The Great American Mud Wrestling Show is the sexy, trashy punk party of your dreams

What do New Yorkers do when they want to put on a classic, sweaty house show in a city where its people can barely afford the rent for their sardine tin-sized apartment? They host it at their favorite local neighborhood D.I.Y. venue, which for the second annual Great American Mud Wrestling Show was Ridgewood’s beloved Trans-Pecos.

On a hot Saturday afternoon before the Fourth of July, the messy, mud-covered party brought a combination of riot grrrl punk chaos and retro, Lana Del Rey-style Americana to the border of Bushwick and Ridgewood. Organized by November Girl frontwoman Willa Rudolph and Veronica leader Sofia Zarzuela, the two were eager to put on a party for their close-knit circle of creatives and friends. So throw in some food stalls, a never-ending supply of PBRs, and a playlist blasting everything from Vengaboys to Metric and the Ting Tings, and you have the perfect backdrop for a three-band bill that sounds like a femme-forward punk rock festival at the Coney Island Boardwalk.

“I just thought it would be fun and sexy and gimmicky!” says Rudolph. “I wanted to do a crazy show, and I wanted it to be a party as much as it is a show that’s just fun and memorable.”

“Our vibe is definitely trashy Americana trailer park,” she adds, “D.I.Y. grunge meets New York summer garbage.”

While the Great American Mud Wrestling Show initially started in the backyard of the Bed-Stuy party mansion, The Hancock, the success of their first sold-out celebration meant the organizers had to think about making their next all-American extravaganza even bigger and better than the first. But there weren’t many places down to host this kind of chaos except Trans-Pecos, where you can find anything from a Neil Young cover show to a zine-making workshop to a Club Kitten rave to a queer speed dating night.

“They were down to let us do whatever, and it’s a lot to ask of a venue,” says Rudolph, who explains that the two friends needed a bigger space but “didn’t want to lose that house party vibe from last year.”

After all, Rudolph says they always had a clear “vision” of the event, which pays homage to Hunter Ray Barker’s 2018 short film The Great American Mud Wrestle, starring Julia Fox as a shotgun wedding bride, where “blood was spilled in the mud.”

“Mud is a huge theme for November Girl,” says Rudolph. “It’s earthly, it’s sexy, it’s dirty, it’s gross, it’s icky, it’s healing. It’s everything!”

Mud was the main theme for November Girl’s “Beam Me Up” music video, which consisted of filling a bathtub of the brown, sticky goo, and the visual for “Keychain.” With its riff on hot “Car Stuck Girls” trying to push out their cars out of the mud, it also happened to be the place she met Zarzuela, as well as fellow Great American Mud Wrestling Show producers, Fefi Martinez and Emma Thorup.

So just for today, the venue’s backyard has transformed into something you’d expect to see at a small town county fair. The rows of wooden benches have been swapped out for comically large bales of hay, and there is red and white picnic tablecloth. A flock of pink flamingos are planted near a hot dog stand, cotton candy booth, flash tattoo table, American flag tricolor banners, and an inflatable pool that’s been turned into a mud-wrestling pit, with a “hose down” area for wrestlers to shower off the mud, sweat, and tears.

The attendees have no problem also matching the carny rockabilly vibes, arriving at the venue kitted out in brown leather cowboy boots, trucker hats, and crop tops emblazoned with kitschy Americana, including lots of eagles, American flag motifs, and shirts with “Let Freedom Ride” on the front. Those who have signed up to mud wrestle though are in bikini tops and denim cutoffs. They’re ready to get down and dirty.

The rules are simple: contestants begin each round kneeling in the center of the mud wrestling ring, waiting for the starting signal. As soon as the referee — outfitted in a striped jersey and metallic silver hot pants — hits the timer on their iPhone, their goal is to pin down their opponent, either flat on their back or on their stomach, for at least three seconds. Wins are best out of three, and no prior mud wrestling experience is required. And while signing up is free, the competition is almost entirely dominated by fierce femmes wrestling their friends, lovers, and both.

At one point, a group of four friends are battling it out, which finally gives the referee an opportunity to make a “girl, so confusing” reference: “Look at that, they worked it out on the remix!”

“Right now I feel powerful!” says Amelia, who goes by “Mills,” inside the inflatable pool. She’s just mud-wrestled her way to victory against her friend Vivi, a.k.a. “Super Soaker.”

“I got her in that headlock, honey, and she couldn’t do nothing about it,” Mills says.

“Post-match, I’m feeling perf and dreamy and sexy and strong. I just wanted to tackle my friends and rub up on them.”

“It felt so sexy!” Mills adds, which makes Super Soaker laugh.

“I got her in the beginning. I was riding her!” she says. “We’re besties, and I wanted to just ride up on her and slap that mud all up on her.”

She grins at her friend. “We had our own makeout session afterwards.”

Aside from actual sex, few things are as physically intimate as wrestling someone in knee-deep mud while No Doubt, Le Tigre, and Bikini Kill are playing in the background. Accompanied by the raucous cheers of a very supportive onlooking crowd, the gals throw each other into headlocks and sexy straddles. There is hair-pulling, maybe even some light choking, but there’s definitely a lot of cowgirling, reverse cowgirling, and humping and grinding as you slip and slide. It’s skin to skin action, mud-coated foreplay, where each competitor dons an expression of pure and utter bliss, attempting to dominate their opponent’s body with the seductive weight of their own.

“I feel good!” says a wrestler who goes by the name “Bitchcraft.” “I busted my lip a little bit, but that’s hot, I think.”

“I was so excited to mud wrestle, I was so nervous,” confesses “Cowgirl Royalty.” “I was trying to use my legs because I’m kinda tall, but like, oh my God, I felt like I was gonna throw up in there. I kept slipping, oh my god, mud got in my mouth. It was probably like, kind of grab their shirt, the neck, and then the legs!”

DJ itg.url opens up the music portion of the afternoon before sets by Gun, Veronica, and November Girl, soundtracking the transition from wrestling to a punky, grungy live show to close out the evening. Trans-Pecos is rammed and heaving by this point, with multiple circle pits and plenty of moshing. The smell of sweat and beer and mud is sickly sweet in the air.

So while The Great American Mud Wrestling Show may already seem like a clear manifestation of the American Dream, Rudolph also has some plans in store for their next installment of hedonistic summer fun. And ideally, they’ll involve a mechanical bull that’s “either hot pink or red, white, and blue” amid all the mud.

Check out the rest of the photos from the day below.