Wrestler Vance Nevada was doing his thing. He'd already traded verbal barbs with his opponent and crowd favourite Sean Gaston. He'd already argued with the referee. He'd already yelled at a ringside photographer. 
And the match hadn't even started yet.
And now it was the crowd's turn. They regaled him with insults, and, microphone now in hand, he regaled them right back -- often pointing to individuals directly and delivering his abuse with a personal touch.
Nevada, nicknamed "Mr. Beefy Goodness," is a heel. He's a guy the audience loves to hate. And halfway through the Thrash Wrestling card Friday night at Penticton's Luso Canadian Multicultural Centre, he'd created the biggest stir of the evening.
And that's really saying something. The masked, sold-out Penticton crowd, having been deprived of pro wrestling for a couple years (thanks COVID), was fired up from the first opening bell.
Things hit a fever pitch after the match when Nevada threatened to beat up a little kid who'd been relentlessly taunting him. The kid jumped out of this seat and countered Nevada's threats, Nevada yelled back, they accusingly pointed at one another, and just about everyone in the place broke up laughing.
It was a masterful job of crowd engagement by a guy who's been wrestling for 29 years. And at the age of 46, Vance Nevada (that's his wrestling name and we're not spoiling the illusion) figures he still has a bit of wrestling left in him.
"I've had a spinal fusion -- I have two pivot head screws keeping things normal there," he admitted just prior to Friday night's activities. "I've broken my nose twice. One tooth is half plaster. I have a narrowing of the spinal column in my neck. And lots of joint deficits.
"But fortunately no problems with knees or joints or hips."
Like many veteran grapplers, Nevada, who began his career at 17 at Winnipeg's unassuming Chalmers Community Centre, has a love affair with the sport.
But in his case, the affair goes far beyond the norm. And that's what makes Nevada particularly intriguing.
"When I was a year in," he said Friday afternoon as the temporary Penticton ring was being built, "the veterans were talking about a legend in his own time. His name was Frenchy Champagne.
"But I'd never heard of him. And I was 18 years old. I knew everything there was to know about wrestling. This guy must not have been a big deal.
"But the name stuck in my mind. So a couple weeks later I went down to the Winnipeg archives (remember, not much Internet back then) and started looking for information on Frenchy Champagne."
And that was his first tentative step in what would eventually become a 22-year journey into the history of Canadian wrestling. A journey that has produced two books already and a third to come -- in just a few months.
A wrestling writer? You betcha. And in conversation, Nevada comes across as much more the latter than the former. Which makes his convincing in-the-ring "heel" façade ("heels" are the wrestling bad guys, "faces" are the good) all that more impressive.
His first early effort was a self-published compendium called the Central Canadian Professional Wrestling Almanac. The second, from 2009, was entitled Wrestling in the Canadian West. And in three weeks Nevada sends off his manuscript for "Uncontrolled Chaos: Canada's Remarkable Professional Wrestling Legacy."
"It goes from 1930 to the present, and deals with 200 individual organizations, over 600 championships and a scope of work that covers more than 55,000 wrestling events," he said.
One of the organizations Nevada covers in his upcoming tome is Thrash Wrestling, the Okanagan-based outfit responsible for many of the region's wrestling events, including Friday's. And he's a huge fan.
"In terms of Canadian sports," he said, "they're the little engine that could. They started grassroots in Enderby, and little by little they started bringing in established pros from Vancouver to help them because they had a passion to learn it.
"And today here they are, more than a dozen years later, still doing their thing."
Like just about everyone, Nevada is hoping against hope the pandemic doesn’t have any more surprises in store.
"For myself at the tail end of my career, it's been a mild annoyance," he said. "But for these guys looking to make a name for themselves, looking for a contract, maybe with the WWE, two years has been a long, long time."
Nevada's partner Friday evening in the night's high-profile tag team match was New Westminster native Adam "The Haida Heartthrob" Ryder, a guy who seemed truly psyched to be back in the ring.
"Yeah, I love it," he said while sharing laughs with Nevada. "At the end of the day we're doing this because we love it. We love doing it as much as much as we can.
"I take as many bookings as I can. As long as it's a fun crowd and a good promotion, I'm happy."
We asked the Haida Hearththrob what he loved most about wrestling. The intense workout? The fame? The crowd?
"I like to show off," he said with a hearty laugh. "I like to be in front of a crowd. I like to know I'm the very best wrestler in British Columbia, possibly in Canada."
Thrash boss Nick Szalanski, who doesn't wrestle himself these days due to "health issues" (stuff like a separated sternum, torn kneecap and multiple concussions will do that to you) said the Penticton show was only the second for the organization since the pandemic struck.
"We did one show in Vernon in November," he said. "It was the first since COVID began, and we'll have another in Vernon in a month from now. We'd like to get back up to a couple shows a month once things open up."
Later in the evening, Szalanski did get involved during a mid-match flare-up where two extra wrestlers mysteriously appeared in the ring. Mr. Beefy Goodness was there too, as was the Haida Hearththrob.
It was epic.
