The seed that would grow to be the shrub of UHW was planted by two staunchly pro-Arbor enthusiasts named GB and Tony Cohoon, in the early months of 1998. G was then 13 years of age, stood about 5 feet 6, and was of a healthy weight for an adult cow. Tony, on the other hand, was an 18 year old high school senior, in very good shape, with no reason to be hanging around with an adolescent like G except that he was employed by G’s father as a farm laborer. With lots of work to do and little or no ambition to do it, these two quasi-delinquents began to eschew their jobs and, instead, and much to the chagrin of their employer, emulate the athletes they would watch every Friday on (post-Nashville Network, pre-Spike TV) TNN; on the ill-fated ECW television broadcasts. Not possessing any idea of how to execute the maneuvers they watched, nor—in G’s case—the physical ability to do any moves at anything more than a surprisingly-less-than-dramatic slow motion speed, the epic confrontations between these two legendary figures were somewhat lesser than you might hope for, and are—in retrospect—almost utterly unwatchable. In an attempt to balance his ineptitude, G recruited a couple of his pre-pubescent chums to join in on what became called, laughably, Ultimate Hardcore Wrestling. In a surprising turn of events, the addition of these two awkward and gangly young teenagers did NOT immediately elevate the level of showmanship to that of the main events of All Japan Pro shows in 1993, which was coincidentally a company and an era of greatness that none of these ‘backyard heroes’ was even remotely aware of at the time.

At the end of 1999, an unremarkable year distinguished by the historically relevant formation of the "WB," a rebellious splinter-faction of youth-oriented "comedramas" splitting away from the conservative stodginess their parent company, Warner Brothers network; Anthony "Kamikaze" Cohoon left UHW and the farm to pursue a lucrative career as a carpenter, where he promptly fell off of a roof and filed for disability. Much like the Onita-FMW break, this left a huge gap in the company for someone to step up and make a star out of themselves. No one did. UHW went kaput.

BUT SUDDENLY…suddenly being "two years later"…UHW re-emerged, from the ashes, like a phoenix! Only not as dramatically as all that…

The year was 2002, and GB, now 16, was trudging as lazily as possible through the drudgery of his boring, high school life (which, despite what the inciters at the WB had promised him, was neither comedic nor dramatic, and consisted mostly of sleeping at his desk and not getting invited to wild orgies). In mid-trudge, which is a very difficult position to hold, mind you, he met yet another Tony—this one much less admirable than his predecessor—who was to be the spark that would light the fire under the dying shrub of UHW, causing it to burn slowly and emit noxious black fumes that could be seen for miles around. This new Tony, whom we will call Tony Itterly for the sake of this article, and because it’s his name, was also interested in the arts of professional wrestling, and he and G went about reforming UHW with little or no resemblance to its original incarnation. They once again gathered together a slew of untalented non-athletes, most of whom had never watched a wrestling broadcast, but simply had nothing better to do, and began practicing moves on a pile of straw bales in the middle of a pasture on G’s farm. On June 13th, 2002, they put on their first "show"—for an audience of one camera, run by the person who doubled as the referee and a participant—called Bodycount 2002.

From here, they proceeded to gather together on a monthly or bi-monthly basis and film yet more shows, exhibiting almost no improvement from taping-to-taping, but getting steadily better at self-deprecating humor and working vague, off-topic pop culture references into their commentary. They eventually upgraded from a grassy field to an abandoned barn, and then downgraded to a barn loft (barring one mainstay wrestler from participating due to allergies), and all-told, they filmed a total of 18 shows, which somehow—inexplicably—ended up taking up film on 34 separate VHS tapes.  

Somewhere in the midst of their prolific run, UHW inc. came in contact with a man by the name of N!koli Leners, who was the president and only employee of a production company called ‘Iron Curtain Studios,’ which operated mostly out of the Computer Lab at the local high school. N!koli, a self-styled neo-communist (which had no bearing on his performance, or this article), offered to take this growing mass of video and edit it together into a publicly-viewable "highlight video," which would introduce the little-known backyard federation, its performers, and show all of the better moments of UHWs now-two year run. By that token, it would theoretically run about 1 min. 20 seconds. UHWs board of directors, most of whom were GB, agreed excitedly to this new business venture, completely unaware of what an unreliable shite N!k Leners was. In spite of himself, N!k did manage to produce a partial product—which was to be shown in his Advanced Business Tech. class—entitled "Medio-Core." It was an immediate hit in both of its major screenings, 5th period ABT and 6th period Critical Thinking, and plans were drawn up to create a more comprehensive, all-inclusive DVD version (when UHW was all said and done). G and friends set a final date on UHW filming, which was to be on June 5th, 2004—just over a month before G was to be married to his high school sweetheart. With this final date in mind, negotiations began between UHW and Iron Curtain Studios to produce a final version a few weeks after the final taping. Thus began the ridiculous debacle that was the production of "UHW: Medio-Core DELUXE."

What UHW representatives were to learn was that N!k Leners, much like Dr. Strange of Marvel Comics fame, lived in a separate plane of reality and time, so that nothing he did was ever actually anywhere close to what he said he was going to do. Eventually, UHWs top minds determined a mathematic formula known as "SNC (Standard N!ktime Conversion)", whereby any deadlines set or agreed to by N!koli would have two or three years added unto them before they could be expected to be fulfilled.

UHW closed its [barn] doors in June of 2005, and its members went their separate ways, with only a deep-seated sense of pride and/or shame to show for their hours of pain and blood and unabashed stupidity. The only one who followed any path relating to professional wrestling was G, who had been the driving force behind it all along. He moved to New Jersey with his new bride and joined the Combat Zone Wrestling/CHIKARA Wrestlefactory, and began wrestling under the name of Danny Havoc, because he couldn’t come up with anything better on short notice. The rest of the UHW crew, while mostly still friends, went on to other, unrelated things, and have put the days of backyard wrestling behind them. Still, UHW cannot be considered completely dead, as G’s young cousin, Sam, being a full-fledged deviant, followed in his footsteps and formed UHW: DEEP NORTH in his hometown of Mankato, Minnesota.

In the hands of him and his delinquent friends, crappy-but-dangerous backyard wrestling promises to continue in the great Midwest for several years to come.