School of Hard Knocks

So your Soloflex machine makes a dandy clothes rack. And the $49.95 ab-buster languishes in a corner collecting dust. So what? You too can try to become a pro wrestler.

Yup.

We’re not talking Hulk Hogan here, but a new school in Simi Valley is hoping to cash in on the pro-wrestling craze by teaching grappling to workaday folks who love the sport.

The curriculum: acrobatic moves such as the head scissors. Sessions on how to create your own unique wrestling persona and gimmick. Lessons in ring psychology.

All it takes is dedication, eight months and about $2,400.

That’s the ambitious claim of entrepreneur, bodyguard and professional wrestler Gary Key, who opened Ventura County’s first professional wrestling school--the Grappling Den--in a Simi Valley strip mall over the weekend.

A bulky 6-foot, 4-incher who weighs in at about 255 pounds, Key wrestled professionally for nine years. You may know the tanned, Fabio-blond man better as Gary “Krusher” Key, the Samurai Warrior, the Black Ninja, Krusty the Clown, Doink the Clown or Gary Lee.

Jokes about silly costumes and, ah, engineered matches aside, Key and partner Pete Balgochian sense an aching pro-wrestling void in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

They want to grab customers in a headlock and take ‘em to the mat before others catch on to the wrestling-school craze.

“Wrestling is kind of addictive. It’s fun,” said Key, who previously taught the theatrical and athletic sport at Southern California’s nearest wrestling school, San Bernardino’s School of Hard Knocks. “I was in martial arts for some time, and wrestling got me completely out of martial arts. This school will allow me to run my own show and share the excitement with others.”

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What’s more, the men are starting their own wrestling promotion, or organization, called the Impact Wrestling Federation. Local and cable television stations willing, the duo hopes to air actual Grappling Den bouts with a live local audience on television in spring.

“This area is hungry for this type of entertainment,” said Key, 34, a resident of the Channel Islands Harbor area of Oxnard. “Our audience is from 6 to 60. Everyone watches wrestling. It’s almost like a soap opera.”

Indeed, it is melodramatic and exhilarating just to watch Key and Balgochian test their regulation boxing ring, which arrived at the school Friday morning.

The 4,000-square-foot school on Kuehner Drive was not quite ready by that afternoon. The concrete floor looked naked, except for the putty knives, wrenches and paper soda cups strewn about. But the riveted steel IWF logo was hanging on a wall, and the ring was springy with 2 inches of foam rubber.

Within weeks, the floors will be painted an ominous matte black and the drop-tile ceilings will be torn out above the ring, the better for tossing opponents around. The concession stand will be in place then, as will the bleachers.

Come springtime, pulsating music, flashing lights, a smoke machine and 300 rowdy onlookers should complete the picture.

Climbing the ropes and practicing impossibly painful-looking moves, Key demonstrated the “back drop”--an empowering, over-the-arm flip that leaves the victim on the mat like a freshly exterminated roach.

Such techniques are the mainstay of professional wrestling schools. There are perhaps 10 to 20 “legitimate schools”--such as the one in Simi Valley--across the nation, estimates James “Shadowe” Boone, semiretired grappler in the San Fernando Valley. He hosts the country’s biggest talk radio show about wrestling, called “Squared Circle,” on the Cable Radio Network.

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Professional wrestling--all the rage in the early and mid-1980s--is enjoying a renaissance, in large part due to the emergence of competition between the two major promotions, Boone said. As a result, schools and independent outfits are “popping up around the country.”

“In California, they lack television,” he said. “A lot of organizations in other states [are on television] and do great in business. California doesn’t have a local organization that has hit the TV scene and taken over, so it’s a perfect time for wrestling schools to start up here.”

The wrestling industry can indeed be lucrative both for the big players--namely, the World Wrestling Federation and media mogul Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling--and the little ones, Boone believes.

For the WCW alone, pro wrestling is a more than $100-million-a-year industry, according to spokeswoman Lynn Brent.

Key and Balgochian figure that pie is big enough to share.

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The way they envision it, their school and promotion will feed each other. The school will provide wrestlers--who need experience before trying to make it big--for the promotion’s shows. People attending the bouts hosted by the promotion might sign up for the school.

And what, pray tell, does one learn in wrestling school?

Well, much of it is confidential. But Key was willing to share some choice details.

At the school, wrestling aspirants will learn basics--such as running the ropes and standard moves including the headlock, he said. They will also learn the high-flying feats popularized by Mexican wrestling--the aforementioned back drop, and the head scissors, in which one wrestler jumps and chokes the other wrestler with his mighty thighs.

Students will develop their own personae: a baseball player who thrashes opponents with his bat, say, or hay-chewing hillbillies wielding pitchforks.

Key’s own gimmick is the ninja warrior. Sporting black and silver yin-and-yang symbols on his leg pads, Key breaks flaming cinder blocks in two with his bare hands.

The toughest skill, though, is ring psychology, Key added. A wrestler must learn to keep steely composure and develop a story line that holds the audience’s interest for 10 to 15 minutes. Wrestlers must also study coping strategies in case the audience responds with the most dreaded of insults, “Boooor-ring.”

Key and the other two teachers at the school will not teach weight training, but students are encouraged to beef up on their own.

“You have to be really honest with yourself” to enter pro wrestling, Key said. “If you have the heart, that’s 90% of it there. Never look at someone and say ‘You’ll never make it.’ If you’re determined, there’s a place for you in the industry. We get guys from 5 feet, 6 inches, 160 pounds to guys 6 feet, 4 inches, 305 pounds. A lot of people think you have to be big and muscular. That’s not true. A lot of the small guys are fast and acrobatic.”

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Even some women get into the act, Key said, although the demand for their talents is rather small.

“We can easily teach 20 or 30 [students] here,” said Balgochian, 32, a wrestling fan who owns a gold jewelry store in Simi Valley. “We’ll teach three nights a week, and add additional nights if necessary.”

The Westlake resident added: “We’re working on a kids class, for 12- or 16-year-olds. And we’re thinking about a father-son class. It would be fun to see the kids kick the fathers’ butts.”

The concept of a wrestling school might sound improbable, but the men’s enthusiasm is infectious.

Plus, the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County market is big. Los Angeles still lacks professional football. And many residents near the school have money to burn and kids to amuse.

Even as Key practiced on a sleepy Friday, looky-loos dropped their errands to take a gander at the inside of the school. One lanky teen volunteered that he could do hand springs and might be wrestling material.

Drawn by the display of brute force, Simi Valley resident Gil Lopez watched for a while. He thinks the venture just might make it.

“It’s just something different,” he said, standing mesmerized in an open doorway with his granddaughter, Mariah. “I think a lot of people think wrestling is fake, and they might come for themselves to see if it’s real or not. Either way, when you see these guys, it’s obvious that they are physically fit athletes to do this and not get injured.”