On an average day, Rex Farmer can be found moving pianos. He’s been doing it for 30 years, and since he towers over 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighs more than 250 pounds, his stature makes the heavy lifting more graceful.
But when the 43-year-old Bay Area native isn’t lifting musical instruments, he’s actually hoisting humans, slamming grown men to the ground and pinning them down.
Rex Farmer is a wrestler, but he’s not just any wrestler. You won’t find him with ear guards or singlets, kneepads or chin straps. No, Rex Farmer is a professional wrestler, a performer of sorts. On stage, he goes by Shane Kody. He wears a cowboy hat, a leather vest, and a pair of chaps.
“I’m an outlaw,” Farmer said, referring to the character he plays when he hops into the ring. Theatrical wrestling is the name of the game, and taking on the role of the bad guy is something Farmer has done for more than 20 years _ the number of years he’s been duking it out on the wrestling mats.
“It just comes easy to me,” he said. “I’m a natural rule breaker.”
The villain persona might be believable in the midst of a headlock, but Farmer is a warm-hearted philanthropist at heart. After a short career in the professional world, Farmer stepped off the main wrestling stage to organize benefit matches around the Bay Area. Local fire stations, domestic violence organizations and educational organizations have all reaped the rewards from Farmer’s fund raising and eyebrow raising events.
On Saturday, Farmer will be holding a benefit wrestling match at Alameda High School at 8 p.m. as a fund raiser for the school. And what’s special about this event is that Farmer will be hitting the mats with his 72-year-old father and his 22-year-old son. This is the first time in professional wrestling that three generations have performed together, Farmer says.
His son, Shane DeCambra, has a wrestling persona of Riot, and he will be in the ring on Saturday night with his father and grandfather.
“It’s always father and son, but we’ve got three generations,” Farmer said. The three men currently wrestle with the Independent Bay Area Wrestling Federation. Each is paired with competitors of similar age and weight brackets.
“The happiest I’ve ever been while wrestling was with my son and grandson,” Woody Farmer, Rex’s father, said. Woody Farmer was the wrestling pioneer of the three men. He started his own wrestling school after joining the sport in the 1960s. This was the first era of the World Wide Wrestling Federation, now called World Wrestling Entertainment, when mega-star wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan and Pedro Morales emerged.
The attraction to it was somewhat physical, Woody Farmer said. He joined the Army as a young man and was used to the rigorous workout schedule and the intense strains on the body. Wrestling became a fitting hobby, and it soon turned into a full-time job. For many wrestling entertainers, the sport actually can be fairly lucrative, Rex Farmer said. “I made around $1,000 a night for about 10 minutes’ work,” he said. “And that was decades ago.” WWE athletes can make upward of a million dollars.
Some of that money is needed just to pay for elaborate costumes, such as the one Woody Farmer has. On Saturday, he’ll be wearing a jacket with more than 1,000 rhinestones decorating it. And the price for that jacket just about matches the number of jewels on it, Farmer said. He plays the good guy and has for 40-plus years. This wrestling enthusiast spends two hours a day at the gym and claims to be in pretty good shape for his age.Rex Farmer, or Shane Kody, said he expects Saturday’s match with nine other wrestlers may inspire a few men or even women to join the craze. In the late 1980s the Farmer family sparked Crash Holly’s interest in the sport. The San Mateo native competed in the Bay Area Wrestling Federation and then went on to battle in Raw and Smackdown, two WWE divisions. But making the big-time wrestling scene isn’t easy, Rex Farmer said.
“You can’t be the next Hulk Hogan overnight,” he said. “Some of these guys have been in the business for years. It’s about how you act and perform. You can’t just jump in and become the champion overnight.”
Training for the sport is intense, Woody Farmer said. He said he remembers being so sore he couldn’t get out of bed. “Night after night you are slamming and falling,” he said. “Lots of guys have to get new hips put in.”
Becoming a fan is a bit easier. People get excited about the mix of sports and theatrics, Farmer said. “There’s a lot of crowd participation,” he said. “And there’s a story in each match.”
While most theatrical wrestlers know how the story will end before they even start a match, Rex Farmer said he’s not sure about Saturday’s performance.
“You’ll have to come and see,” Farmer said.
To find out if Rex Farmer and his father and son win Saturday’s wrestling match, head to Alameda High School, 2201 Encinal Ave. They’re expecting 400 people at the event. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the first 100 students will get in for free. After that, it will be $8 for students, $14 for adults, and $20 for vip seats.
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |