As Nastie as They Wanna Be

As some really nice lyrics — ass, titties, ass, ass, titties, ass, ass, titties, titties, ass and titties — crank at an eardrum-ringing volume from speakers at Studio A (60 NE 11th St., Miami), three chicks wrestle in baby oil. A guy clad in a #69 referee shirt and a strap-on dildo squirts water all over the flapping female flesh. The testosterone-heavy audience members follow suit, taking four-dollar water bottles, holding them to their crotches, and giving them a squeeze. Long streams of water spout from all directions.

Claire, a 26-year-old wrestler with a modest pot belly that sags over her shorts, snatches one of the other girl's bras. "Getting naked is my favorite part of the whole thing," she says, flinging the white, padded boulder-holder into the crowd. "It's just a cool way to meet other free-spirited people. I've made a lot of friends doing this. Good friends, platonic friends."

The perky breasts of a short-haired blonde, who claims her name is Chew, are now completely exposed. Using the oil from the ring, Claire uses Chew as a Slip 'n Slide and glides on top of her. She then sticks out her tongue, stained red with fake blood, and flicks the tip of one of Chew's erect, pierced nipples.

"I did fall in love wrestling once, but just once," Claire says during a break in the action. "It was about two years ago, and I was doing the wrestling thing down in Key West. It was the way she pulled my hair. Some people pull from the side or the front or just a piece of it. But she grabbed the entire thing from the back and yanked it, and I was like ..."

Claire closes her eyes, grabs her own hair, and gives her unkempt mane a quick pull. "Ahhhhh," she moans, "I'm in love."

The female wrestling bonanza had begun three hours late. It's a new version of an old event that a Mohawked, scratchy-voiced promoter who calls himself Nastie started at Churchill's Pub (5501 NE Second Ave., Miami) in Little Haiti several years ago. On this night, the preliminaries included two fleeting rock sets and a visual appetizer: an Asian girl who flashed her boobs onstage for $20 while saying "Me so horny."

Now, only about 10 minutes into the first round, it feels like little more than soft-core lesbian porn, the kind of scene for which party-pusher Nastie — who assembled the whole damn thing — is notorious. And judging by the muted highlights of past episodes of Nastie's Female Wrestling fights projected on large screens in this chic, chandelier-filled downtown club, it's clear he has a knack for dragging the, well, nasty out of people.

"I actually stripped naked one time and ran around Churchill's naked," says Claire, now topless, leaning on the ropes. "I wasn't even drunk; I was completely sober. I was just like, 'Whoo, look at me! Nakedness!' Everyone was throwing money at me. It was great. I made like $30 just running around the bar like eight times."

Claire, a self-described "attention whore," has been wrestling since she was 16 years old. She's been dancing for the past six years in Miami clubs for local goth artist DJ Dracula's Daughter. But outside of these two meager moneymaking endeavors (both pay about $50 a night), she's virtually unemployed.

"Technically I live at home with my mom. So I'm still supported by Mommy."

"How does your mom feel about that?" I ask.

"She's fine with it. She wants me to find a regular job and stop doing things like this. But it's hard to find a job in Miami. It's really hard. I've even applied to work at McDonald's. When they found out I wasn't the kind of bilingual they were looking for, they let me go."

"What kind of bilingual are you?"

"I'm fluent in American Sign Language. But I would have to graduate from college to get a job signing, though."

After Claire tells me she's had "seven girlfriends, five major," and countless boyfriends, I ask, "Have you ever dated a deaf person?"

"No, although I want to. I've dated a blind person. I met him through a friend of mine who was deaf. Obviously we couldn't do things like watch TV and go out to movies, so we had sex a lot. He had toys — blindfolds, chains, handcuffs, whips — you name it, he had it. He wasn't always blind and I don't exactly know how he became blind, but it was at a construction job. At least that's what he told me. So I'm thinking someone sprayed something in his eyes by accident, like acid, or some other chemical."