I don't have the poser pic Marie did for this story, but this is still one of the best stories I've ever read. I was very pleased that there were nods to me, my wife, and one of my regulars. It was truly a great story.
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”YOWSA! YOWSA! Ladies and gentlemen, step right this way! Step right up to the Wheel of Fortune. Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows!”
“Get ya cotton candy here.”
“See the most incredible sight you’ve ever seen in your life! It’s the bearded lady! She’s the eighth wonder of the world!”
“Hot dogs! Getcha hot dogs here! Get ‘em while they’re hot!”
“He’s Mr. Atlas, known to all as the strongest man in the world. Come on into the main tent and see him perform acts of Herculean strength!”
All of you recognize this, don’t you? It’s the sounds of the carnival when it comes to town. I’ve been hearing those sounds for half my life. I’m 26 now and have been working for mud shows since I was 13. We’ve been touring the country all these years, entertaining the marks and having them cough up as much money as we can string ‘em for. In the summer months, we canvas the northern states, pitching our tents in suburban areas and luring the folks to come spend the day with us. In colder months, we tour the south and southwest part of the country.
What’s my job at the carnival?
"That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; we’re calling your attention to the midway at this time. Come and see the Lady’s Fighting Challenge. Come and take the Lady’s Challenge if you’ve got the body, if you’ve got the goods, if you’ve got the nerve! Any lady from the crowd of you fine people can be the one to compete. Let’s have a volunteer! Step right up and wrestle Renee the Ripper, the World Woman’s Fighting Champion!"
Yeah, that’s me. I’m Renee the Ripper and I’ve been fighting off the worthy (and often unworthy) challenges of women for the past 13 years. I’m advertised as the Ultimate Fighting Machine and am the biggest moneymaker the carnival has in its employ. Everyone who wants to see me fight has to pony up 10 bucks. I fight a volunteer from the audience…..winner take all.
That’s right; all the people that pay their $10 see that money go into a pot. Whoever wins the fight takes the whole magilla…..every cent that’s in there. If I lose, the carnival makes nothing. If I win, we take it all.
You might think that there’s no way we’re gonna get too many people to pay $10 to see women fight, huh? Well, the fact is that more chumps fork over their sawbuck to see me tear up some poor chick than to see all the other carnival attractions combined. One memorable night, we had just over 1,000 people gather to see me fight the local tough girl. That was in Des Moines, Iowa, and the tent was set up to handle only 300 people. We packed ‘em in, that’s for sure. And when you do the math, you see that the pot was $10,000 bucks…..and you better believe that management didn’t want me to lose that night! And, of course, I didn’t.
Usually, we don’t get crowds that large. But we always get at least a few hundred folks when the carnival barker yells over the loudspeaker that the women’s fight is about to take place in the south tent on the midway. The folks go absolutely crazy to see two women going at it with no holds barred. Even the people who come to express their disapproval of the viciousness taking place before their eyes…….the fact is, they’re still coming and they lay their money down.
Do I ever lose?
Well, no. If I did, I wouldn’t have a job for very long, now would I? Management wants to take money in, not pay it out.
The type of fighting? It’s strictly catch-as-catch-can. Really, it couldn’t be any other way. Whatever it takes to win, that’s what I do. No tactics are forbidden, although some of the dirty stuff I’ve used on local girls has earned me the hatred of the crowd of chumps who have paid to watch. But that only brings in bigger crowds the next day, so it’s all good. They can boo me all they want; just as long as they come to see me.
Given the variety of challengers I’ve met over the years, a different style is required for almost every match. I have to size up what I’ve got in front of me…..and proceed accordingly. That sounds simple, but it takes years of experience before you can be sure that you’re gonna emerge victorious.
And what a menagerie of women I’ve fought over these many years. Big ones, small ones. Fat ones, skinny ones. Young ones, old ones. Women who were in awesome physical shape and ones who were out of breath in the first thirty seconds. Women who were truly motivated to fight, and ones who were strictly there to show off for their friends. Ones who were brave and willing to mix it up…..and ones who were so scared to be in the ring with me that they were ready to give up before a single punch was thrown.
The fights themselves? Really, for the most part, they’re so easy for me. I follow a simple set of rules:
Bob & weave. Never give ‘em a stationary target to hit. Use feints until they have no idea what’s comin’ at them and when. Size up who you’ve got in front of you. If they’re expecting you to charge at them…..don’t. If they think you’re gonna lay back and assume a defensive posture…..barrel ‘em over. If they start the match by lying back, give ‘em an inch and shut ‘em down. If they charge straight at you, kick ‘em in the private parts and cancel their ticket right then and there. Don’t throw roundhouse punches like they do….. use straight, short shots to soften ‘em up. If they come at you with fists flying, knee ‘em in the gut. If they come at you kicking their feet, give ‘em a stiff jab in the nose and make ‘em taste their own blood.
Jeez, it’s so easy when you know how and when you’ve been doing it for as long as I have. Many different match situations have presented themselves over the years, but I’ve found that there is always something I can do to turn a fight in my favor if things are looking bad. I fight twice a day, six days a week.
As I said, my job depends on winning fights. I make hoards of loot for the carnival because I never lose. If I did, the carnival management will have staged the contest for free because they’d have to pay the entire gate to the girl who beat me.
But it never happens, even though we never use “ringers” in a fight. My competition is chosen fairly. The barker gets the crowd gathered and asks for a volunteer from the audience….it’s on the level, it really is. Often, when a town knows that our mud show is coming to their area, they choose their toughest girl and prepare her to fight Renee the Ripper…....me. This way, the town winds up doing our advance advertising for us. Word of mouth, y’know? By the time fight night arrives, the chumps are at fever pitch and the carnival didn’t have to do anything to get ‘em that way. Then, I go and beat the bitch and collect the money.
Well, the truth is that I did lose once. It was during my first year in the business, when I was only 13 years old. We had pitched our tent in Los Angeles and I found myself in the ring against a woman named Siena. She was 23 and she wiped up the mat with me. I hadn’t learned a lot of the techniques I eventually came to master, and I just didn’t have answers for the limitless supply of dirty tricks she had at her disposal. But she taught me a lot that night and I adopted a lot of what she threw at me and used it for myself in the future. Of course, Siena is now the owner of the biggest female wrestling company in the world.
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Are you wondering what I look like? Well, that’s part of what keeps people coming out to see me fight. People hear the name “Renee the Ripper” and assume that they’re gonna see a 40-year-old broad who weighs 220 pounds and bulges in all the wrong places…..a girl who is tough and dangerous, but not pleasant to look at.
Well, this is where I fool ‘em.
I’m not big; only 5’6 and 125 pounds. In truth, I’m a hardbody, but I don’t look like one. I’m fairly easy on the eyes, but not startlingly beautiful or nothin’. But I’ve got what the crowd hungers for. To make me appear even more vulnerable, I dress for my fights wearing a bikini…..and nothing else. I look pretty harmless and that appearance always gives my opponents false hope, which is just what we want. Folks look at me and figure that I’m beatable. It makes more of them volunteer to get in the ring, y’know? It also makes ‘em lay more of their hard-earned money down in hopes of seeing their local girl clean my clock. I must admit that I appeal to the men, but the important thing is that women take to me, too. After all, it’s the gals that I need to challenge me, but I want everyone to come watch me.
Some of the folks want to see me to win. Others want to see me to suffer. But I just seem to have something that they all want to see. That’s what brings in the money. The management of this carnival sure doesn’t wanna lose me as an attraction and they compensate me well for being good at what I do.
And, of course, the crowds want to see their local girls fight me. And what a collection of characters I’ve seen across the ring from me over these many years. Usually, it’s the neighborhood tough girl who walks into the ring to face me, but not always. They’ve come in all sizes and shapes and dressed in different outfits. I’ve fought women who dressed in street clothes, dominatrix outfits, shorts, bathing suits and dresses. For footwear, they come in sneakers, loafers, boots, bare feet and, in one memorable fight……ballet shoes. They come with all kinds of attitudes too……aggressive, scared, arrogant, tentative…..you name it, I’ve seen it.
I remember when we were playing Jackson, Mississippi three years ago. We couldn’t get a volunteer to come fight me, and this jive turkey started urging his wife to get in the ring. She was a shy, demure young woman…..pretty to look at and in good physical shape, but she didn’t have the look of a fighter, y’know? But her husband was prodding her to fight and the crowd was getting caught up in it, urging her to get in the ring. Under her breath, she was pleading with him to stop pushing her:
“Please, T.S., you know I don’t fight. Don’t make me look bad in front of all these people.”
“Shit,” taunted T.S., “You’re always talking about how you’d like to be a wrestler. Go on and fight this Ripper girl. You can beat her!”
Well, she finally relented and got in the ring with me. And I destroyed the southern belle. T.S. was yelling at her;
“Punch the Ripper in the stomach, honey! C’mon, get her with gut shots!”
But it was hopeless for the poor girl. She couldn’t get close enough to do what her jerk of a husband wanted. I had my way with her. At times, her eyes looked at me with helpless appeal, but I never let up on the beating, because you simply don’t do that. The day you soft-pedal it because you feel sorry for your opponent might be the day the tables get turned on you in a hurry.
So I whipped the pretty thing’s butt and forced her to submit. That’s the way we determine the winner of these fights; did I tell you that? The loser has to indicate that she doesn’t want to fight anymore…… the microphone is placed before her and she has to tell the whole crowd that she quits. It’s humbling for her.
I felt bad when this lady, tears in her eyes, had the microphone thrust in her face.
But not too bad, if you know what I mean. After all, my livelihood depends on my winning.
You probably want to ask: Have I fought men before?
In some of the towns we visit, you simply can’t get a woman to step forward to fight in a ring. And I had some experience fighting guys even before I became Renee the Ripper. In my home town of Erie, Pennsylvania, I was a young, teenage girl roaming the streets. My parents were a couple of washed-out alcoholics and didn’t give a damn about me. I survived the streets by learning to fight. I discovered that I had a natural talent for it. My boyfriend used to beat the crap out of me, until the one day that I turned around and dropped both barrels on him. I had always known I was more agile and faster than him and I handed him the beating of his life. It was a turning point for me.
From that day on, I was totally enthralled with the idea of fighting. A host of guys and gals took a look at my placid appearance and figured I would be an easy beat-up. I always won.
It went on like that until the carnival got wind of my reputation and hired me to do for money what I had been doing for free. And I’ve been doing it ever since.
And so…..yes, I occasionally have to face off against a guy. Sometimes, the man who steps into the ring to fight me is some big, muscular behemoth who is snorting fire and ready to tear my head off. But the result is always the same…..I win. As I said, there is always some tactic I can use to disable the creep before he can get to me. Often, a simple punch in the nose as he’s coming forward is enough to take the fight out of him. Once their fighting heart is gone, the rest is easy.
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And now, at 26, I’ve seen just about everything in the ring that I could ever expect to see. That is, until I met up with a girl named Janey. She’s the reason I came to tell you this story.
The carnival was pitching its tent in White Plains, New York. As I told you, advance word that Renee the Ripper is coming often circulates in towns and the “volunteer” to fight me is chosen before we even get there. We received word in the weeks preceding our arrival that a local girl was challenging me and that she had a special condition in mind…… she wanted my job. She wanted to replace me as the carnival fighting woman and was willing to fight me to earn the privilege. That was one I had never had thrown at me before.
Our head barker is a guy named Mack. He runs the show. He’s a hustler and a bustler, but he’s also one of the most likable scoundrels I’ve ever met.
“Hey, Renee,” he said to me. “Youse don’t have to fight this goil, y’know…..at least not with your job at stake.”
“Aw, come on, Mack,” I answered, “It’s not like I ever lose. What could she possibly have that I can’t handle? At any rate, she has offered to let us keep all the proceeds from the fight, whether I win or lose.”
“Well, okay, if you feel that confident,” said Mack. “The fact is, we’ll publicize the shit out of this fight and more people will come to see it. We’ll freakin’ rake in the bucks.”
The truth is……I was as confident as I sounded. There have been so many fights with so many women over the years. Some of the broads made a lotta noise about how they were gonna beat Renee the Ripper. Yet, here I stand, undefeated in the past 13 years.
Before we accepted the girl’s conditions, I at least wanted to know something about my opponent. I asked for some background information and the e-mail I got back from her made me think that the girl must be delusional.
Turns out she’s an 18-year-old high school student at Our Lady of Good Counsel, the local Catholic girls’ school. Reading this, I nearly laughed my ass off. I didn’t think that one of those mild-mannered, repressed little girls could possibly have the fighting arsenal to defeat me. I mailed back my acceptance.
I should have known better.
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On fight night, the crowd that gathered was so large that we had to move the event from our usual tent to the Big Top. There must have been 2,500 people there, cheering for Janey, their local heroine.
I couldn’t wait to see her; I figured that, for so many people to show up, she must be physically imposing. They must have thought she was either going to win big…….or to lose big. And in any case, they were paying to see it.
The look Mack gave me was priceless. He was happy to have so many people on hand, hitting the concession stands and other carnival attractions while they waited for Janey and me to fight, but he was nervous as hell about putting my job at risk. But then, we caught a glimpse of Janey as she walked up the aisle. Mack smiled, and his fears disappeared.
It was easy to see why, because making her way to the ring was the most unimposing looking opponent I’ve ever seen. Janey was only 18, that was clear. But she was the softest, meekest, most demure-looking little girl you would ever want to see. A pretty little thing. She was the same height as me, but thin as a rail. Her pipe-cleaner arms extended from her yellow, frilly little blouse and she wore that frumpy gray skirt that Catholic school girls have been forced to wear since time immemorial. Her outfit was right out of the 1950’s, and she compounded the effect by wearing penny loafers on her feet, for God’s sake. Her hair was worn in unstylish, blond braids. She smiled shyly at me and shook my hand when we were introduced in the center of the ring. Her smile was sweet and totally innocent. Janey looked more like a babysitter than a fighter. I never saw anyone who looked less like they belonged in a ring of combat; although I knew that looks can be deceiving. Still, I absolutely could not believe that this girl intended to fight me for my job. The entire set of her body indicated non-aggression.
As we spoke, she kicked off her penny loafers and surprised me by skinning off her knee-length socks. Apparently, she intended to fight in the Catholic school outfit and barefoot. I’ve seen some crazy get-ups on my opponents before, but never one like this. The 2,500 people were yelling and shouting, working themselves into a frenzy over the fight they were about to see. They were calling for Janey to beat my ass.
Hey, I’m not naïve; I know that there has to be more to her than this if she’s looking to tangle with a professional fighter.
“Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” I asked Janey. “You do understand that I’ll use any and all tactics at my disposal to beat you and keep my job, don’t you? Have you ever done any fighting before?”
Janey again gave me that sweet smile. “Oh gosh, Miss Ripper, you sound like someone who is a little nervous about this match.”
I was taken aback by the carefree way she delivered the line. “Well, no, not really. But I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” she answered, and for the first time, I noticed a steely glint in her eyes. “I know how to take care of myself. And yes, I have had some fighting experience.”
“But if you somehow beat me, you will become a carnival fighter. Is that what you really want to be?”
“More than I’ve wanted anything in my life. I’ve followed your career and always wanted to do what you do. But there are so few positions open in this field.” giggled Janey. “So, I figured the best way to break into this job is to take yours.”
“Well, bring it, little sister,” I sneered. “Lots of girls have been sure they were gonna beat me……..but no one has.”
Even with my show of bravado, though, I stared at her with the growing realization that tonight was going to be different than any other in my career.
