Visiting Wrestler Knows

Visiting Wrestler Knows how to get"a head"in Life


By Mariane Matera

Are you ready to rumble?Are you ready to stand on line? Are you ready to meet.AL SNOW! Who the heck is Al Snow?

Apparently a lot of people didn't have to ask. When they heard on radio station 105.7 The River that Wrestling Federation star Al Snow was going to be signing autographs at the American Family Fitness sales office in Mechanicsville, they came on down, some from as far away as Warsaw.

Al Snow is the beefy guy with long black hair who carries around the head of a female mannequin, which has "HELP ME!" written backward on her forehead. When the Al Snow doll came out, with the decapitated female head accessory included, some critics said it wasn't a suitable toy for children and some stores even took it off the shelves. Still, people managed to find it and buy it, and were now standing on line for Snow to autograph the box. Snow's wrestling act is that he "hears" the head talk to him.

There were plenty of children there to meet him, nearly half the 50 people on line at 2:30 when the event started, were school-aged. There was a wrestling match at the Coliseum that night, and Al Snow was scheduled to be talking to his head in the ring, defending its honor from the other wrestlers.

"What does everyone want?" he shouted at the line. They knew the answer.

"[The] Head!" they all replied in unison.

Atlee High School 11th grader D.J. Epps and 12th grader Kari Magner were in line and admitted Snow was not their favorite wrestler, although "he's really cool."

Were they going to the match that night?

"Of course!"

Who is their favorite wrestler?

"Stone Cold," they both said together.

The Wrestling Federation donated a jacket signed by all the major wrestlers to American Family Fitness, said General Manager Steve Reed. It'll be auctioned to benefit children with disabilities. The actual fitness center, under construction behind the Bank of Essex down the road, is due to open in mid-summer. Reed, who has worked in the West End and Southside, prefers Mechanicsville now.

"It's so friendly, warm and very welcoming here," he said. "We're trying to get as involved in the community as we can."

Meanwhile, very small children waited eagerly to get close to Al Snow, many of them too shy to talk.

Is Al Snow your favorite wrestler, we whispered.

They shook their heads, "no." "Who is?"

That made them talk.

"Stone Cold!"

I guess if we had gone up to Snow and told him everyone in line would much rather be waiting to see Stone Cold, he would have pile drived us into the rug, and our head would be sitting on the table next to the Help Me mannequin.

So we didn't.