Rockstar Pro arena offers wrestling, rock and more

By Don Thrasher, Contributing Writer 7:17 PM Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Owning their own music venue has been a longtime dream for Chadwick Parker and his brother Ben, who were just teenagers when they started booking punk-rock shows around town in the mid-1990s.

Fast forward a decade and a half and the brothers Parker are still involved in music, but somewhere along the way they branched out into professional wrestling. Chad wrestles under the name C. Dub in the tag-team duo Punk Rock Rebellion. His wrestling partner GeeGee Bradley also works with the brothers on their latest venture, Rockstar Pro Wrestling.

“I got out of music for a while,” Parker said. “I was just going to wrestle and not worry about this or that. When I started wrestling people were like, ‘You know a lot about production and putting a show together don’t you?’ Everybody started noticing. I’m like, ‘ ... Yeah.’ I finally said, ‘You know what? I’m not even going to fight it. If I was meant to open up a damn club in Dayton, Ohio, it’s what I was meant to do.’ I wasn’t going to fight it at that point.”

Last year, Parker found a location to host weekly wrestling matches, rock shows and other events. Rockstar Pro Arena, the new 300-seat venue at 1105 E. Third St., celebrates its official grand opening on Wednesday.

“If the Foo Fighters call me, I have a place to put them now,” Parker said. “It’s a huge space: The front part has three offices, and the back is an open warehouse that’s 6,500 square feet. The building is part of the Urban Business District they’re forming down there. The city was more willing to work with us because they want an Oregon District-type entertainment area closer to the baseball stadium.”

Wednesday’s debut match will feature wrestlers such as Benjamin Kimera, Dean Jablonski, Eddie Gonzales and Cody Hawk, a WWE veteran and Rockstar Pro’s head trainer.

“We’re also running a fully functional training school for wrestlers out of there,” Parker said.

“We’re doing that from 7 to 9:30 Sunday and Monday nights. That’s going very well because Cody is probably one of the best trainers in the Midwest.

“We’ll have wrestling shows every Wednesday,” Parker said. “Our first musical event is Scott Kelly of Neurosis. He’s doing an acoustic show on Feb. 26. There are some comedy acts we’re talking about maybe bringing in.

“I have plans to start an actual dodgeball league here in the building in the next couple of months. We’re going to do little things like that.”

Contact contributing arts and music writer Don Thrasher at donaldthrasher8@aol.com.

Grand opening of Rockstar Pro Wrestling

Where: Rockstar Pro Arena, 1106 E. Third St., Dayton

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8. Doors open at 7 p.m.

Cost: $5

More info: www.rock starpro wrestling .com

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