Welcome to Degenerate Press' feature article. If this isn't enough you can always subscribe to Electric Degeneration, our semi-weekly and semi-weakly ezine, or surf the Electric Degeneration archive.
Atlanta Rollergirls
Championship Bout
November 2005
It's been an interesting experience seeing roller derby live, up close and personal, especially with so many familiar faces flying around the rink (and occasionally out of it.) There are a lot of things I don't like:
But taken in balance against seeing a pack of hot girls in skimpy outfits on wheels beating the heck out of each other, the pros outweigh the cons.
Besides the action in the ring you get music during intermission. This month's match featured Lust during the first break, appearing in tiki attire.
The final bouts of the season were far more aggressive than any previous match I've seen. The championship was at stake, of course, and nobody had to worry about missing future games due to injuries sustained in this match, I suppose. Speaking of, sometime during the second match one of my favorite players, Big Red, went down hard. She landed on her face and curled up into a ball. The crowd groaned and time-out was called. The nurse walked over and took one look at Big Red's hand and got a worried look on her face and called over the doc. Various officials and announcers surrounded her and the doc advised her to put her mouth guard back in to give her something to bite down on while he put one of her fingers back in place - at least that's how it looked from the sidelines.
She was escorted off the track, but reappeared during the third
match with her hand covered in tape. I talked to her afterward and she said,
casually, "Oh yeah, it's broken."
Another girl had hit the floor and hadn't reappeared. Afterward her teammates
said she might have some broken ribs.
There were a couple of fights over the course of the night. One looked friendly or staged but the other looked deadly serious. In both cases the brawlers were hauled over to the Penalty Princess, La Dangerosa, for a spin of the penalty wheel. One spin resulted in an arm wrestling match. The other resulted in a dance-off with cheers from the crowd determining the winner. As much fun as they were, I wish they'd move the penalty area closer to the crowd. (While they're at it, they need to move the announcers to the other side of the arena, or at least their speaker system. It's so loud and muddled it's difficult to understand anything they say, which is a bummer since Rodney and Jim are pretty funny guys.)
The second intermission featured Rock City Dropouts, less visually stimulating than Lust but more entertaining audibly, in my opinion.
| Heavy/hard stuff with a hint of classic Southern rock. Toward the end of the set the guitarist's son appeared at the edge of the "stage", cute as a button, waving smoke machine haze away from his face and holding his hands over his ears. You can see him in the lower right of the photo below. |
 |
By the third match it was obvious the Sake Tuyas were running away with the championship. The Apocalpystix seemed to be off their game. There were some bad calls by the officials, but even with my untrained eye it was obvious the Sake Tuyas were the superior skaters that night. They scored almost double the points The Apocalypstix managed.
We hit Mulligan's for the after party, since it was the final match of the season and long-lost degenerate AL was on her final night of a rare visit to town. I gave her a Degenerate Press toe tag/business card and she posed for a photo. As if you didn't already know, Degenerate Press is in all the right places!
 |
Take
me to Degenerate Press' home page! All content on this site is owned by Degenerate Press and cannot be used without our permission. We have lawyers for friends with nothing better to do than cause trouble (no kidding), so play nice. Copyright © 2005, All Rights Reserved |