ECW icon, wrestling star Balls Mahoney to be celebrated at Jersey Shore charity bout
It’s all about family inside the squared circle this weekend at the Jersey Shore, as members of the professional wrestling community lock up to honor one of their own.
“The Ban Will Stand,” presented by Find Yourself Wrestling at Checkmates Boxing Gym in Toms River on Saturday, will feature several former roster members from cult favorite Philadelphia-based promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling. They’ll be competing in memory of Monmouth County native Jon Rechner, an ECW star under the name Balls Mahoney, who died in 2016.
“Jon was a dear brother to me,” said Angel Orsini of Forked River, who wrestled as the Prodigette in ECW. “And there are several of the ECW wrestlers that have gone on to the main event in the sky, if you will. When you’re on the road with somebody and a group of people like we were in ECW — you are like family, and you are always watching each other’s backs ... ”
Orisni will compete against fellow ECW alumn Little Guido in an intergender match at The Ban Will Stand, an event that will also include a 20-man royal rumble to award the inaugural Balls Mahoney Memorial Cup, sponsored by the New England Music Hall of Fame.
Former ECW colleagues of Rechner’s – including “Pitbull #1" Gary Wolf from Hammonton, Jason Knight, Angel Amororo and Mustafa — will be on hand. Two-time World Wrestling Entertainment Women’s Champion Jazz and other former WWE, GLOW, NWA and WCW stars also will be there.
Mahoney’s son, Chris, is set to serve as a special guest referee, and proceeds from the sale of Balls Mahoney memorial T-shirts will support Chris’ college fund. The night will also include a collection drive of non-perishable items to be donated to the St. Joseph’s food pantry in Toms River.
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Orsini, who also works as a life coach under the Elevated Living banner, is proud to be grappling for good causes this weekend.
“It’s way more important than the wrestling itself, ... that’s why I’m doing it,” she said. “If I can’t use my passion to help change the world for positive causes then I have to look at how am I then adding value to my community and the people that I care about.”
‘He dialed up the hardcore’
Rechner died in 2016 at the age of 44. Described by the Asbury Park Press as a “chair-swinging wildman” in his Balls Mahoney persona, he was a Spring Lake Heights native and acclaimed wrestler for Manasquan High School.
He won the District 23 title at heavyweight in 1990 before going on to wrestle for Smokey Mountain Wrestling, WWE and, most notably, ECW.
“When he was back in ECW, he really brought the ‘extreme’ to Extreme Championship Wrestling,” said Chris Mahoney, now 15, of his father’s work. “He dialed up the hardcore knob to 25 from 10 and just brought his all to make the crowd just want to watch.”
Now a freshman at Manasquan High School, Chris is an aspiring filmmaker working on a documentary about his father under the mentorship of wrestler-turned-filmmaker Christopher Annino.
“Whenever we’ve been going to shows, we’ve been talking to some other people in the business about my father,” Chris said. “We’re going to take some footage from the 14th and put that in. And it’s just going to be (an) all-around tribute to how amazing of a man my father was.”
“The camera never lies, right? It’s the ultimate lie detector,” said Annino. “So (Rechner) as a person, I think he was a genuine person and a genuine character and he was a dedicated character. … (He) was a very well-spoken, highly sophisticated individual. ... Him as Balls was a totally different story. But it takes somebody with a tremendous intelligence to be able to provoke such a reaction from the fans.”
He worked during professional wrestling’s boom period of the late-’90s and early-2000s, but there’s a reason why Rechner’s work still stands out amid that very crowded landscape, Annino explained.
“He created an ever-lasting thumbprint on wrestling because he was able to provoke thought. He was able to provoke a reaction, which is very difficult to do,” Annino said. “He’s able to get in somebody’s psyche.”
Orsini said he was larger-than-life and "super charismatic."
“... He just loved life and really loved wrestling," she said. "What a passion he had for the ring. … He really wanted to give people something they’d never seen before and make an impact on them. A lot of times you see people perform and they’re really good but they’re really doing (it) for themselves — but Balls did it for everybody watching to be amazed.”
Go: The Ban Will Stand, featuring the Balls Mahoney Memorial Cup, presented by Find Yourself Wrestling, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, Checkmates Boxing Gym, 1861 Hooper Ave., Toms River. Tickets, $20 to $28, available via simpletix.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: NJ wrestling star Balls Mahoney celebrated at Toms River charity bout
