On the mat; homegrown smackdown.(wrestling)(The Talk of the Town)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 08-APR-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

On a Sunday afternoon not long ago, the Underground Wrestling Association, or UWA, staged a farewell extravaganza at the Doghouse, a wres- tling gym in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn. UWA (it's pronounced ooh-wah) was merging with a rival league and, for all intents and purposes, passing out of existence.

Brian Ittem, UWA's twenty-one-year-old founder and elder statesman, started UWA eight years ago in the back yard of his family's house, in Glendale. Before that, he and his friends had used his bedroom to throw each other around, but his mother kicked them out, so Ittem and his father built a ring in the...

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