Grappling With Success On the Independent Wrestling Circuit

Nearly two decades after toiling on the wrestling mats at Fermi High School, Fernando Ortiz is returning to north central Connecticut as co-owner of an independent professional wrestling promotion.

New England Frontier Wrestling (NEFW) is holding its first Connecticut card Saturday, Aug. 27 at Nomads Adventure Quest in South Windsor. Tickets are $10 ($5 for kids 7 and under), and are available at the door.

For Ortiz, who graduated from Fermi in 1992 and then wrestled at Springfield Technical Community College, thoughts of the pro game began in 2007, when he attended an independent show in New York City featuring performers who had trained under former Extreme Championship Wrestling star Mikey Whipwreck.

"Watching those guys was amazing," Ortiz said in a recent interview. "When I moved back to Enfield in 2008, I rented some old wrestling videos at Blockbuster. The clerk there said she had a friend who owned the Universal Wrestling Dynasty (UWD), and they have a dojo."

At the time, Ortiz was 34 years old. "I wondered if I still had it at that point," he said. "It's hard to start off in the business old."

He began working as a referee at the dojo, and impressed co-owner Peter Nham. "Peter told me to come on down one Saturday to a show at an Elks Lodge in West Springfield," Ortiz recalled.

While training, Ortiz befriended Chris Gallerani, who wrestles under the name Chris Camaro. The two worked a number of shows for UWD; shortly before that promotion closed in 2010, Ortiz went back to wrestling school, working with Kevin Landry in Chicopee, MA.

"It was like going back to square one, and everything I had learned meant nothing," Ortiz said. "Learning the correct way to fall, do a drop down, punch. I worked with Antonio Thomas, who had been with World Wrestling Entertainment as part of the Heart Throbs."

As a child, Ortiz idolized former WWE champion Bob Backlund. "What I remembered then, and what I remember now, is the story, the build," he said. "His facial expressions lent an air of believability to the performance. Nowadays, the guys get hit with something that looks devastating and they get right back up. There's no believability."

After the demise of the UWD, Ortiz and Gallerani decided to start their own promotion. "It actually started about two years ago in our heads," Ortiz said. "We always pondered the name New Frontier Wrestling - old school with a twist. We looked to get that name copyrighted, but someone already had it, so we went with NEFW."

The promotion ran its initial trial show in late spring in Milford, MA. "That was definitely a learning experience - we found out what worked and what didn't."

For the upcoming South Windsor show, the promoters are making sure their product is different than anyone else's.

"We don't have an intermission – we have a halftime, with an artist known as Menace performing," Ortiz said. "There is also a Fan Hour before the show, with vendors selling sports and wrestling memorabilia, MMA gear from an Enfield company called Need 2 Bleed, and autograph signings by former ECW star Raven, former TNA star Amazing Red, and former WWE star Afa Jr. (Manu)."

The Fan Hour will run from 6-7 p.m., with the matches beginning at 7 p.m. Ortiz, in his persona of Diego Cortez, will appear in a tag team match.

"What sets Chris and me apart is all these little differences in the way we give fans something," he said. "We love our product, it's what we live and dream every day. Anyone attending our show can expect an action-packed full adrenaline ride."