color man and BRAZEN coconspirator Angus Skaaland “ … you name the time and place and I’ll pack Lance Warner’s overnight bag and send him and a DEFIANCE camera crew whereeeeeeeever you want. We’ll throw what you have to say up on the website… impress us boys. Show us why you’re worth the GORAM trouble." So sayeth the Motormouth of Malcontent.
(Pictured: the only stock photo of Skaaland I could find on short notice.)
Warner, ou… wait a goddamn second, overnight bag?
I swear to Christ if I get raped and maimed by fucking Vikings I’m going to kill you, Angus.
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