Ready to rumble

It isn't real, they say. It's pantomime dressed up in leotards, a confection of violence and melodrama for hyperactive children and culturally deprived Middle Americans. 

But tell that to Max Olesker, to the old fracture lying dormant in his ankle, and to Ivan Gonzalez, the sketch partner he has led into perhaps the only form of entertainment more ridiculous than comedy.

It's been two years since double act Max and Ivan masterminded The Wrestling, the seat-of-the-spandex-pants happening in which comedians and seasoned grapplers did battle before a baying mob of 770. While Max is very much an old hand—he first fought on the wrestling circuit aged 15—Ivan and the other comics were nail-bitingly out of their depth. Yet they took home the Edinburgh Comedy Award Panel Prize for their efforts and, remarkably, no one died. 

The only real mishap befell Max, who, courtesy of a somersault and an eight-foot drop, suffered a rare break that put him on crutches for the remainder of his and Ivan's run.

This month, the duo prepare to resurrect this audacious project in The Wrestling II. Today, it's time for a warm-up. Edinburgh being Edinburgh, the search for a functioning ring has taken us to Pollokshaws, on the south side of Glasgow. We're at Scotland's leading wrestling school, housed in an industrial unit and staffed by extremely large men. They're a little bemused at the stupidity taking place in their house of pain but also, to their credit, very accommodating. 

On arrival, Max, silk handkerchief in his blazer pocket, looks a little out of place. As does Ivan, who wears a moustache at 27.

But this is the everyday guise of sketch comedy's most accomplished young acts. They specialise in a brand of multi-stranded, quick-cut narratives that play with genre cliches, a tendency towards parody which, they later tell me, they're gradually shaking off. Max and Ivan arrived on the scene with Holmes and Watson in 2011, before 2012's heist pastiche Con Artists went to Melbourne this year and earned a Barry Award nomination, the southern hemisphere's answer to the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.

They return to Edinburgh, then, with high hopes for The Reunion. At the gym, the pair are full of first-week enthusiasm for their show, the venue, their esteemed director—Pappy's Tom Parry—and their move from afternoon to early evening performances. 

The pair got together as students in 2007, when Max saw Ivan's solo act, then returned from a wrestling tour in Italy having written a song for the two of them. Now their latest piece finds them acting out a rekindled high school crush, a plot they describe in the loosest possible terms as a romcom — but more on that later.

At the gym, Ivan goes off to change, leaving Max and the third member of their party to scope out the facilities. Rishi 'The Prince of Mumbai' Ghosh is an old friend from Max's fighting days in Portsmouth and a returning combatant for The Wrestling II. Whereas Max has drifted from wrestling to comedy in recent years, Rishi's made a life of it. His latest bout was at Pontin's, where his displays of brutality were met with delirium by 1,200 kids wielding inflatable hammers.

Tuesday night won't be a million miles away from that mood. Max reveals some of the treats in store: Tom Rosenthal going mano-a-mano with a proper wrestler; a six-man elimination brawl; bad blood between the duo themselves.

"That's Ivan's penis," he breaks off, deadpan. "There it is." Ivan has emerged in a Greco-Roman-style singlet that may as well be made of cling film, pairing it with ludicrous headgear designed to prevent cauliflower ears. 

"Max is bringing the muscle," Ivan informs us. "And the looks."

Max, once dressed, breezes into the ring and drops down for some press-ups, launching himself up off the canvas to clap between each. Ivan slumps belly-down next to him, just clapping.

Max scowls in the ringside mirror, slathering his shaven chest in Deep Heat. Ivan fusses with his chinstrap like a toddler made to wear a bow tie.

Max runs through some high-flying aerial attacks, launching himself off the turnbuckle into Rishi's face. Ivan endures a few submission moves, Max choking him on the ropes and twisting his head.

It's great fun to watch. What's more, Rishi agrees to show me first-hand how a couple of moves work. Our photographer, prepared for this eventuality, produces a pair of putrid print leggings.

A bit of co-operation goes a long way in wrestling. Rishi demonstrates one lift, helped along by my hand braced on his leg, which in no time has me flailing over his head. Even if it does cut off the blood supply to my head, it's maximum effect with minimal fuss. The contortions of the Boston Crab hold, meanwhile, aren't much more comfortable than they look. Something crunches in my back, though I keep it quiet.

As Max can confirm, this suggestion of real suffering awakens some feral bloodlust in spectators. He recalls: "We had tales of strait-laced BBC executives who came along to The Wrestling without knowing why. And they were like jaded, wizened old people who see 50 shows a day. 

"So they sat down and were like 'what is this?' Cut to 10 minutes later and one of them had his top off, holding two pints, just screaming."

Back amid the more genteel surroundings of Edinburgh, Max and Ivan contemplate the pressing concern of another night doing The Reunion. "What we should clarify is that almost everyone in this show is based on people we legitimately went to school with," says Max. 

"And we have not bothered to change any of the names," chirps Ivan.

"The whole notion came about not from a film or a book," Max goes on, "but a Facebook message from a girl I knew that said [he lisps]: "Oh my god, you guys, it's going to be 10 years since we went to school together'."

The sight of familiar names cropping up in the thread, old cliques re-emerging, got Max thinking. This collision of odd characters and the universal theme sounded like a winner, and—within this framework—they bring to life some steamy pupil-teacher relations, two moronic bandmates battling their creative differences and a tender love story between the loser and the dream girl.

So much do the pair seek to pile into the hour, it's no wonder they drafted in director Parry, one third of Pappy's — a coup scored on the set of BBC3's Badults. With Parry's troupe absent this year, there's a gap to be filled. Max and Ivan certainly share their contemporaries' tendency to think big. Plus there's the unlikely emotional core in both group's arsenals; Ivan says they've even had tears at The Reunion.

They point out that it was in the very same venue that those giants of sketch ruled supreme last year — and if Max and Ivan go down as well as they did at Melbourne this April, they just might prove rightful heirs.

With special thanks to Source Wrestling School and CityGym. For details on events and classes, visit learn2wrestle.com