By Joe Maniscalco
It could be the best idea to come out of Canada since socialized medicine and hockey pucks – cute girls in sexy outfits competitively bashing each other the head with big, fluffy pillows. Obviously guys love it, and gals view it as an expression of feminine power. “Girls come up to me and say, ‘it’s awesome seeing chicks up there fighting,’” Pillow Fight League Champion Stacy Reardon told 24/7 this week from Toronto. “People from the art community say it’s brilliant, like a live installation. You can take it in a million ways – I show up and fight.” Canada’s rock ‘em, sock ‘em girls of the PFL – including Ms. Reardon, aka, “Champain,” “Boozy Suzy,” and Betty Clock’er among others – will make their U.S. debut on January 19 when the Galapagos Art Space hosts an evening of fierce head-to-head competition that has left more than a few with busted lips, dislocated shoulders and even bruised kidneys. This ain’t gonna be no slumber party, in other words. “The bottom line is that it’s real,” says PFL Senior Referee Matt Patterson. “Real women and real fights. Everyone is in it to win it.” Professional pillow fighting isn’t strictly a spectator sport, and almost any gal who wants to slug it out with another woman at Galapagos Art Space is welcome to flex their muscles That includes the office clerk, corporate lawyer and girl-next-door sitting at ringside who gets so caught up in the girl-on-girl action on the mat, that they volunteer to pick up their own pillow before the night is through and let ‘er rip. “It’s not always who’d you’d expect,” Patterson says. “We might not pick the girl who came out in costume. It might be the girlfriend or the neighbor who just got caught up in all the fun and beer.” PFL Commissioner Stacey Case and his Tijuana Bibles rock n’ roll band first conceptualized the PFL two years ago as the finale to their annual New Year’s Eve show with the Skin Tight Out of Sight burlesque troupe. “It was so cool that we did it again next year,” Patterson says. From there, things just kept on rolling. Before long the PFL was staging knock-down, drag-out matches at 700-seat venues all over Toronto and appearing on morning TV shows. Last year, at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, amateurs started getting into the pillow fighting act for the first time. “There were a couple women there in the crowd who you could just tell wanted to fight,” Patterson remembers. “Stacey came from behind the drum kit and shouted “Who wants to be first Pillow Fight League amateurs?” The competition has spawned two DVD’s and there’s talk of a new television series. PFL athletes like Reardon train twice a week, and some even study classic wrestling and Martial Arts moves. “Champain’s” secret move is a Thai boxing-tinged knee thrust from the behind the pillow that drops opponents like flies. “You’d think that they would learn by now,” the 27-year-old marketing exec sniffs. A frequent visitor to Brooklyn, Reardon is looking forward to her Galapagos Art Space match on January 19 because she loves the borough, and because she’ll also be defending her PFL belt against number one ranked contender Betty Clock’er. Each PFL match is limited to 5 minutes. Competitors must use the PFL regulation Queen-sized pillow – one-hundred percent man-made fibers, no goose down or feathers – in all their attacks. Fighters can be counted out if an opponent can pin their shoulders to the mat for a count of three. Patterson says he’s only been forced to disqualify a competitor once – when the gal decided to try and smother her opponent – without a pillow. If there is no winner at the end of regulation time, the match goes to three judges who score the competitors on a 10-point system based on style, stamina and something called “eye of the tiger.” “I love it,” Reardon says. “I was a sprinter, and it’s like when you’re at that line waiting for the starting gun. Everything in you is ready to burst, and you can’t wait to give it your all.” PFL athletes range in age from 19 to 35. Like the pros, all amateur competition is strictly limited to the gals – although there was that one time early on when Case says there was an individual from the crowd who might’ve climbed onto the mat packing more than a pillow. “Sometime it hurts,” Reardon admits. “When you get hit on the side [of the head], you almost lose your bearings.” Reardon describes her PFL persona as “cute, but “tough.” “I used to beat my brother up all the time,” she laughs. “I’m a competitive person. I play competitive sports. I get bashed up more playing soccer than anything these girls can do.” PFL matches at The Galapagos Art Space start at 9 p.m. Advanced tickets are available for $15 at smartix.com; $20 at the door. Galapagos Art Space is located at 70 N. 6th Street in Williamsburg. For more information log onto gopfl.com or call Galapagos at 718-782-5188.
